The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-08-01
RAILROAD MAKES
 ANSWER IN COURT New Haven Road Files Demur-
 Ter In Merger-Suit
LAW HAS NOT BEEN BROKEN
Railroad Company Declares That It's Line Is Not Parallel To Boston and Maine and That They
 Are Competitors.

Boston, July 31.-A demurrer as sweep ing as legal phraseology could make 1t and offering objection to the form and substance to the petition was the answer filed today in the United States circuit court here by the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad company as de- fendant in the action brought against 1t by the United States government. As filed the demurrer is in three parts, in the first of which the New York, New Haven and Hartford railroad appears as a corporation in three states.
 In the second part the New Haven road demurs as having formerly been the Con solidated Railroad company, a Connec- ticut corporation. The third part em- braces the demurrer of the Providence Se- curities company. The main contention in each part of the demurrer-and all three parts are practically identical in many specifications-is that the petition is uncertain in its statements concerning alleged violations of the interstate com merce act
 This uncertainty is alleged to be shown in that while the petition declares that the holding of the stock of the Boston and Maine road by the New Haven road, and the possibility of unified manage ment," is a restraint of trade in general and of interstate commerce in particu- lar, it fails to show to what extent there exists competition between the respective railroad systems, and to what extent a "uniIied or cooperative management of those systems would create advantages to the public and an encouragement and in- crease to interstate trade
 It is pointed out that the New Haven road and the Boston and Maine road, In the main, are not parallel, as the petition ayers, but the system and networks of railroads operating in distinct fields, and that they compete with one another only at few station, at the most of which equally or more effective competition ex- ists by the Boston and Albany railroad or by water"
 '"rhis main contention appears first in the demurrer of the New Haven as tri- state corporation. In another form it is presented in that part of the demurrer where the New Haven appears as for merly the Consolidated Railroad con- pany. This part has especially to do with the alleged consolidation of electric railways. The demurrer says that the elecI1lC TdnWdyS utSCTlDeu III the ROVeTn- ment's petition when operating as net works of the inter accommodation in the streets and highways of cities and vil- lages and the suburbs thereof, are en- gagged in a kind of business substantially different from that of interstate steam railroads, and that most, at any rate. of the electric railways described are not engaged in, or adapted for insterstate commerce except as auxiliaries of inter- state railroads"
 The sections of the petition referring to the Providence Securities company are the subject of general demurrer, similar to that offered by the New Haven con- pany to other declarations of the petition. Aside from the principal representations of the demurrer the general claim Is of fered that the governments petition does not make out cases as should entitle the petitioner to the relief prayed for against the defendant.
 It is understood that an answer to the governments petition will be filed by the Boston and Maine road within few days.