Year: 1878

Regulation OF Interstate Com mcrce.


A bill, with an accompanying report from
the Committee on Commerce of the House
of Representatives. attempts to deal in a
rather large way with the subject of railway
transportation in the United States The
power to regulate commerce between the
States" which is explicitly conferred on
Congress by the constitution, is a
power of wide scope, whose precise
boundaries are rs yet unsettled. 1t
may be doubted whether it authorizes
Congress to prescribe rates of transport
tation. The pending bill leaves the rail-
reads to fix their own charges. 1t merely
prescribes that the same charges shall be
made for the same kind of service. 1t sim
ply aims to prohibit unfair determinations.
1t leaves the roads entirely free to fix their
own rates, and only forbids them to charge
different rates for the same kind Of service.


We will not now discuss the constitu-
tional points involved in the bill /; but, as
suming it's constitutionality, we will try to
estimate its practical effect. The most
important of its provisions is that





shall in all cases be charged for the same
service. This would effect an entire revo-
luton in the through business Of the great
trunk lines. AS this business has been
managed for long time the through trans
portation has been done at loss in conse-
quence of the sharp competition, and the
great trunk lines have recouped themselves
by heavy charges for.local freights. II the
bill Of the Committee on Commerce should
pass it will cut up this system by the roots.
It's main purpose is to enforce proportional
charges for local freights and through
freights. The railroads are to be left at
liberty to establish their own schedules of
not to be permitted to charge different or
lower rates for their through business. The
first and most obvious effect would be to
remedy the injustice which is practised
upon local shippers who can use but q
single road and are deprived Of the benefit
which results from competition between the
through lines The local shippers would
no longer be taxed to make up the losses of
the roads on their through traffic. If the
through rates are low the local rates would
be correspondingly low. Ii the local rates
are high the through rates would have to
be in the same proportion, and this would
operate as restraint upon the roads in
fixing their local schedules.


But this enforcement Of local justice
would be but small part of the operation
of the bill 1t would completely uproot the
system which has grown up within the last
two or three years of giving an unfair adj
vantage to particular cities on the Atlantic
seaboard. Attempts have been mado to
build up the business of Boston, Philadel-
phin and Baltimore at the expense
of tho business Of New York by
collusive arrangements with ocean steam
ship companies plying between Europe
and those ports, in pursuance of which
goods have been delivered at Chicago at
much cheaper rates than through New
York. If the pending bill should pass and
oil the trunk lines be compelled to charge
their local rates for through traffic this
diverted business will be restored to it's
natural channels.


It may. perhaps, be thought that the
West has an interest in opposing such
bill, since its effect would be to increase the
rates OF through transportation. But this
is O mistaken view. The West as well
as the East suffers from exorbitant
local rates. It costs the Western
farmers moro to get their grain carried
two hundred miles to Chicago than it costs
the shippers at that point to send it to the
seaboard. The effect of the bill would be
to abate the local rates in the West as well
as the East, and to distribute the cost of
transportation equitably among all parts
of the country.


The Great Snow Storm in England.


We have been congratulating ourselves,