THE POLITICAL CONTROL OF RAILWAYS. 459 



no " pool," the act did not prevent but rather conserved unrea- 

 sonableness ; for — since a " pool " was not a " corner/' but an at- 

 tempt, by co-operation and convention of railway companies, to 

 make rates " reasonable " — a law which does not give the rail- 

 ways a schedule itself, and forbids them to come together to 

 make one, simply means that each company shall make its rates 

 without consulting anybody but themselves : must work in the 

 dark, independent of any considerations except its own local, 

 presumptive, or past experiences, frictions, and financial difficul- 

 ties. Railways must not only make bricks without straw, but 

 make them at their peril; for if, upon being made, these rates 

 prove to be discriminate — that is not absolutely perfect and uni- 

 form between individuals — then the Interstate Commerce Com- 

 mission (and nobody knows when it may wake up and commence 

 operations) can send the officers to jail and hold the road in breach 

 of law. Clearly the only safe alternative for the road is either to 

 wind up business at once, or do business at a loss and pass a divi- 

 dend to get even, thereby placing its securities at the mercy of 

 the wrecker and the stock-jobber ! 



It follows from the above that the interstate commerce law 

 operates, if operated at all, to create rather than to abolish " dis- 

 crimination." But let us be a little more explicit. If all the 

 people in the United States were shippers over one railway, a 

 law that no one person shall be given a better or worse rate 

 than another might possibly prevent injustice (though, unless 

 it also provided that the volume of business or the length of the 

 haul be taken into account, it may well enough be questioned 

 whether it would or not). Even the non-railway intellect must 

 absorb such self-evident propositions as that it costs as much to 

 load, unload, or stop a car that has run two miles as one that has 

 run two hundred ; that if the car must be returned without a 

 load, it has not earned as much as if it had found a load back ; 

 that a long haul, with but one loading and one unloading, one 

 stoppage, and a return cargo for the car, ought reasonably to be 

 done for less than a short haul involving quite as much handling 

 without a return load, and that a railroad company ought in all 

 fairness to be allowed to give the shipper the benefit of the de- 

 creased expense to the company. But the interstate commerce law 

 peremptorily tells the railroad company that it must not give this 

 benefit to the shipper, under the pains and penalties of fine and 

 imprisonment, in its pleasure, for contempt of court. But let us 

 admit, for argument's sake, that a law providing that no shipper 

 shall be charged more per pound than any other would prevent 

 discrimination if all the shippers of freight in the United States 

 shipped over a single road. Clearly, if they shipped, as these 

 shippers do, not over one, but over some five hundred different 



