RAILWAY LEGISLATION 133 



difficult to see how it differed in principle from the measure of 

 1869, or why the governor's reasons for vetoing that act would 

 not have applied equally well to this. 



The " Act to prevent unjust discrimination and extortions in 

 the rates to be charged by the different railroads in this state 

 for the transportation of freight on said roads " was passed by 

 votes of 39 to 2 and 132 to 9, and received the immediate 

 approval of the governor. 1 This act is one of the most important 

 of the railroad laws enacted at this session, and as its terms 

 are somewhat complex and have often been incorrectly stated, 

 it will be well to examine them in some detail. 2 Although the 

 title of the act declared that it was to prevent unjust dis- 

 crimination, section i was so phrased as to make any dis- 

 crimination whatever illegal; in other words it provided for the 

 application of the pro rata principle that charges should be 

 based entirely upon distance traversed. The essential part of 

 the section reads as follows: 



No railroad corporation . . . shall charge or collect for the transportation 

 of goods, merchandise or property on its said road, for any distance, the 

 same nor any larger or greater amount as toll or compensation than is 

 at the same time charged or collected for the transportation of similar quan- 

 tities of the same class of goods, merchandise or property over a greater 

 distance upon the same road/ 



The scope of this provision will be seen when it is compared 

 with the " long and short haul clause " of the interstate commerce 

 act of i88y. 3 That act made illegal the charging of a greater 

 sum for a shorter than for a longer haul only when the shorter 

 distance was included within the longer and the haul was in the 

 same direction; while the Illinois act of 1871 made it an offense 

 to charge the same or a greater sum for a shorter distance than 

 is charged for a longer anywhere on the same road. 



Section 3 of this act further provided that: 



1 Senate Journal, 1871, i. 222, 272-276, 290 (passed), 476, 542; House Journal 

 1871, i. 453, 478, 483, 527, 529, 588, 612, 625, 665, 692, 696 (passed), 781. 



2 The act is in Public Laws, 1871-72, p. 635; for analyses of it, see Gordon, 

 Illinois Railway Legislation, 27; Paine, Granger Movement in Illinois, 21. 



8 United States, Statutes at Large, xxiv. 379-387, section 4. 



