RAILWAY LEGISLATION 163 



of the transportation business. The principal difficulties which 

 the commission encountered were due to the great inequality of 

 conditions in different parts of the state. These inequalities 

 made the satisfactory application of the pro rata principle, 

 as required by the definition of unjust discrimination in the act 

 of 1874, a practical impossibility. If rates were fixed which 

 would be reasonable in the more thickly settled parts of the 

 state, the roads would be forced to operate their western exten- 

 sions at a considerable loss; while rates which would be reason- 

 able in the sparsely settled districts would be unreasonably 

 high if not extortionate in the southeastern parts of the state. 

 The commission chose sometimes one and sometimes the other 

 horn of the dilemma, with the result that no one was satisfied: 

 the railroad companies complained that the rates were ruinously 

 low, while the farmers declared that the execution of the law 

 had been made a new source of oppression and complained 

 because they had no representative on the board of railway 

 commissioners. 1 



While the act of 1871 was in effect, the railroads of Minnesota 

 had consistently denied the right of the state to regulate their 

 charges and had refused to conform to the rates prescribed; 

 but the act of 1874 gave them so good an opportunity to teach 

 the people a lesson and to make such legislation odious, that a 

 complete change of front was made. The rates scheduled by 

 the commission were quite generally adopted and the law sub- 

 stantially complied with, though in such ways as to emphasize 

 its disadvantages and to convince the people of the desirability 

 of its repeal. The St. Paul and Sioux City Company, for ex- 

 ample, claimed that the law made the operation of its line unprof- 

 itable and so reduced the service that the people were led to 

 petition the railroad commission for a restoration of the former 

 rate. Perhaps the most glaring example of the injustice of the 

 pro rata principle occurred on the St. Paul and Pacific. This 

 road had maintained a rate of three cents a mile between the 

 cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis and five cents on the rest of 



1 Railroad Commission, Reports, 1874, pp. 3-9. See address of Master Parsons 

 before the state grange, December, 1874, in Industrial Age, December 26, 1874, p. 5. 



