RAILWAY LEGISLATION 185 



and their freight charges to the rates in force June i, 1873, and 

 this latter limitation was also applied to freight in the four 

 regular classes transported on roads in classes A and B. By 

 taking the rates of June i, 1873, maxima were secured which 

 had been fixed by the roads themselves and yet were in many 

 cases somewhat lower than the rates in force at the time of the 

 passage of the act because of the raise of rates in the fall of 1873. 

 It should also be noted that the control which might be exercised 

 by the commission over charges, by virtue of the power given it to 

 reclassify freights and to reduce rates, was very thorough-going. 

 There has been a great deal of controversy as to the actual 

 amount of the reduction in rates made by the Potter law. At 

 the time, the assertion was made that the framers of the law had 

 merely taken the lowest rates in force and reduced them twenty- 

 five per cent. 1 The president of the St. Paul Railroad Company 

 also declared that the reduction amounted to twenty-five per 

 cent, and drew the unwarranted conclusion that a reduction of 

 equal proportion in the gross earnings of the company would be 

 the result of* the application of the Potter rates. 2 On the other 

 hand the commissioners appointed under the law reached the 

 conclusion by mathematical calculation that the enforcement 

 of the Potter law would entail a reduction of less than five per 

 cent of the gross earnings on freight traffic and less than thirteen 

 per cent on passenger traffic, assuming that the amount of business 

 remain the same. 3 The commissioners were probably the more 

 nearly correct, for it must be remembered that all freight in 

 the four general classes was subject only to such reduction as 

 was involved in a return to the rates of June i, 1873. That 

 the rates on most of the commodities in the special classes were 

 fixed unreasonably low as compared with rates previously in 

 force in Wisconsin and on roads elsewhere in the country is also 

 undoubtedly true. 4 



1 F. R. Leland, " The Second Stage of Wisconsin Railroad Legislation, " in 

 Nation, xx. 189 (March 18, 1875). 



2 Railway Commission, Reports, i. division iii. 3 (1874). See criticism in A.B. 

 Stickney, The Railway Problem, ch. xi, and Larrabee, Railroad Question, 232-237. 



3 Railway Commission, Reports, i. division ii. 21, 263. 



4 Ibid., division i. 33-35; division ii. 33, 252-271. 



