814 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



its own record behind it. There would be retaliation, and there 

 is no great company which can face having its record of the past 

 years subjected to investigation." 



These discriminations are very effective in competition for 

 traffic and will continue an important factor in the railway sit- 

 uation as long as competition is a controlling element in rate- 

 making. It is not even certain that they are not more harmful 

 at present than when more common, and it may be that their 

 baneful effects are accentuated now that, instead of being granted 

 to nearly every applicant, concessions from established charges 

 are accorded only to powerful traders who are able to control 

 traffic sufficient in quantity to yield revenue of almost vital im- 

 portance to the carrying companies. One of the ablest men ever 

 appointed to be an Interstate Commerce Commissioner has pub- 

 licly declared that 



" If we could unearth the secrets of these modern trusts, whose 

 surprising exploits excite such wide apprehensions, we should 

 find an explanation of their menacing growth in the systematic 

 methods by which they have evaded the burden of transporta- 

 tion. The reduced charges which they have obtained, sometimes 

 by favoritism and oftener by force, account in great measure for 

 the colossal gains which they have accumulated." 



And he adds : 



" Indeed, I think it scarcely too much to say that no alliance 

 of capital, no aggregation of productive forces, would prove of 

 real or at least of permanent disadvantage if rigidly subjected to 

 just and impartial charges for public transportation." 



Unjust discriminations prejudicial to particular commodities 

 have not been materially reduced in number by the operation of 

 the Interstate Commerce Law. They appear, as has been said, in 

 rate classifications and rate schedules, and the burden of proof is 

 usually upon those who allege that they are unjust. The commis- 

 sion, in response to complaints brought before it, has found it ne- 

 cessary to prescribe the proper relations between rates for carrying 

 the following pairs of commodities : Common soap and pearline, 

 dried fruits and raisins, lumber and hub blocks, lumber and rail- 

 way ties, wheat and flour, corn and its products, grain and grain 

 products, celery and green vegetables, window shades and hoi- 

 lands, and petroleum and its products. These, however, involve 

 but the smaller side of the question. It is not clear that rates as 

 at present adjusted are relatively reasonable as between, for ex- 

 ample, the products of agriculture and those of other industries, 

 nor that they do not bear with undue relative severity either 

 upon the grain producer of the trans- Mississippi region or the 

 cotton planter of the Gulf States. These are matters with which 

 the Interstate Commerce Law does not effectively deal, and which 



