126 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 



paying 3.48 per cent., when the zone system was adopted they paid 6 per cent, in 

 1892, and while in '89 the Austrian railways paid 4.01 per cent, in '94 they paid 

 4.08 per cent. It is quite likely that in Great Britain the zone system and cheap fares 

 V. ould yield as good results, and possibly in the United States and Canada the 

 results would be hardly less satisfactory. The main fault to be found with passen- 

 ger rates on this continent is that they are made to carry a great percentage of 

 deadheads, and of the very class who are best able to travel at their own expense. 

 If this mortuary department were abolished there is little doubt that the Canadian 

 railways could give a two-cent rate without impairment of revenue, even if but a 

 very moderate increase of passenger traffic were secured. 



VIII. 



The United States has a better railway literature, a greater body of railway 

 legislation^ and has made, at least in some of the States, a more determined attempt 

 to regulate and control the carrying corporations than any other country. The re- 

 sults have not been wholly satisfactory. The operation of the laws has been embar- 

 rassed by a conflict of jurisdiction, the half-heartedness of Legislatures, and the 

 hostility, or at least the unsympathetic attitude, of the courts. Only such traffic as 

 originates and terminates within a State is subject to the State Commissions, while 

 the authority of the Interstate Commission is limited to interstate traffic. This con- 

 dition requires concurrent action between the State and Interstate Commissions, 

 creates confusion, gives occasion for technical disputes, necessitates a divided sov- 

 ereignty, and blocks and complicates the work of the commissions. Still much 

 has been accomplished, particularly by the strong State Commissions, and the work 

 of the Interstate Board has been by no means unfruitful or ineffective. In The 

 Atlantic Monthly for April there is an admirable review of the work of the Federal 

 Railway Commission since its creation in 1877. The writer, Mr. H. C. Adams, is 

 the statistician of the Interstate Commerce Board, and ranks high among the 

 authorities on the subject. He tells us that the idea of the commission was that 

 " authoritative principles of railway transportation should be developed very much 

 as legal principles attain their growth," that to this end it was necessary that a large 

 variety of cases of discrimination and unjust rates should be considered, and that 

 in some way this result must be realized if the control of railways through com- 

 missions is to prove a permanent part of the poHtical organization, and he argues 

 that "had the courts been willing to grant the commission the interpretation that 

 Congress assured for it when it was passed, the railway problem would by this 

 time have approached more nearly its final solution." Notwithstanding this, how- 

 ever, there has been a marked movement toward uniformity in administration, a 

 useful service of statistics has been developed, and a far step has been taken to- 

 ward a uniform system of railway accounts. He points out that " if there be but 

 one system of accounts for all corporations subject to the jurisdiction of the com- 

 mission, it is necessary only to master the principles, rules and classifications of 

 one system in order to gain a mastery of all," and he declares that " out of the 

 opinions expressed upon cases there has begun to develop a system of authoritative 

 rules and established interpretations, which, sooner or later, will come to be recog- 

 nized as a body of administrative law for inland transportation." 



IX. 



Mr. Adams gives this compact statement of the main conclusions that have 

 been reached by the commission: 



" It has been decided that a just schedule of rates will not tend to destroy the 

 natural advantages for the production and sale of goods possessed by localities; 



