Commercial and Railroad Interests. 
85 
thereafter the state shall only fix maximum rates; in doing 
which, due consideration shall be given to the financial interests 
of the road. The law reserves to the state this power, but it 
does not make it a duty; and it is the policy of the state not to 
interfere with any arrangements the undertaker may see fit to 
make, provided he neither practices unjust discriminations nor 
does anything else contrary to the interests of the public. The 
law simply reserves to the state the right to act if circum¬ 
stances require it. 
Thus far nothing has been said about external influence in 
adjusting railroad rates in Prussia. This appears to me to be 
really the most important and most commendable feature of the 
system, at least in its bearing upon society at large. First the 
legal provisions will be discussed, and then a short account will 
be given of those established customs which exert a powerful 
influence upon Prussian rates. 
IV. 
As early as 1874, through on impulse given by the chamber 
of commerce of the city of Miilhausen, 25 a conference between the 
representatives of the commercial interests and the general im¬ 
perial railroad directory at Strassburg was held in that city. 
The proceedings of this conference made such a favorable im¬ 
pression upon the head of the central railroad bureau that a 
circular letter 26 was addressed to all the railroads enjoining 
25 Based on my manuscript notes on Dr. von der Leyen’s lectures on 
“ Nationalokonomie der Eisenbahnen insbesondere Tarifwesen.” To the 
same source I owe much of what is given near the close of this section 
on the Generalkonferenz, Tarifkommission, etc. Dr. von der Leyen has 
also made a thorough study of the railroads of the United States, and 
his monographs, “ Die nordamerikanischen Eisenbahnen ” and “ Finanz- 
und Verkehrsgeschichte der nordam. Eisenbahnen ” deserve a careful 
perusal by every American student. 
26 Circular letter of January 11,1875 : “Diese Einrichtung bezweckt 
vorzugsweise die Herstellung einer innigeren Verbindung zwischen den 
mit der Verwaltung von Eisenbahnen betrauten Stellen und dem Han- 
delsstande, sowie eine Versohnung der sich oft nur scheinbar entgegen- 
stehenden Interessen beider. Sie wird die Vertreter der Eisenbahnen 
mit den wechselnden Bedtirfnissen des Handels und der Industrie ver- 
