A moments thought will satisfy any mind that if, as urged, revenues are increased by the abolition of car-load rates, the consumer pays the increase, and if by reason of proximity to and sympathy with St. Louis and Chicago the Illinois and Missouri Railroad Commissioners have yielded to the urgency of those two great cities, there is more reason why we, representing Iowa, should make as earnest a stand as possible for the interests of our own cities, opposing that which by increasing revenues increases cost to the consumer, and doing what we can to resist the enhancement of prices for articles found on the poor man's breakfast table, paying as large or a larger rate than those used by the rich man. It is well that it should be understood that the fundamental truth that railroads should make a distinction between wholesale and retail transactions is denied, in order to secure the abolition of the car-load rate, and that while one class of enemies in the west to the truest interests of Iowa deny the wholesale and retail principle as applicable to railroad transportation in order to secure the abolition of car-load rates, another class of enemies in the east, seeking to abolish the low rates on grain from the west, deny the same fundamental principle. Mr. John Norris, of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, says: "While the merchant may sell his goods for any price he chooses to fix, and sell the same article to different persons at different prices, the railroad company has obligated itself by accepting its charter and by assuming the duty of a common carrier to sell its transportation to all persons at the same price. This distinction destroys all comparison between the railroad company and the merchant, and upsets all reasoning based on the fallacy.” This gentleman complains that "shippers who are near the market are placed by railroad discriminations farther away than the western farmer who is one thousand miles distant, completely reversing the position of the two producers;" that thereby "the food supply of the State has been diverted from home growers and handed over to western farmers;" that at the time "it (the railroad) carried grain from Huntingdon to Philadelphia for thirteen cents per hundred pounds, it carried grain from Chicago to the sea board at a lower figure, twelve cents per hundred pounds. It put the high priced lands of Pennsylvania in an unfair competition with the cheap and rich lands of the west, bringing them artificially nearer to tide, though six hundred miles further away. It taxed every farmer of the State because he was located in a territory that was tributary to the main line of the Pennsylvania Railroad, and could not reach the eastern

market excepting over its tracks. It taxed him because he was a Pennsylvanian. It reduced the value of his farm and crippled the productive value. The railroad company's transportation of grain at less than cost has developed the farming interest of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois at the expense of Pennsylvania. It has enabled Minnesota to furnish the wheat which the fertile fields of Pennsylvania once provided, and Minneapolis grinds the flour that the mills of this state once produced." And again he declares that he opposes "that excessive stimulation and unhealthy development of the west, which prevents the practice of rotation, and interferes with the symmetrical development of industry."

Two elements are essential to the highest prosperity in railroad management, namely, quantity and distance. Railroad managers have acted upon the principle that securing large quantities or long distances for haul, there might be a corresponding reduction in rates, just as merchants of every article make wholesale rates on large sales. To secure the abolition of car-load rates, it is claimed that the wholesale principle does not apply to quantity. To secure the abolition of grain rates it is declared that the wholesale principle does not apply to distance.

If car-load rates are abolished, it must be manifest from the arguments of those who seek their abolition that increased cost will result to consumers of the articles formerly transported at car-load rates. If grain rates must be increased to correspond with distance, then the western producer must give up the attempt to reach the distant market. The whole question seems to involve the prosperity of the people of Iowa. It would seem that our ruin can only be accomplished by making the railroad business the only one known in which the question of wholesale rates for large transactions and long distances may never enter.

FREE COMPETITION OR ABSOLUTE EQUALITY OF RATES.

There can be no intelligent regulation of railroad transportation until the basis of such regulation is established. Much confusion of thought and conflicting legislation comes from a failure to recognize and act upon some uniform basis. It is now more than half a century since railroads were first operated, and we do not yet see any intelligent basis for regulation adopted, but rather a confused application of conflicting principles, resulting, as such efforts always do, in disappointment and disaster.

He would be a bold man who would announce as a rule the banishment of competition as a factor in railroad operation, and yet this is the basis of many a law, many a plan of regulation. The early idea

was that unrestricted competition would solve all difficulties. In every place where railroads have been built and operated, the results of competition unrestrained have been deceptive and disappointing. It has brought about the most glaring inequalities, and does not seem, in some of its effects, to be altogether desirable, or even endurable. The evil effects of unrestricted competition becoming apparent, the next proposition was by combination to reduce the evils and restrain the bad working of competition. A consolidation of all lines under one management has been suggested by some persons who have given the subject much thought, and is still the plan suggested by many such persons. Of course it must have for its object either restriction or absolute elimination of competition. It can hardly be doubted that such a method would raise rates, and yet the great mass of the public demand low rates. Everyone concedes that uniform rates are very desirable, but whether justly or not it can hardly be disputed that the masses demand uniformly low rates. Other methods have been proposed, such as government ownership of the lines, rates based upon distance, and the absolute prohibition of any discrimination between persons and places, also prohibition of lower rates at competitive points, or what is equivalent thereto, the extension of any rate given at competitive points to other and nearer non-competitive points. It must be manifest upon consideration of each and every one of the above plans for regulation, that the thing sought to be attained is either limitation or complete elimination of the results of competition. In no other way can absolute equality of rates, absolutely equal treatment of persons and places be secured. It is essential to competition that the more successful carrier shall secure business by the lowest rate, and the incentive to the shipper for earnest work in securing the low rate is the thought that it is a lower rate than the one secured by his less energetic or less fortunate competitor in trade.

Now, it must be plain that those who seriously demand absolute equality in railroad transportation must also contemplate the banishment of competition from transportation transactions. Is it not a struggle for the impossible, an earnest longing for the undesirable? Now, the confusion in legislation and methods proposed comes from an attempt to enjoy what are deemed the desirable results of compe

tition, and at the same time to enforce absolute equalities in rates to persons and to places.

It seems plain that all such methods will disappoint, and after consideration, one is not surprised that the sum of all thought upon the subject is disappointment and dissatisfaction. It is strange that men do not see that while unrestricted competition is undesirable, yet with just so little restriction as is absolutely necessary to correct evils and wrong resulting from competition run mad, competition becomes the great regulator and a blessing instead of a curse. It is just so with absolute equality. Theoretically beautiful, it is practically not desirable, chiefly because when completely obtained it forever banishes the great desideratum-competition. Rather should it be seen and understood that the nearest possible equality consistent with free and proper competition is the thing to be sought after. Discriminations if unjust should be prohibited or punished. Undue preference of persons should also be prohibited and punished, and all artificial advantages given one place over another should be regarded as violations of the just law which should govern carriers. And yet because it is essential to the proper conduct of business there may be discriminations which are not unjust; natural advantages will be found accruing to some towns while they are wanting to others, and these inequalities must be regarded as necessary, and always to be found where there is healthy competition.

It seems to have occurred to our ancestors long ago that the carrying trade of the world, then almost exclusively done upon the waters, demanded for itself and for the establishment of its just relations a court or tribunal devoted to the investigation and application of just principles to the transaction of its business, and hence admiralty courts are found in almost every civilized nation having a sea coast, and this great inland carrying trade largely developed within the nineteenth century can only be understood and reduced to system and government upon just principles by the establishment of boards or tribunals, which shall, after careful consideration, develop a system of land admiralty, which while subverting no just rule or law of the business world, shall apply each and every such rule to an entirely new factor, the land carriage system. Good results will be found from adjustment and harmony, and through the application of old rules to new facts, rather than from an abandonment of old rules and principles of business.

INTER-STATE COMMERCE.

The question of the nature and extent of the power of Congress over inter-state commerce, and the powers of the several States of the Union with reference to shipments originating in the State and destined to a point without the State, and shipments coming from points without to points within the State, has been the occasion of great difference of opinion. The line of demarcation between State and Federal power has been exceedingly indefinite and uncertain. One method of interpretation gave to the State power not only to regulate purely domestic commerce but also that with other States, which originated or terminated in the State. Another method of interpretation gave to the States power to regulate only that which proved to be purely domestic. Again the power of the State was held to extend to the control and checking of discriminations against citizens and places in the State, even though the discriminations were made in the transactions of inter-state commerce. This latter view seemed to have the sanction and support of the Supreme Court of the State of Illinois in the case of the People of the State of Illinois vs. the Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific Railway Company, 104 Ill., 47, in which case that court said: "There is no doubt in regard to the right and power of Congress to regulate commerce among the States, but a law of the State which incidentally affects commerce among the States has never, so far as we are informed, been regarded as falling within the inhibition of the Federal Constitution."

In Peik vs. the Chicago & Northwestern Railway Company, 94 U. S., 164, the decision delivered by Chief Justice Waite, speaking of a State law, said: "As to the effect of the statute as a regulation of inter-state commerce, or such inter-state commerce as directly affects the people of Wisconsin, until Congress acts in reference to the relation of the company to inter-state commerce, it is certainly within the power of Wisconsin to regulate its fares so far as they are of domestic concern. With the people of Wisconsin this company has domestic relations. Incidentally these may reach beyond the State, but certainly until Congress undertakes to legislate for those who are without the State, Wisconsin may provide for those within, even though it may indirectly affect those without."

In Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Co. v. Iowa, 94 U. S., 155, the court said: "This road, like the warehouse in that case