which the people of this country are now divided. It overshadows all other political questions which agitate the public mind. Hence it appears that in a country like ours, where great questioning is determined in the light of reflective judgment, the first step toward the philosophical consideration of the proposition to establish a dispensing power in the United States is to make the whole matter the subject of a thorough and impartial congressional investigation, having regard particularly to the commercial, economic and political questions involved. This article has been prepared for the purpose of indicating certain questions involved in the broad field of inquiry to which it relates, with special reference to the American Railroad System and our internal commerce. If it shall in any degree tend to promote such investigation as that suggested the object had in view will have been fully accomplished. No. 1831 F St. N. W., Washington, D. C., October 17, 1903. RELATIVE RATES TO ATLANTIC SEAPORTS. A FRESH ATTEMPT TO CONFER UPON THE IN- A CONSTITUTIONAL AND POLITCAL VIEW. BY JOSEPH NIMMO, JR., LL. D. On the 6th of April, the following news item appeared in the public press:— "The Interstate Commerce Commission expects to investigate the question of freight differentials to Atlantic ports on May 18 in New York City." It is my purpose to show that any attempt on the part of the Commission to determine finally the relative rates to different ports would antagonize the commercial policy of the government established at the beginning and ever since maintained with highly beneficent results, that it would involve an infraction of a constitutional limitation and a flagrant violation of the express provisions of the Act to Regulate Commerce, and that no valid excuse for such autocratic assertion of governmental authority exists in the present condition of the commercial, industrial or にい |