the specifications of disability which the inter state Commerce Act must necessarily work. We might inquire, for example, as to the expediency of increasing the national patronage by running all the railway companies of this Union (as we once attempted to run its armies in the field) at Washington. At present the people are happy in the appointment of an interstate commerce commission which leaves nothing to be desired. But can we be certain always of an equal good fortune? Even as we write, rumors of socialist parties and so-called "labor" and anarchist parties hurtle in the air. Is it the part of safety to put into the hands of politicians and office-seekers all these delicate interests in which, as we have seen, the very commercial life of this people-of this nation is wrapped up? To recapitulate, practically: The railroads of the United States in 1887 had 139,986 miles of track, the value of railroad property was $8,287,834,614, and the earnings for the year were $765,310,519. Over two million persons directly draw their support wholly or in part from the railways, and all the vast commercial and financial interests of sixty-five millions of people are involved in every move or measure that affects their welfare or efficiency. And yet, under the close and skilful management of men of ability, who have given their whole lives to the business, the railways of the country, out of aggregate earnings of nearly $800,000,000 a year, did not average a profit of three per cent per annum on the capital invested in them. In 1885 the excess of available revenue over actual payments of operating expenses, interest and dividends, was but $2,817,218 for the entire railway system of the United States, and the total of the dividends paid was less than one per cent upon the capital, in spite of the fact that of the nearly two million men employed by the railway companies of the nation, over 75,000 are trained and skilled in the profession, some 25,000 being expert clerks and accountants, many of them at salaries of from $10,000 to $25,000 a year. But to remedy these evils the Interstate Commerce Act provides for a bureau headed by five commissioners at salaries of $7,500 per year, with a single chief clerk at $3,500, and while defining the political complexion of these only touches the question of their qualification by practically enacting that no man

should be eligible to the office of commissioner who, from his previous training, occupation or experience, could be supposed to know anything of railway management !-a provision upon the ignoring of which in the appointment of the Hon. Thomas R. Cooley chairman of the first commission, the public is to be sincerely congratulated.

Then, allusion should be made here to the embarrassment which the trans-continental companies are suffering from the inroads made into the traffic business by the Canadian Pacific since the interstate law went into effect. As was predicted, the new law, taken in connection with the provisions of the treaty of Washington, which permits the transportation of goods in bond from points in one country through the territory of the other, back to the country from which consignment was originally made, is found to result in a material advantage to the Canadian company. This road is, of course, not affected by the provisions of the interstate law, and so it is able to cut freight rates to figures far below those which are offered by the American roads. Did Congress propose to crush its own constituency in behalf of Canada, if so be in the operation it could "dominate" the railroads? Again, in section 6 of the act, the words: "And any freight shipped from the United States through a foreign country, the through rate on which shall not have been made public as required by this act shall, before it is admitted to the United States, from said foreign country, be subject to customs duties as if said freight were of foreign production; and any law in conflict with this section is hereby repealed," not only repeal a portion of the United States customs law, but make domestic goods subject to duty in domestic ports, thus making the owner or producer suffer for an act not performed or procured by him! What was the intention of Congress here? As we write we are under the disability arising from the fact that no provision of the act has. yet been enforced (for fear, as the enemies of the act will have it, of making a case for the Supreme Court, and a probable opinion by that court declaring the act unconstitutional.) The only positive decision by the commission, so far, has been the declara

tion (re Louisville & Nashville R. R. Co.) in which the Commission refused to interpret the act under which itself was created, but declared that the railroad companies must observe it at their own peril, which to some might, perhaps, suggest that Roman Emperor who wrote his laws above the heads and out of sight of his subjects, but punished their non-observance thereof with death.*

To so much of the foregoing as relates to the rights of the stockholder (on its publication in the columns of the Railway Review.) I had the honor of receiving (through the same channel) the following reply from Senator Cullom, who championed the Interstate Commerce Bill in the Senate: "The article (mine) in question is based largely upon a misapprehension of the powers of Congress with respect to the regulation of interstate commerce which seems to be quite common, and to which, perhaps, public attention should be called.

The writer begins by stating that he is unable to see any

*As a sample of the speculations with which the non-railway reader perused the provisions of the Interstate Commerce Act, I instance the following:

EXPENSIVE CURIOSITY.

To the Editor of The Tribune.

SIR The Interstate Commerce of the country looks to Judge Cooley and his associate commissioners to nullify and render inoperative the provisions of the extraordinary law under which they were appointed. If by an expenditure of $100,000 (or of $10,000,000 for that matter) the country can be saved from the folly of a Democratic Congress, and the laws of trade put back to where they were before it began to meddle with the laws of supply and demand, the country can well afford the money. That the first step to centralization should be taken by the party that has always claimed to abhor it (especially when dominated by an element that was once willing to take the hazard of a civil war rather than surrender a modicum of the doctrine of State rights) is only one, and the least, of the curiosities of the Interstate Commerce Act. Indeed, it is a difficult thing exactly to define its purpose. It may be extravagant to suppose the legislation a scheme to help spend the surplus by enacting a law to change a perfectly satisfactory situation and then appointing a costly commission to nullify the law so as to restore the situation. Or it may be a case of the lion in the lobby, the question for the Speaker being whether the animal is to be kept out or let in for the purpose of seeing whether it can be put out-in either case a rather expensive piece of curiosity.

Yours respectfully,

JOHN W. BELL.

necessity for such a statute as the Interstate Commerce Act, and that he does not believe in its justice, fairness, equity, or expediency—either to the people or the railroads. In these respects he certainly differs with a very large majority of both branches of Congress, and, as I believe, of the people of the United States. He criticises the law because it abounds with punishments against an industry chartered by the people, but nowhere extends to that industry a morsel of approval or protection.' It might suffice to say in answer to this that the railroads have always shown themselves fully competent to protect their own interests, while the shippers have found great difficulty in doing so. But in the practical administration of the law Mr. Morgan will find, if he will examine it carefully, that all reasonable protection has been afforded the railroads, which are only subject to the penalties provid ed in case of willful and intentional violations of the statute, and which are expressly relieved from liability for violations that may have occurred through accident or mistake in the hurry of great and complicated business transactions, if they are disposed to correct the wrongs thus done when their attention is called to them. As was said by the Interstate Commerce Commission, in one of its first decisions :

'Throughout the act, as it now stands, in confessedly experimental form, there is exhibited an obvious and a generous purpose to allow to the corporations ample scope in the conduct of their business as common carriers for the people, and fair consideration of every reasonable claim, while insisting upon just, impartial, open and consistent rates of charge to which every citizen shall be subject alike whose situation is the same. Surely the people could not ask for less.'

"But the burden of Mr. Morgan's complaint against the law appears to be that it does not protect the railways and the people "from the machinations of the railway wrecker, and from the consequent bankruptcies and defaults in meeting fixed charges arising from the over construction of branch lines and paralleling of trunk lines, that money may be made in their building and the like." And he asks why a national statute should not be en

acted to protect the interests of the railway stockholders as well as of the shippers.

"If Mr. Morgan will examine the report of the Senate committee on interstate commerce, which drafted the measure that formed the basis of the present law, he will find these questions fully discussed and answered. The committee recognized the importance of preventing in the future the building of unnecessary railroads for purposes of speculation, stock watering, fictitious capitalization, and similar operations by railway speculators and wreckers, which have resulted in imposing a continuous and serious illegitimate burden upon the commerce and people of the country; but inasmuch as, under the constitution, the jurisdiction of Congress extends only to the transportation of interstate commerce, and not to the methods of organization, the manner of construction and the financial transactions of railroads chartered by the States, no way could be suggested by which congress by a national statute could properly interfere with matters which were exclusively within the jurisdiction of the respective States. Speaking of these questions, the committee say :

'The importance of affording better guarantees to the investment of capital in future legitimate railroad enterprises, and of maintaining the credit of American railway securities at home and abroad, naturally suggest the inquiry whether any remedy for the evils that have been pointed out lies in the hands of Congress. The peculiarity of the situation is that, so far as concerns the charter restrictions which have been suggested, the jurisdiction of the states extends over both the State and the interstate roads; and the committee, after due consideration of the questions involved, does not believe that Congress, by virtue of its undoubted power to regulate interstate transportation, can, without interference with the rights of the State exercise any direct or indirect control over the granting of charters to railroads by the States or over the other proceedings preliminary to their construction.'

"Congress has endeavored to protect the interests of the shippers in so far as its jurisdiction extends, but it has no authority to