in which the Act to regulate commerce has embodied in condensed language the substantial ideas of English legislation concerning railroads. Serious difficulties, however, are met in attempting to apply such a construction of the law to the present case. Section fifteen of the Act to regulate commerce makes it the duty of the Commission, in case of a violation of the law, to issue notice to the offending carrier to cease and desist from such violation within a reasonable time to be specified. A notice to cease and desist from further violation of the law, without more, would not cover all that is here required in order to affect any useful result, and in fact would not be operative unless supplemented by something further, which the Commission has no present power to give. The restoration of the through tickets and through rates necessarily involves a division of the rates, which must either be ascertained as a necessary preliminary, or some method of determining the share which each carrier is to receive must be known to exist. In case the ferry transfer arbitrary and the proportionate divisions of the various rates can be agreed upon by the parties it would be possible for the business to go forward at once. But if the parties fail or refuse to agree there is no method apparent in which a binding apportionment can be made. This fact clearly shows a case of omission in the law, of the precise nature of the omission in the English statute of 1854, which was remedied by the subsequent Act passed in 1873. Interchange of freight would also involve other questions. In its Second Annual Report (page 70) this Commission stated that in its opinion the interest of the public would be subserved by amending the third section of the Act to regulate commerce by adding thereto a provision substantially extracted from the English Act of 1873, as further amended by Parliament in 1888, as follows:

"The facilities to be so afforded shall include the due and reasonable receiving, forwarding and delivering by every such common carrier, at the request of any other such common carrier of through traffic at through rates or fares. If any one of such common carriers shall desire to form a through route for interstate traffic or any class thereof over

its own line or any part thereof, in connection with the line, or any part of the line of one or more other common carriers, it shall address a request in writing to the other common carrier or carriers, describing therein the proposed route specifically, and naming proposed through rates or fares and divisions thereof for such traffic, and shall deliver such request to such other carrier or carriers and also transmit a copy thereof to the Commission hereinafter named. If the other common carrier or carriers shall not, within ten days after receiving such request, make and serve and file with the Commission, written objections either to the proposed route or to the proposed rates, fares, or divisions, the same so far as not objected to shall be deemed agreed to; but if either the route, the rates, or fares, or the divisions, are objected to, the objections shall be stated in writing and transmitted to the Commission, and the Commission shall then have power to determine whether, having regard to all the circumstances, the route proposed is demanded in the public interest and is a reasonable route for the traffic, and if the Commission shall so find, and the rate or divisions are not assented to, the Commission shall have the further power to prescribe the same; but the Commission in any case, in apportioning the through rate, shall take into consideration all the circumstances of the case, including any special expense incurred in respect of the construction, maintenance or working of the route, or any part thereof, as well as any special charges which any such common carrier may have been entitled to make in respect thereof, and it shall not be lawful for the Commission in any case to compel any company to accept lower mileage rates than the mileage rates which such company may for the time being legally be charging for like traffic carried by a like mode of transit, on any other line of communication between the same points, being the points of departure and arrival of the through route."

The facts in the present case clearly develop the importance of such an amendment, or of some amendment which shall provide a mode of procedure for carrying into effect the

establishment of through routes and through rates, and the equitable apportionment of the rates established, in cases where the refusal of such routes and rates works an unlawful preference. As the Statute now stands there is no way apparent in which practical relief can be afforded to the complainant without authority to provide for the necessary divisions being conferred either upon the Commission, the courts, or some other tribunal.

It is proper to add that the foregoing opinion was written before seeing the opinion of the United States Circuit Court in the case of the Kentucky and Indiana Bridge Company v. The Louisville & Nashville Railroad Company, recently rendered in the Sixth Judicial Circuit (Jackson J). In passing upon the original complaint of the Kentucky & Indiana Bridge Company, this Commission (2 I. C. C. R., 162) expressly stated that no case was before it involving the question of through rates. The case as made up for the decision of the Circuit Court, was a very different case from that which had been previously passed upon by this Commission. The convenience of the junction point in question for the interchange of traffic was conceded by the defendant before the Commission, but afterwards litigated before the Court. The case was moreover so presented that the Court was called upon to decide the precise point in respect to through rates, which the Commission had explicitly refrained from passing upon. In respect to this question the Interstate Commerce Commission in the present case has for the first time been required to express its views on the construction of the law; and it believes that while it was apparently the intention of Congress to require the establishment and maintenance of a through route with through rates, in cases like the one now under consideration, nevertheless, the Act in its present form, and in the absence of the necessary machinery, is inadequate to satisfactorily accomplish the result without the co-operation of carriers in arranging for the division of rates and other necessary agreements.

The recommendations concerning amendments to the Third

Section of the Act which were made in the Second Annual Report are therefore again renewed.

MORRISON, Commissioner;

I concur in the opinion that the East Tennessee, Virginia & Georgia Railroad should issue tickets over the complainant's road on the same terms it issues them over the St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern Railway Co., for reasons expressed in my dissenting opinion in the case of the Chicago & Alton R. R. Co. v. Pennsylvania R. R. Co. (1 I. C. C. R., 86).

SCHOONMAKER, Commissioner, concurs in result.

IN THE MATTER OF THE TARIFFS AND CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE ATLANTA AND WEST POINT RAILROAD COMPANY AND OTHER COMPANIES.

Hearing December 18th, 19th and 20th, 1888.-Opinion Filed March 30, 1889. Investigation by the Commission, on its own motion, concerning cause pursued by certain carriers in respect to compliance with the provisions of the Act to regulate commerce.

Results as ascertained stated, and recommendations made for further advances in the direction of conformity to the law.

Short haul clause, principles giving application of as heretofore announced by Commission, and again affirmed, and applied.

Form of tariffs and classifications in use criticised and requirements of statute stated in respect thereto.

Cecil Gabbett, General Manager, and Charles II. Cromu ell, General Freight and Passenger Agent, for Atlanta & West Point Railroad Co., and Western Railway Company of Alabama.

E. P. Alexander, President, W. F. Shellman, Traffic Manager, G. A. Whitehead, General Freight Agent, and E. T Charlton, General Passenger Agent, for Central Railroad and Banking Co. of Georgia, Mobile & Girard Railroad Co., Montgomery & Eufaula Railroad Co., Port Royal & Augusta Railway Co., Savannah, Griffin & North Alabama Railroad Co., William J. Craig, Acting General Freight and Passenger Agent for Port Royal & Augusta Railway Co.

C. D. Owens, Traffic Manager for Savannah, Florida & Western Railway Co. and Charleston & Savannah Railway Co., William P. Hardee, General Freight and Passenger Agent for Savannah, Florida & Western Railway Co., and E. P. McSwiney, General Freight and Passenger Agent for Charleston & Savannah Railway Co. James T. Worthington, General Counsel, Linden Kent, Assistant General Counsel, T. M. R. Talcott, First Vice-President, Sol. Haas, Traffic Manager, James II. Drake, General Freight Agent, J. S. Potts, Division Freight and Passenger Agent, W. II. Fitzgerald, Agent, and Reuben