lic at each of these stations. There is no law that requires or provides that even its methods of business in the receipt, delivery or handling of freight must necessarily be the same at Ionia as at Grand Rapids. The defendant is left by the law to locate its depot at such place as it may select at each of these cities. The exigencies of its traffic, as shown by the evidence, are different at each of these cities. These exigencies of its traffic the defendant is called upon to meet and to provide for, exercising its own discretion except that it must not violate the statute by any unlawful preference, unjust discrimination or undue or unreasonable prejudice. The circumstances and conditions surrounding the receiving and delivering of freight at defendant's depot in Grand Rapids are exceptional. It is because of this fact that the defendant incurs this large expense in transporting freight to and from Grand Rapids for which it receives only the same transportation rate as its competitors. It is evident that the defendant would incur no such expense as this at Grand Rapids but for those exceptional circumstances and conditions; and it therefore rests upon this ground alone. At Ionia no such exceptional circumstances and conditions are shown to exist. The facts constituting these substantially different circumstances and conditions have already been stated and it is not necessary to repeat them. They emphasize the fact and show the reason why no demand of this kind has ever been made at Ionia. They show that no such necessity exists for it at Ionia, as at Grand Rapids, and that there are no exceptional circumstances and conditions existing at Ionia such as would make it a duty of the defendant to incur this large cost of transportation at that city such as could or ought to be enforced by legal procedure.

One feature of our country is that it is settled by distinct communities in different localities, and these are frequently found along the line of different railway carriers. A rule that would deny one of these a fair and lawful service that is found necessary for the business under the peculiar circumstances and conditions by which it is surrounded, because another and distant locality, differently situated and standing in no like need of any such service on the part of the

carriers, demands it, would be to subordinate the needs of one locality to those of another-a result that is not sanctioned by any provision in the Act to regulate commerce. A construction of the statute that lays down any such rule is, in my opinion, entirely fanciful, and will be attended by much harm to many localities, as well as to many carriers, without any beneficial results to the public.

Another objection made to the lawfulness of this service as rendered at Grand Rapids is that Grand Rapids and Ionia, as to transportation rates, are in the same group and therefore should be treated by the carrier as to receipts and deliveries of freight as if they were only one station. Because the transportation rates are the same from the distant points of origin of the freight in the eastern cities to Ionia and Grand Rapids on account of their being grouped, as already stated, it does not follow that the terminal services, facilities and transportation expenses of the carrier at each of these grouped stations should be the same, just as if the two were located at the same point. They are, in fact, thirty-three miles apart, and, as the proof shows the circumstances and conditions are substantially different in the transportation of freight on the part of the defendant at each of these two cities. Although it is estimated that the cost of delivery at each of them would be the same, namely, two cents per hundred pounds, from the depots to the business. houses, yet it does not follow that the cost of rendering the transportation service on the part of the carrier for which the transportation rate is charged is the same at each city, or that the circumstances and conditions that require extra expense on account of the transportation of freight to and from one require it also at the other; nor is it a controlling fact in this case that the mere cost of receiving or delivering the freight by the carrier would be the same at each city. If it is, as shown by the evidence in this proceeding, a necessary and proper expense to be incurred by the carrier in doing the business of one and not that of the other, that is a controlling fact, and the question is presented whether it is in violation of the Act to regulate commerce.

The grouping of rates in different districts or areas of ter

ritory is a method that has been resorted to by railroads from their earliest history for the purpose of giving to the public in such districts or areas of territory rates that were approximately equal and in a general way relatively fair. It has received the sanction of a recent English statute, 51 & 52 Victoria, chapter 25, section 20. But this is held to be a mere statutory recognition of what has long been the law. (MacNamara on Law of Carriers, pp. 345–6, and authorities cited.) It can of course be carried too far and in that way be made the means of giving undue preference, but within reasonable and proper limits practical experience has demonstrated that it occupies a most useful field in railway operations and is quite as beneficial and desirable to the public as it is to the railroads. The limit would seem to be reached in this way for business when some shippers or consignees are really damaged by the rates afforded while others are correspondingly benefited. The Interstate Commerce Commission has repeatedly recognized this method of doing business, and in several instances where the points grouped were much further apart than Grand Rapids and Ionia. (La Crosse Manufacturers' and Jobbers' Union v. The Chicago, Minneapolis & St. Paul Railway Company, 1 I. C. C. Rep. 629. In the Matter of the Tariffs of the Columbus & Western Railway Company, 1 I. C. C. Rep. 628, 1st Annual Report of the Interstate Commerce Commission. See 1 I. C. C. Rep. 316. The Imperial Coal Company et al. v. The Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad Company et al., 2 I. C. C. Rep. 618.)

It has never been supposed that the grouping of rates. made them mathematically and exactly equal in accordance with the service performed by the carrier in bringing the freight to or carrying it from all shippers within the group; on the contrary, occasional inequalities of this character of no substantial consequence may be seen; but the merit of it consists in the fact that the rates are approximately equal and are relatively fair and just, and perhaps more nearly so than could be arrived at in any other way. The only way to make rates mathematically equal is by the rule of the rate per ton per mile according to distance which from many

causes is found impracticable. The rule that the transportation rates are the same to every station in the group is one that is plain, simple and easily understood by all, as well as the business reasons upon which it is based. But it is a novel doctrine, and one that to my mind will be fraught with many difficulties and embarrassments to carriers and will result in serious injury to shippers and consignees, without any benefit to the carriers or the public, if the rule is to be announced by the Interstate Commerce Commission that the cost of transportation or even the terminal expenses incurred and terminal deliveries and receipts of freight as made by carriers must be exactly, or even substantially, the same at every station included within the group because the transportation rates are the same at each of these stations. When that is done in one instance, as is here proposed, I can readily see how and why the carriers would generally abandon the grouping system, and that would result in a raising of rates at these points where grouped rates now exist, and widespread general dissatisfaction on the part of the business interests served by the carriers. It will also result in many adjustments of rates under the long and short haul clause of the statute which have been made by carriers and which can not well be made in any other way being abandoned by them, and, as a result of that, numerous embarrassments, complaints and general dissatisfaction.

It will expose the Commission, the public and the carriers to the hazard of turning loose and losing the benefit of a great deal that has practically been accomplished in the administration thus far of the Act to regulate commerce. We had better, in my opinion, hold on to the practical results thus accomplished and let the public have the benefit of them instead of losing them in an effort to correct inequalties in transportation expense or in the terminal expenses and terminal deliveries and receipts at different stations within a group, when these as occurring at one station are not shown to operate any prejudice or injury to shippers or business at another station within the group and are easily and fairly accounted for by the disadvantage under which the carrier

labors of having its depot at one station located a long distance from the shippers and consignees at that station, while at another station its depot is located near the business it serves. If the circumstances and conditions being substantially different at the different stations in a group, so far as these relate to terminal expenses and deliveries, are to be considered of no consequence; and if, without regard to these different conditions and circumstances, the carrier is to incur the same measure of terminal expenses or charges at one station as another in the group, or to adopt the same methods of terminal delivery or receipt of freight at each station, or else to be considered as cutting the transportation rate, or of unlawful preference to the extent of the difference in the terminal expense or charge at one station as compared to another, then we are applying one rule as to the transportation rate under the statute by giving, as the statute directs, weight to "substantially different circumstances and conditions" where these are of controlling importance in the transportation rate, and applying a wholly different rule to terminal expenses in delivery and receipt of freight where the circumstances and conditions are equally substantially dissimilar.

Nor is there any evidence whatever in this proceeding which shows or tends to show that this method of business on the part of the defendant is either a "special rate, rebate, drawback or other device" made or intended to be made for the purpose of charging, demanding or collecting a greater or less compensation from any person or persons "for doing for him or them a like and contemporaneous service in the transportation of a like kind of traffic under substantially similar circumstances and conditions" as defined by section 2 of the Act to regulate commerce. It certainly is not a "special rate," because it is a published general rate at Grand Rapids in the tariffs of the defendant. It has no feature of a "rebate" because there is nothing refunded directly nor indirectly to the shipper. Nor has it one single element of a "drawback," which, in substance, is the same as a "rebate."