Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 51.djvu/831

Rh the conclusions of the commission as to law and fact as merely prima facie evidence subject to rebuttal.

Publicity was provided for by authorizing the commission to inquire generally into the business of all carriers subject to its jurisdiction; to keep continually informed regarding their business methods, by requiring annual statistical reports; authorizing the commission to prescribe a uniform system of accounts; requiring the publication and filing of schedules of rates on all traffic subject to the provisions of the law; requiring railways to file copies of agreements with other common carriers; and giving the commission authority to issue subpoenas and subpoenas duce stecum. Competition was to be perpetuated by the prohibition of pooling agreements. This and the second remedy have been enforced with reasonable continuity.

Charges for railway service may unjustly discriminate in three ways:

1. When differences are based upon the individuals for whom services are performed.

2. When charges upon different commodities are adjusted for the purpose or so as in effect to foster the movement of one at the expense of the other in a degree not warranted by differences appertaining to the commodities themselves.

3. When charges to or from particular localities favor some to the disadvantage of others more than is justified by natural conditions.

Unjust discriminations between individuals are those most readily observed, and consequently most obnoxious to the general public, though it is doubtful whether their consequences approximate in gravity the serious and deplorable effects of those that fall in the second and third classes. They are effected by means of secret deviations from the published rate schedules, while those between producers of different commodities or between localities appear boldly on the face of tariffs and classifications. The secret rates, rebates, drawbacks, allowances, or other illegal devices resorted to in order to accomplish the first class of discriminations are punishable by fine or imprisonment. The only remedies for the other kinds are modification of the rate schedules or monetary recompense for the damage suffered. The number of discriminations between individuals has been materially reduced by the operation of the present law, but that they have by no means disappeared is evident from the following extract, which, as it is taken from a recent issue of a railway paper of high standing, may be regarded as ex cathedra:

"At present no railway man dares to assist the commission to information against another road, no company dares to be the active instrument in bringing complaint against another. It has