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THE GREEN BAG

name rates for transportation and to insti tute practices. When these are challenged by the public, a body for the purpose seeks to secure a correction of the rate or the abolition or extension of the practice — the abolition, if pernicious, the extension, if it be a wholesome practice. The body is to prosecute in a special court at government expense. A special court is required in order to expedite the decision, for commercial conditions cannot and ought not to be made to wait for any great length of time for the decision of matters affecting them; a special court for the reason that there is needed judges familiar with transportation — a subject acknowledged to be sui generis, both as to fact and law. The prosecution to be at government expense or the expense to be borne by the carrier if the government con tention prevail, on the ground that no indi

vidual can afford to spend money for the benefit of the public. The prosecution by the government for the reason that unless undertaken by the government the wrong will live and thrive uncorrected. Upon the whole, as the proposal to have an administrative body with power to sub stitute a rate is both unconstitutional and seeks only a correction of a portion of the causes of complaint; as the inadequacy of the plan to require an individual shipper to prosecute his case first in court, and then before a quasi-legislative body is manifest; and as it is constitutional for a court to prevent by injunction or other process the charging of excessive or unreasonable rates and to correct unjust practices or enforce just ones, the duty of the Congress in this behalf is clear. WASHINGTON, D.C., February, 1906.