POINTS DECIDED BY THE COMMISSION SINCE ITS ORGANIZATION. In re The Southern Pacific Railroad Company. (1 I. C. C. Rep., 6.) 1. The Commission will not make an order for relief under the fourth section of the act to regulate commerce except upon verified petition and after investigation into the facts. In re The Petition of the Order of Railway Conductors. In re The Petition of the Traders and Travelers' Union. (1 I. C. C. Rep., 8.) 2. The Commission will not express opinions on abstract questions, nor on questions presented by ex parte statements of fact, nor on questions of construction of the statute presented for its advice but without any controversy pending before it on complaint of violation of law. 3. Where the question on which advice is sought is whether carriers subject to the act may now grant any particular right or privilege which they were accustomed to grant before, the carriers should, in the first instance, determine it for themselves, and if it is then complained that what they do violates the act, the question can be brought before the Commission on complaint, and it will then have jurisdiction to decide it. In re Indian Supplies. (1 I. C. C. Rep., 15.) 4. When under the statute the Government contracts for the delivery of the supplies needed for the Indian service, at New York and other points designated, and then advertises for bids for the transportation of the supplies from the points of delivery to the points where they are to be made use of, this transportation at the cost of the Government is "for the United States" within the meaning of section 22 of the act to regulate commerce, and is not required to be made at the regular published rates. In re The Iowa Barbed Steel Wire Company. (1 I. C. C. Rep., 17.) 5. The Interstate Commerce Commission has not been given authority to authorize the grant by railroad companies of special privileges to individuals or corporations, or to sanction such as are not in harmony with the act to regulate commerce, or to suspend that act for the benefit of particular industries. 6. Whether railroad companies ought to grant a particular special privilege which would not be illegal, the Commission would not undertake to say on ex parte application. 7. A petition was presented by a manufacturing corporation, which recited in substance that railroad companies had been accustomed to permit it to procure its raw material at a distance, manufacture its goods therefrom, and then ship the goods to a market at the same aggregate rate for transportation of both raw material and manufactured goods as would be charged had there been no stoppage in transit and no manufacture; that this privilege of manufacturing in transit was valuable to the corporation and to the community in which its business was located, and wronged no one; and petitioner prayed that it might be sanctioned by the Commission. But no authority to that effect having been conferred upon the Commission, the petition was dismissed. In re The St. Louis Millers' Association. (1 I. C. C. Rep., 20.) 8. The Commission reiterates that it has no authority to order or sanction the giving of special privileges. 9. "Milling in transit" having long been permitted by common carriers to millers at certain points, and a large quantity of "transits" being said to be out, which can be and are made use of to give millers at Minneapolis an advantage in rates over those at St. Louis, the Commission can not correct the wrong by giving or authorizing special rates to the St. Louis millers. In re United States Commission of Fish and Fisheries. (1 I. C. C. Rep., 21.) 10. The United States Commission of Fish and Fisheries being one of the agencies of Government, and the distribution of fish and fish eggs by it being made by authority of the Government, the transportation of the fish and fish eggs so distributed falls within the exception contained in section 22 of the act to regulate commerce, and the rate is not governed by the published tariff. 11. The question of free transportation to employees and agents of the Commission and of the National Museum raised but not passed upon. In re Export Trade of Boston. (1 I. C. C. Rep., 24.) 12. It seems not to be illegal for railroad companies connecting Boston with Western points to make the rates from such points to Boston upon grain and provisions for export as low as the rates to New York, although the rates upon like property for local consumption are higher to Boston than to New York, the distance being somewhat greater. 13. Reasons given why this may be a necessity of the situation. In re Disabled Soldiers and Sailors. (1 I. C. C. Rep., 28.) 14. Whether since the passage of the act to regulate commerce it is competent for the carriers subject to it to grant free transportation of persons to those who are proper subjects of charity the Commission will not undertake to say, when no controversy is pending before it which raises the question. In re Annapolis, Washington and Baltimore R, R. Co. et al. (1 I. C. C. Rep., 315.) 15. So far as a railroad company whose line is entirely within one State issues through bills of lading over its connecting lines to points in other States, and makes through rates, it falls under the provision of the interstatecommerce act. The Missouri and Illinois Railroad Tie and Lumber Company v. The Cape Girardeau and Southwestern Railway Company. (1 I. C. C. Rep., 30.) 16. The fact that the owner of merchandise which is offered to a carrier for transportation from one point to another in the same State intends to have it further transported by a second carrier into another State does not make such first transportation interstate commerce, or render the carrier subject to the control of the Commission in respect to it, even though such first carrier may be informed of the ultimate destination of the merchandise. In re Petition of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad Company. (1I. C. C. Rep., 31.) 17. When a railroad company claims that the circumstances and conditions of long and short hauls on its lines are so dissimilar as to justify its making the greater charge on the shorter haul, the Commission will not on its petition decide upon the justice of its claim, but will leave it to take the initiative in fixing rates, and will decide upon their justice and propriety when complaint is made by persons or localities who consider themselves injured. On questions of statutory construction involved in such cases the Commission holds: 18. First. That the prohibition in the fourth section of the act to regulate commerce against a greater charge for a shorter than for a longer distance over the same line in the same direction, the shorter being included in the longer distance as qualified therein, is limited to cases in which the circumstances and conditions are substantially similar. 19. Second. That the phrase "under substantially similar circumstances and conditions" in the fourth section is used in the same sense as in the second section; and under the qualified form of the prohibition in the fourth section carriers are required to judge in the first instance with regard to the similarity or dissimilarity of the circumstances and conditions that forbid or permit a greater charge for a shorter distance. 20. Third. That the judgment of carriers in respect to the circumstances and conditions is not final, but is subject to the authority of the Commission and of the courts to decide whether error has been committed or whether the statute has been violated. And in case of complaint for violating the fourth section of the act the burden of proof is on the carrier to justify any departure from the general rule prescribed by the statute by showing that the circumstances and conditions are substantially dissimilar. 21. Fourth. That the provisions of section 1, requiring charges to be reasonable and just, and of section 2, forbidding unjust discrimination, apply when exceptional charges are made under section 4 as they do in other cases. 22. Fifth. That the existence of actual competition which is of controlling force, in respect to traffic important in amount, may make out the dissimilar circumstances and conditions entitling the carrier to charge less for the longer than for the shorter haul over the same line in the same direction, the shorter being included in the longer in the following cases: 1. When the competition is with carriers by water which are not subject to the provisions of the statute. 2. When the competition is with foreign or other railroads which are not subject to the provisions of the statute. 3. In rare and peculiar cases of competition between railroads which are subject to the statute, when a strict application of the general rule of the statute would be destructive of legitimate competition. 23. Sixth. The Commission further decides that when a greater charge in the aggregate is made for the transportation of passengers or the like kind of property for a shorter than for a longer distance over the same line in the same direction, the shorter being included in the longer distance, it is not sufficient justification therefor that the traffic which is subjected to such greater charge is way or local traffic and that which is given the more favorable rates is not. 24. Nor is it sufficient justification for such greater charge that the short-haul traffic is more expensive to the carrier, unless when the circumstances are such as to make it exceptionally expensive, or the long-haul traffic exceptionally inexpensive, the difference being extraordinary and susceptible of definite proof. Nor that the lesser charge on the longer haul has for its motive the encouragement of manufactures or some other branch of industry. Nor that it is designed to build up business or trade centers. Nor that the lesser charge on the longer haul is merely a continuation of the favorable rates under which trade centers or industrial establishments have been built up. The fact that long-haul traffic will only bear certain rates is no reason for carrying it for less than cost at the expense of other traffic. The Chicago and Alton Railroad Company v. The Pennsylvania Railroad Company; The Same v. The Pennsylvania Company; The Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad Company v. The New York Central and Hudson River Railroad Company. (1 I. C. C. Rep., 86.) 25. The defendants adopted a regulation that they would not sell tickets for and over the line of a connecting road unless such connecting road would abstain from paying commissions to their agents on the sales made, and would make promise to that effect. Such a regulation is reasonable, and therefore legal. 26. A railroad company has a right to insist that its agents shall be its employees exclusively, and it is not obliged to permit any other company to make them its employees also. 27. The requirement in the act to regulate commerce that common carriers shall "afford all reasonable, proper, and equal facilities for the interchange of traffic between their respective lines and for the receiving, forwarding, and delivering of passengers and property to and from their several lines and those connecting therewith," will not require a railroad company to sell through tickets over the line of a road whose managers persist in offering commissions to the agents who sell such tickets. 28. The practice of paying commissions to the agents of other roads on tickets sold over the road of the company paying the same, condemned as demoralizing, and as an improper drain on corporate resources. 29. If a passage ticket over several roads is a reasonable facility of travel, the privilege of paying a commission to the agent who sells it, and who would be required by duty to his employer to sell it when called for, without any commission therefor, can not be regarded as an incident to the facility, and therefore can not be insisted on. Holbrook et al. v. St. Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba Railroad Company. (1 I. C. C. Rep., 102.) 30. No order can be made against a railroad company on complaint which is not supported by evidence. 31. If a railroad company avows a purpose to comply with the law, it must be assumed that it will do so and is doing so until there is evidence that the purpose is not lived up to. Fulton v. The Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis and Omaha Railroad Company; Harding v. the same company. (1 I. C. C. Rep., 104.) 32. Where complaint is made of rates as excessive the burden is upon complainant to make proof of the fact alleged, and if no proofs are put in by either party the complaint will be dismissed. This held in a case in which the rates were much higher than they had at one time been on the same line. |