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granted. United States circuit court, western district of Missouri.

United States v. Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway Company. Proceeding to enjoin departure from published tariff rates. Temporary injunction granted. United States circuit court, western district of Missouri.

United States v. Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railway Company. Proceeding to enjoin departure from published tariff rates. Temporary injunction granted. United States circuit court, western district of Missouri.

United States v. Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railway Company. Proceeding to enjoin departure from published tariff rates. Temporary injunction granted. United States circuit court, western district of Missouri.

United States v. Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway Company. Proceeding to enjoin departure from published tariff rates. Temporary injunction granted. United States circuit court, western district of Missouri.

United States v. Chicago & Alton Railroad Company. Proceeding to enjoin departure from published tariff rates. Temporary injunction granted. United States circuit court, western district of Missouri.

United States v. Chicago Great Western Railway Company. Proceeding to enjoin departure from published tariff rates. Temporary injunction granted. United States circuit court, western district of Missouri.

United States v. Missouri Pacific Railway Company. Proceeding to enjoin departure from published tariff rates. Temporary injunction granted. United States circuit court, western district of Missouri.

United States v. Chesapeake & Ohio Railway Company. Proceeding to enjoin departure from published tariff rates. United States Supreme Court.

Interstate Commerce Commission v. Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton Railway Company et al. Unjust classification of soap. United States Supreme Court.

Interstate Commerce Commission v. Chicago Great Western Railway Company et al. Rates on live stock from points in Iowa, Missouri, and Wisconsin to Chicago. Dismissed by circuit court of the United States for the northern division of the northern district of Illinois. Appeal not yet taken.

Interstate Commerce Commission v. Illinois Central Railroad Company et al. Rates on yellow-pine lumber. United States circuit court, eastern district of Louisana.

Interstate Commerce Commission v. Southern Pacific Company et al. Orange routing cases. United States Supreme Court.

Interstate Commerce Commission v. Southern Pacific Company et al. Orange rate cases. United States circuit court, southern division of the southern district of California.

H. H. Tift et al. v. Southern Railway Company et al. Rates on lumber from points in Georgia to Chattanooga, Tenn. United States circuit court of appeals.

Interstate Commerce Commission v. Mobile & Ohio Railroad Company. Freight rates from St. Louis, East St. Louis, and Cairo to Tupelo, Aberdeen, West Point, Starkville, and Columbus, Miss. United States circuit court, eastern division of the northern district of Mississippi.

COURT DECISIONS.

Only one decision has been rendered by the United States Supreme Court during the year in cases relating to application of the act to regulate commerce, and that was in a proceeding arising upon petition by the Commission for mandamus.

The Mandamus case.-The Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railway Company, having failed to comply with the requirement of the Commission that certain additional statistics should be included in the annual report to be filed by that company with the Commission, a petition for mandamus was filed in the United States circuit court for the northern district of Ohio.

The railroad company moved to dismiss the petition upon the ground that the court had no original jurisdiction to issue the writ, and the motion was granted. Upon appeal by the Commission to the Supreme Court the judgment of the circuit court was affirmed. (197 U. S., 541.)

Several cases brought to enforce orders of the Commission have been decided by circuit courts during the year, and are referred to as follows:

The Hay case.-The Commission brought suit in the United States circuit court for the northern district of Ohio to secure enforcement of its order issued in the case of the National Hay Association v. Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railway Company et al. After taking additional testimony the court decided (134 Fed. Rep., 142), that the order of the Commission was invalid, as an attempt to fix rates is beyond the power of the Commission. Hay and straw in carloads had long been classed as sixth class freight by the carriers in Official Classification territory prior to January 1, 1900, when they raised the classification to fifth class and thereafter charged the higher fifth-class rates.

The Commission ordered that the carriers cease and desist from charging fifth-class rates on hay and straw, based upon the findings that such rates were unreasonable. The Commission also found that

the whole advance was unreasonable, and that the advance and consequent placing of hay and straw in the fifth class unjustly discriminated against that commodity in favor of other articles furnishing less total tonnage to the carriers, and upon such grounds it was further ordered that the carriers cease and desist from failing or neglecting to apply sixth-class rates to shipments of hay and straw. The case has been appealed to the United States Supreme Court.

Supersedeas of decree of circuit court enforcing order of the Commission. In the Orange Rate case (I. C. C. v. Southern Pacific Company et al.), which was decided last year in favor of the Commission by the circuit court for the southern district of California, and in which the carriers were found to be engaged in pooling, the defendants applied to the circuit court for a supersedeas of the decree upon appeal by them to the United States Supreme Court. The circuit court (Judge Wellborn delivering the opinion), while not free from doubt, assumed that the provision in the act that the appeal shall not operate to stay or supersede the order of the court appealed from is merely declaratory of its general equity rule, and does not affect the power of the court to grant a stay pending appeal in its discretion; but that a supersedeas will not be granted when it does not appear that the damage to the defendants from enforcement of the decree would be greater than that which would result to the shippers from its suspension. (137 Fed. Rep., 606.) The application of the carriers for a supersedeas was therefore denied.

The Tift case.-The United States circuit court for the southern district of Georgia sustained during the present year the order issued by the Commission in the case of Tift et al. v. Southern Railway Company et al. (138 Fed. Rep., 753.)

The headnotes of the report of this decision, as rendered by Judge Speer, sufficiently describe the rulings in the case, and are set forth below:

The general rule is that the greater the tonnage of the commodity transported the lower should be the rate of freight charges for such transportation.

Explicit law, the settled policy of the Government, the practical principles of reason and justice require that, save for controlling reasons of law or fact, the national courts should not discredit or disparage the conclusions of the Interstate Commerce Commission.

The findings of fact set forth in the report of the Commission are in all judicial proceedings deemed prima facie evidence as to each and every fact found.

Prima facie evidence of a fact is such as, in judgment of law, is sufficient to establish the fact, and if not rebutted remains sufficient for the purpose.

The act to regulate commerce creates a rule of presumption in favor of the Commission's report, which on its introduction in evidence changes the burden of proof and casts it upon that party against whom the report is made.

The legislature, subject only to the limitations of evidence expressly enshrined in the Constitution, has entire control over the rules of evidence and by statutory enactments may alter, change, or create them anew.

The reasonableness of a rate of charge for transportation is eminently a question for judicial investigation.

It is no longer open to question that the Interstate Commerce Commission is an expert tribunal empowered by law to determine in the first instance the reasonable or unreasonable character of the rate charged for transportation in interstate commerce.

The character of the Southeastern Freight Association, the effect of its concert of action and agreements as to freight rates in the territory to which it extends, considered and discussed.

When a number of railroads, acting under articles of organization, by concert of agreement and action advance the rates upon shipments of a particular class throughout all the territory to which their organization and influence with similar organizations extend, and when they actually advance such rates and exact the same of shippers, it is of no consequence that they have a stipulation in such articles that each and all members can at will and at any time withdraw from the agreement.

Reasonable compensation for the service actually rendered is all that a common carrier is permitted to exact.

Where a vast increase in lumber traffic had resulted in large increase of net revenue to the carrier the service was inexpensive, required neither rapidity of movement nor specially equipped cars, shippers were obliged to furnish and pay for equipment, railroads were neither to load nor unload, the commodity was neither fragile nor perishable, the risk of damage was inappreciable, the industry affords a tonnage second in magnitude to only one other transported by the carrier, an arbitrary increase to points of principal destination of 2 cents a hundred pounds is unreasonable and unlawful. This is especially clear where the particular traffic is practically destroyed immediately after the advance is made.

Railroads have no legal right to graduate their charges in proportion to the prosperity which attends industries whose products they transport.

In this case the conclusions of the court agree with the conclusions of the Interstate Commerce Commission. The enforcement of the advance will be enjoined, and, general counsel for respondents having stipulated in judicio they would repay to the shippers the sum total of the increased exactions in case such increase should be held illegal, a reference will be had to ascertain the amount thus due the complainants, respectively, and decree will be rendered therefor.

Referring to the character of the Southeastern Freight Association, the court said:

This combination or concert of action on the part of the respondent railroads is plainly violative of that provision of the interstate-commerce law which forbids pooling. This was enacted, among other things, for the purpose of securing competition. Pooling may be as well effected by a concert in fixing in advance the rates which in the aggregate would accumulate the earnings of naturally competing lines as by depositing all of such earnings to a common account and distributing them afterwards. That such an association and concert of action between agents of naturally competing lines is destructive of competition is equally unanswerable. To entertain any other view is to ignore reiterated decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States and many rulings of the circuit courts and of the State courts.

The Soap case.-In November of this year the United States circuit court for the southern district of Ohio rendered a decision sustaining

the order of the Commission in the case of Procter & Gamble Company v. Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton Railway Company et al. The decision is not yet reported.

At the time of the complaint before the Commission soap in less than carloads took third-class rates, and the complainant sought a reduction to fourth-class rates. Pending the hearing before the Commission the carriers reduced the classification of common soap in less than carloads to 20 per cent less than third class and not less than fourth class. The complaint before the Commission also related to the classification of soap in carloads, and a reduction from fifth-class to sixth-class rates was prayed for.

The Commission dismissed the complaint as to the classification of soap in carloads, but sustained it as to soap in less than carloads, and ordered the carriers to cease and desist from charging for the transportation of common or laundry soap in less than carload quantities rates per 100 pounds equal to 20 per cent less than the third-class rates. As above indicated, the carriers refused to obey the order. The court held that the burden of proof was upon the defendants, and showed that the classification complained of was not in violation of the act to regulate commerce. Fourth-class rates for less than carloads were formerly in force. The court said that common soap in less than carload lots was assigned to the fourth class in the first classification made under the act to regulate commerce and remained there until the reclassification complained of and did not follow the variations of soap in carload lots, and the replacing of soap in carloads in the fifth class did not justify the displacing of soap in less than carloads from the class in which it had been voluntarily maintained by the defendants for more than thirteen years.

If it be claimed, said the court, that prior classification and rates have never been adequate to the cost of handling and carrying freight in less than carload lots, then there should be a general reclassification which would apportion the cost of service equally, or approximately so, among the different articles of traffic and between carload lots and less than carload lots.

The conclusion of the court was that the evidence not only failed to justify the change of classification complained of, but showed that the change resulted in unlawful discriminations between shippers.

The Live Stock and Live-Stock Products case.-The United States circuit court for the northern district of Illinois has recently rendered a decision in two cases brought by the Commission against the Chicago Great Western Railway Company and others, one to enforce its order in the case entitled before the Commission as Chicago Live Stock Exchange against the Chicago Great Western Railway Company et al., the other for an injunction to issue under section 3 of the Elkins law, but relating to the same subject-matter.

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