George Shiras, Jr.

“ We think that the language of the statute, in creating the commission, and in providing that it shall be lawful for the commission to apply by petition to the circuit court sitting in equity, sufficiently implies the intention of congress to create a body corporate with legal capacity to be a party plaintiff or defendant in the federal courts. ”

“ It is applicable to all the foreign circumstances and conditions which affect rates, and the question whether it must be universally applied, without regard to any circumstances which may exist in a foreign country, and whether dissimilarities which have a foreign origin are to be excluded from consideration under the operation of the statute, is an exceedingly important one, the ultimate decision of which may have a wider influence upon the interstate commerce of the country than we can foresee. ”

“ The mere fact that it is foreign merchandise thus brought from a foreign port is not a circumstance of condition, under the operation of the act to regulate commerce, which entitles it to lower rates, or any other preference in facilities and carriage, over home merchandise, or other traffic of a like kind, carried by the inland carrier, from the port of entry to the place of destination in the United States, for the same distance, and over the same line. ”

“ Although effective competition with another railway company or canal company will not, of itself, justify a preference which is otherwise quite beyond the mark, yet still it is not a circumstance that can be thrown out of the question, and I think there is abundance of authority for that. ”

“ The scope or purpose of the act is, as declared in its title, to regulate commerce. It would, therefore, in advance of an examination of the text of the act, be reasonable to anticipate that the legislation would cover, or have regard to, the entire field of foreign and interstate commerce, and that its scheme of regulation would not be restricted to a partial treatment of the subject. ”

“ The demand for speedy and prompt movement virtually forbids the employment of slow and old-fashioned methods of transportation, at least in the case of the more valuable articles of traffic. At the same time, the immense outlay of money required to build and maintain railroads, and the necessity of resorting, in securing the rights of way, to the power of eminent domain, in effect disable individual merchants and shippers from themselves providing such means of carriage. ”

“ These laws differ wholly, in their objects, from the law to regulate commerce. Their main purpose is to collect revenues with which to meet the expenditures of the government, and those of their provisions, whereby congress seeks to so adjust rates as to protect American manufacturers and producers from competition by foreign low-priced labor, operate equally in all parts of the country. ”

“ Now, it is apparent from the evidence in this case that many American manufacturers dealers, and localities, in almost every line of manufacture and business, are the competitors of foreign manufacturers, dealers, and localities, for supplying the wants of American consumers at interior places in the United States, and that, under domestic bills of lading, they seek to require from American carriers like service as their foreign competitors, in order to place their manufactured goods, property, and merchandise with interior consumers. The act to regulate commerce secures them this right. ”

“ It is also obvious that if the commission does have the power, of its own motion, to promulgate general decrees or orders which thereby become rules of action to common carriers, such exercise of power must be confined to the obvious purposes and directions of the statute. ”

“ When you have a variety of circumstances, differing in the one case from the other, you cannot say that a difference of circumstances represents or is equivalent to such a fraction of a penny difference of charge in the one case as compared with the other. A much broader view must be taken, and it would be hopeless to attempt to decide a case by any attempted calculation. ”

“ From the very nature of the case, therefore, railroads are monopolies, and the evils that usually accompany monopolies soon began to show themselves, and were the cause of loud complaints. The companies owning the railroads were charged, and sometimes truthfully, with making unjust discriminations, between shippers and localities, with making secret agreements with some to the detriment of other patrons, and with making pools or combinations with each other, leading to oppression of entire communities. ”

“ It is self-evident that many cases may and do arise where, although the object of the carriers is to secure the traffic for their own purposes and upon their own lines, yet nevertheless the very fact that they seek, by the charges they make, to secure it, operates in the interests of the public. ”

“ The Texas & Pacific Railway Company, a corporation created by laws of the United States, and also possessed of certain grants from the state of Texas, owns a railroad extending from the city of New Orleans, through the state of Texas, to El Paso, where it connects with the rairoad of the Southern Pacific Company, the two roads forming a through route to San Francisco. ”

“ The commission thought it was constrained by the act to regard foreign and domestic traffic as like kinds of traffic under substantially similar circumstances and conditions, and that the action of the defendant company in procuring through traffic that would, except for the through rates, not reach the port of New Orleans, and in taking its pro rata share of such rates, was an act of 'unjust discrimination,' within the meaning of the act. ”

“ Can we say that the local situation of one trader, as compared with another, which enables him, by having two competing routes, to enforce upon the carrier by either of these routes a certain amount of compliance with his demands, which would be impossible if he did not enjoy that advantage, is not among the circumstances which may be taken into consideration? ”

“ We do not, of course, mean to imply that the commission may not directly institute proceedings in a circuit court of the United States charging a common carrier with disregard of provisions of the act, and that thus it may become the duty of the court to try the case in the first instance. ”

“ That the purpose of the act is to promote and facilitate commerce, by the adoption of regulations to make charges for transportation just and reasonable, and to forbid undue and unreasonable preferences or discriminations ”

“ It is said that it is unfair to the trader who is nearer the market that he should not enjoy the full benefit of the advantage to be derived from his geographical situation at a point on the railway nearer the market than his fellow trader who trades at a point more distant ”

“ All that I have to say is that I cannot find anythi g in the act which indicates that when you are left at large,-for you are left at large,-as to whether, as between two traders, the company is showing an undue and unreasonable preference to the one, as compared with the other, you are to leave out that circumstance, any more than any other circumstance which would affect men's minds. ”

“ The only argument, urged in favor of the view of the commission, that is drawn from the language of the statute, is found in those provisions of the statute that make it obligatory on the common carriers to publish their rates, and to file with the commission copies of joint tariffs of rates or charges over continuous lines or routes operated by more than one common carrier ”

“ Now, that is an advantage, no doubt, to those passengers traveling between Edinburgh and Glasgow. But is it an unfair advantage over other passengers traveling between intermediate stations? The complainant must satisfy us that there is something unfair or unreasonable in what he complains of, in order to warrant any interference. I have read the statements in the petition, and listened to the argument in support of it, to find what there is unreasonable in giving that advantage to through passengers. What disadvantage do Motherwell passengers suffer by this? ”

“ In the other case, the freight originates in a foreign country, its carriage is commenced from a foreign port, it is carried upon rates that are not open and published, but are secret, and in making these rates it is wholly immaterial to the parties making them whether they are reasonable and just or not, so they take the freight and beat a rival, and it is equally immaterial to them whether they unjustly discriminate against surrounding or rival localities in such foreign country or not. ”

“ The effort of the commission, by a rigid general order, to deprive the inland consumers of the advantage of through rates, and to thus give an advantage to the traders and manufacturers of the large seaboard cities, seems to create the very mischief which it was one of the objects of the act to remedy. ”

“ Room is left for the application of these provisions to traffic originating within the limits of the United States, even if, for any reason, they are not practically applicable to traffic originating elsewhere. Nor does it appear that the commission may not compel all common carriers within the reach of their jurisdiction to publish such rates, and to furnish the commission with all statements or reports prescribed by the statute. ”

“ Imported foreign merchandise has all the benefit and advantage of the low rates thus made in the foreign ports, and in the ocean carriage, arising from the peculiar circumstances and conditions under which that is done ”

“ Another formal objection made to the jurisdiction of the circuit court was raised by a plea in abatement denying that the Texas & Pacific Railroad Company had its principal office in the state of New York, or that the acts complained of took place within the judicial district of said court. ”

“ The sidings of the Duston furnaces, belonging to the complainants, were situated on the London & Northwestern Railway, at a distance of about 60 miles from Great Bridge, one of the pig-iron markets to the westward. The sidings of the Butlins and Islip furnaces were situated on the same railway, to the east of the Duston furnaces, and a distance from the pig-iron market, as to Butlins, of about 71 miles, and, as to Islip, of about 82 miles. ”

“ If it operates injuriously to any one, it is to the rival road, which has not adopted corresponding rates; but, as before observed, it was not the design of the act to stifle competition, nor is there any legal injustice in one person procuring a particular service cheaper than another. ”

“ Some of these mischiefs were partially remedied by special provisions inserted in the charters of the companies, and by general enactments by the several states, such as clauses restricting the rates of toll, and forbidding railroad companies form becoming concerned in the sale or production of articles carried, and from making unjust preferences. ”

“ Railway Co., 1 Nev. & McN. 27, where Hozier filed a petition against the railway company, alleging that he was aggrieved by being charged 9 shillings for traveling between Motherwell and Edinburgh, a distance of 43 miles, while passengers traveling in the same train, and in the class of carriage, between Glasgow and Edinburgh, were charged only 2 shillings, which was alleged to amount to an undue and unreasonable preference. ”