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cost of the service largely less on the long through haul to the seaboard, or to eastern markets, as compared with the short haul to or from a comparatively near and intermediate city. The service in each instance is a unit. That unit in the case of the long haul cannot be split up with any justice or fairness so as to say that less is charged, for example, upon that portion of it between Chicago and Detroit than is charged upon a shipment over the same line originating at Chicago and terminating at Detroit. Each is a separate, entire, and distinct service, and for the purposes of any just comparison cannot be apportioned in this manner. The rate in each instance is an "aggregate" rate, and it is the "aggregate" rate, as such, with which the statute deals.

Substantially the same considerations and upon the same grounds apply with equal force to west-bound freight on the long through hauls from eastern points or seaboard cities, destined to points in the far west and northwest, and in reaching which the carrier has traveled but a small part of his journey with the freight when he has passed through Detroit. In each instance it is not a service of preference to mere individuals, or localities, but it is in a very large part, the through carrying trade of the continent; and to hamper it with the delays, charges and expenses incident to greatly shorter hauls between intermediate points, where substantially very different conditions exist, would bring fatal calamity upon the commerce of the country. There could be no greater perversion of the letter and spirit of the Act to regulate commerce than to construe and administer that statute as requiring that for such substantially different kinds and grades of service performed under substantially different circumstances and conditions, the compensation of the carrier must be exactly the same in proportion for some designated portion of the through long haul, that is proportionally charged over some equal distance on freight originating at one intermediate station and transported to another selected for the purposes of comparison on the same part of the line along that long through haul.

A most important principle in railway transportation, one

that can never be justly overlooked, and which we have had occasion several times to enforce, is that of the relative equality of rates as applied to cities, towns and localities. The Act to regulate commerce provides for, and requires this, and before the enactment of the statute carriers recognized the principle and professed to act upon it. Mathematical equality of rates according to distance can rarely, if ever, be attained, because the precise distance to these cities, towns, localities, as the case may be, upon different and near competing lines from the points of origin or destination of the freight are never exactly the same, but it often occurs that they are relatively so. This being true, the conditions of justice are fulfilled in giving each of them the same rates. In this way prejudice to one and preference to another is avoided. Wherever cities and towns are relatively so situated with reference. to transportation facilities, it is not enough that the rates to them should be reasonable in themselves, but it is necessary that they should be relatively fair and just to all of them. An instance of this is seen in the equal rates given by the competitive carriers to the cities of Detroit and Toledo.

In the consideration of a question like the one before us it is necessary to bear in mind that a change of rate at one point requires a change at others also. Relative rates cannot be changed at Detroit alone; if they could, its merchants and dealers might obtain much benefit from having the prayer of this petition granted. But change there means change, by the application of the like principle, at Port Huron, Toledo, Fort Wayne and in fact, the whole interior. It means change, also, at Chicago, because a similar reduction would have to be made by the application of the same principle there. Chicago is no more the end of the line in respect to large classes of business than Detroit, and in the end it would probably be found that relatively, as well as actually, the city of Detroit now has every advantage which it would have as against the competition of Chicago, if the changes sought by the petition were made at Detroit. Such a change if made, whilo it weuld not benefit Detroit in the

manner supposed in the petition, would necessarily, as we have shown, involve a complete change in the rates all over a large territory of the northwest, and would probably result in a widespread unsettling and confusion of rates and values during a great part of the business season, when it is to the interest of shippers as well as carriers, that these rates and values should remain stable, except so far as they may require some necessary and unavoidable correction.

If, however, all the insuperable objections which we have mentioned did not exist, and if, in point of fact, the change of rates sought in this petition on east and west bound freight were made at Detroit, then, according to the same rule, Toledo would be allowed lower rates than Detroit on corn and oats from the southwest, embracing Northern Indiana, Middle and Southern Illinois, Northern Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska and Iowa. It would also be true that Chicago, being 288 miles nearer than Detroit to the great grain-growing region of the northwest, according to the same rule, would receive correspondingly lower grain rates.

We have carefully considered all the evidence in relation to the terminal facilities at Chicago and Detroit, and it does not affect or change our conclusions as above stated. On all the evidence we find this complaint is not sustained, and it is therefore dismissed.

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IN THE MATTER OF THE TARIFFS OF THE TRANS

CONTINENTAL LINES.

Filed October 24, 1888.

Rates that are just and reasonable from selected manufacturing points, through the entire territory east of the Missouri river and west of the Atlantic seaboard, are prima facie just and reasonable from all other points in the same territory.

A tariff naming a rate from one locality lower than that enjoyed by its neighbor, when the circumstances are the same, tenders a preference or advantage to the first; and when any shipper is damaged by the exaction of an additional burden the preference becomes undue and unreasonable, unless it can be justified upon some sound and substantial ground.

Common carriers are under obligation to take all descriptions of ordinary traffic from all points, and it is right that the rates should be known and announced publicly in advance of the offering of traffic.

Under the Act to regulate commerce shippers are not to be put in a position of subserviency to common carriers, nor required to ask for rates, but are entitled to equal and open rates at all times.

Discriminations are made and undue advantages are given by the special tariffs in question, in giving different rates to places named and those not named; to manufactured articles named and those not named; to jobbers at places named and those not named; to manufacturers and to jobbers and other dealers.

WALKER, Commissioner.

The case of Martin v. Southern Pacific Company et. al., 2 I. C. C. R. 1, presented the question of whether a tariff of rates from San Francisco to Denver, higher than the rates charged at the same time over the same line from San Francisco to Kansas City, was justifiable under the fourth section of the Act to regulate commerce. The opinion of the Commission, filed May 17, 1888, discussed this question as involving "the entire subject of relative rates as between shorter and longer hauls on all the trans-continental lines." The conclusion reached was that in the case stated no fact was shown to exist which justified the greater charge for the shorter haul.

On September 1, 1888, an entirely new system of making. rates upon the trans-continental lines was put into effect. The new tariffs were exceedingly different from the system previously in force; the changes made were many and radical, affecting not only all joint tariffs and the rates to and, from terminal or competitive points, but also the rates to and, from local and intermediate points on all the lines. In so great a mass of new matter affecting so complicated a subject, promulgated at one time, and at the last completed and issued in some haste, it is not surprising that irregularities should be found to exist and that some of the indirect results of the changes made were unexpected.

While this Commission was not responsible for the construction or practical operation of these tariffs to any extent beyond that indicated by the above statement of its decision in the Denver case, and had no opportunity of inspecting any of them before they were put into effect, nevertheless it clearly appears that their formulation is the result of an hon est effort to revise the trans-continental tariffs in conformity with the provisions of the Act to regulate commerce; that the carriers have undertaken this important matter in good faith; and that the immediate result aimed at has been directly in the line indicated by the Commission. Whatever modification of detail may be expedient or necessary, the general plan on which the new tariffs have been framed rep resents a long step in advance, as compared with the irregular and in many respects illegal methods previously in use.

Eighteen railroads, composing the Trans-Continental Asso, ciation, so called, and representing an aggregate length of about forty-thousand miles, have united in the new tariffs. The Canadian Pacific is one of them. Differential rates are provided in its favor, under which its through tariffs are slightly less than the through rates of the more direct lines which are situated wholly within the United States.

One of the most important changes made is in respect to the classification of freight. The Pacific Coast classifications, both east-bound and west-bound, have been discarded; so far as the transportation of freight is governed by class rates the Western classification alone is used. This change en

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