the great operations which these companies conduct. Their great profits come largely from percentages on placing great loans for corporations and governments. A considerable part of these great dividends in the year in question were doubtless profits upon the United States three per cent bonds sold to maintain the gold reserve of the United States in the face of a large deficit in the revenue. When a government gets into a pinch it has to pay for it, just as a poor man does. 4. PRIVATE BANKS. Of these concerns seven hundred fifty-nine only reported to the comptroller, which he states to be about twenty per cent of the whole number. In a savings bank, it is the depositors who receive the profits, less the expenses of the bank, and such payment to the capital stock, if any, as the by-laws of the bank prescribe. The rate of interest earned for depositors in savings banks varied in different groups of states, ranging from three to five per cent. The cost of management of savings banks, was, in Maine, one-fifth of one per cent of the deposits; and in Massachusetts one-fourth of one per cent. Statistics are lacking as to other states. 6. SUMMARY. The banking capital available for loaning consists of the capital stock, surplus and undivided profits, and deposits, less sums invested in premises and furniture, and the necessary reserves. Without making these deductions, the amounts are as follows: The proceedings of the Interstate Commerce Commission are, in many respects, like those of a court. Complaints are filed, answers made, evidence taken if necessary, argument heard, and a decision rendered. If, however, the parties do not comply with the decision, the Commission has no power to enforce them. For that purpose recourse must be had to a court, where the entire question may be tried over again, as if it had never been heard by the Commission. Under our constitution there is no way to avoid this, but it is possible to make evidence taken before the Commission available before the court, in support of the decision of the Commission, which the law has made prima facie evidence of what is true. Those who have occasion to complain of railroads are not usually able to bear the expense of litigation, and when they have once proved a thing some means should be found of making that evidence available once for all for what it is worth. The Commission can also be clothed with greater power of compelling witnesses to testify. The tedious processes of the American courts are the strongest refuge of evil-doers. In dealing with *About one-fifth of the private banks only. the powerful corporations the people need a strong tribunal, not bound by technicalities, with power to go at once to the pith of any matter presented, do equity at once and have its decisions enforced, until set aside by due course of law. The Interstate Commerce Commission was designed as such a tribunal. Its authority is insufficient for its duties. The people can give it the necessary power if they have a mind to. If they will not do this, it is childish to complain of oppression in Interstate Commerce. The following decisions of the Commission, while not necessarily having the force of law, have been nearly always complied with. The Commission, up to the close of 1898, had made nine hundred eighty-five decisions, covering most of the points that are likely to arise between the people and the rail. roads in Interstate Commerce. The following selections from those decisions will be found of interest. The selection has necessarily been confined to decisions establishing general principles. It will be noted that in nearly all cases the contest was between localities, rather than between individuals. Doubtless this has been because the discriminations against individuals have been better concealed. Discriminations between localities are obvious, and are usually taken up by boards of trade or other influential commercial bodies. The numbers prefixed to the decisions indicate the number of the decision on the docket of the Commission. 5. The Interstate Commerce Commission has not been given the 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. 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 aggregrate 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. 12. It seems not to be illegal for railroad companies connecting Boston with eastern 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. 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 Interstate Commerce Act. 19. 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. 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. 22. 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: I. When the competition is with carriers by water, which are not subject to provisions of the statute. II. When the competition is with foreign or other railroads which are not subject to the provisions of the statute. III. 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. 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 shorthaul 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. 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. 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. 33. An offer by a railroad company to give a discount to any consignee who, within a year, shall receive at any one station a specified amount of freight, which offer purports to be made to secure speedy despatch, but it is not conditioned on speedy despatch being made, is void, and if a discount is made to one dealer in pursuance of it, all others will be entitled to a like discount. 34. If the real consideration of the offer were to secure speedy despatch, it should have been open to all who could accept it, regardless of quantity. 53. Mileage tickets when issued must be sold impartially to all who apply for them, and on the same terms. 63. A common carrier of live stock is subject to the legal duty to provide reasonable and proper facilities for receiving and discharging from its cars such live stock as is offered for transportation, free of all except the customary transportation charges. It does not fully discharge this duty by receiving on and discharging from its cars live stock at a depot, access to which must be purchased. 64. A railroad company as carrier of live stock had undertaken to give to a stock-yards company an exclusive right at one of its stations, and to require all stock at that station to be received and delivered on the platform of the chutes of that company, the company being authorized to charge lottage therefor. Complainants established by the track of the railroad company chutes of their own, through which they demanded the right of receiving and delivering the stock of themselves and their customers. The conveniences furnished by them being suitable, it was held that their demand must be complied with. 69. The sale of "land explorers' tickets" and "settlers' tickets" at less than the regular rates charged to passengers at the usual ticket offices, as practiced by the Northern Pacific Railroad Company, is unjust discrimination. 71. The rule under which passenger transportation should be conducted requires absolute equality of payment from all persons enjoying the same accommodations. 74. When the same carrier operates parallel lines, and for any cause accepts low rates on one of them, it should provide sufficient corresponding advantages to the patrons of the other line to preserve the substantial equality contemplated by the statute. 75. Low charges upon one of two routes operated by the same carrier should not be made up by relatively high charges upon the other, when the result disastrously affects the business of communities situated upon the latter line. 82. If a railway company in establishing charges on different divisions and branches of its road so adjusts them as to divert trade and business to one locality which naturally, under an equitable adjustment of charges, would go to another, such preference is not excused by the fact that some of such charges are not entirely voluntary, but result from competition between carriers. 83. If determining what is a just and reasonable rate for a particular commodity (for example, wheat) the Commission will take into consideration the earnings and expenses of operating, rates charged upon the same commodity upon other roads as nearly similarly situated as may be, the diversities between the railroad in question and such other roads, the relative amount of through and local business, the proportion borne by the commodity in question to the remainder of the local traffic, the market value of the commodity and its gradual reduction, the reduction made by the carrier upon the articles which are consumed and necessarily required by the producers of the article in question, and all other circumstances affecting the traffic of itself and as related to other considerations entering into the charges of the carrier. 94. Colored people who buy first-class tickets must be furnished with accommodations equally safe and comfortable with other first-class passengers. The Commission finds that the car furnished complainant was only second-class in comforts for travel, and that he was thereby subjected to undue prejudice and unreasonable disadvantage in violation of the act to regulate commerce. 100. Express business, conducted by an independent organization, acquiring transportation rights by contract, held not to be described in the act with sufficient precision to warrant the Commission in taking jurisdiction thereof. 105. By reason of extraordinary circumstances a railroad company cannot promptly meet all calls for cars; it should furnish them ratably and fairly to ali shippers, in proportion to the freights offered by them respectively, until the emergency has passed, and it is again enabled to move promptly all the freights tendered. 108. Rates established by a common carrier in order to keep upon its line material for which the road has use, or to keep the price low for its own advantage, cannot be justified. 109. Producer of railroad material is entitled to sell it when he wishes, in the best available market. Common carriers are forbidden to attempt to prevent this by applying disproportionate or unreasonable rate. 111. It is not a ground of complaint against a railros company that it equalizes its rates as between small and large towns, en though the effect |