without naming the concerns that compose it), | bans, etc.; and the reason it did not combine whether from Boston or any place between that point and White River Junction, on business going into the State of Vermont, that the two roads have arranged and agreed upon a basis upon which that business shall be done and the prices which shall be paid for it; an arrangement and understanding was arrived at and consummated between the agent of the corporation of the Central Vermont Railroad Company, on the one hand, and the agent of the corporation of the Boston & Lowell Railroad Company, on the other, and perhaps some of the other roads in the route, but mainly be tween the two I have named. That arrangement was made in advance as to what rates should be charged for that joint business, and the division that was to be made from the collection of those rates, as shown by the division list put in evidence. If this is not a joint arrangement (which is more than the Law requires), if it is not an "arrangement," to use the very language of the Law, for the carriage of goods from one State into another over a common line, then there is no language that can be taken out of our English tongue that can accomplish it. And I leave that. That is all I wish to say about that. The National Despatch Line. Now, as to this National Despatch Line. That is just the same only it is done in a different form. We have learned from the evidence in this case what this National Despatch Line is. As some of the witnesses stated, it is only a name, or a trademark. But the public have never known what it really is. A well known man in this town, who is a large ship per, said to me that he had sent millions of dol lars of freight out of this town by the National Despatch Line, supposing it to be a regularly organized corporation, having a body and cap. ital and officers, and somebody to look to if there was any loss or damage to be made good. He was much amused to find that the National Despatch Line was in reality a good deal better and stronger than he supposed it was in that respect, for it had turned out to be composed of the Boston & Lowell Railroad Company, with all its goods, assets and effects; the Central Vermont, with all its goods, assets and effects; the Grand Trunk Railway and all its belongings, and a good deal better. But we find that this National Despatch Line is simply a name by which these three operating railroads transact through business together; by which they convey freight from Boston to the West, and to Montreal and East, from those places to Boston and eastern points. That brings these roads within the Act, I assume. The question, then, is simply whether, in order to bring any one of them or all of them within the fourth section of this Act, it is necessary that they should all combine in the charging of a greater rate for a shorter distance than for the longer one. If it is necessary that they should all combine, then it is clear to my mind, as my learned friend Strout says, that the Grand Trunk Railway Company has not had anything to do in respect of the charges that are to be made between Boston and West Lebanon, or White River Junction, or between Boston and White River Junction, Montpelier, St. Al was that it had no interest in that matter. If you take the proposition. in the reverse, the Boston & Lowell would have no interest whatever and could have nothing to do and would have nothing to do with the question of rates on freight from Toronto or Detroit to Montpelier, although that would have come from a foreign country to the United States. The only way, on that theory of the Law, that you could have the fourth section operate at all would be between two roads in adjoining States who made an interchange, each agreeing that it would charge as a common carrier, so much into the other State, and would collect the carriage money and pay it over. This would bring them within the operation of the Law, I think you will be satisfied, as I certainly am. Take the Boston & Lowell, where Mr. Mellen swears they got once and a half or twice as much for carrying a car load of chairs from Boston to White River Junction, for use there, as they would if the chairs were going to Montreal or beyond. They are hauling the same goods over the same line in the same direction, and the same distance in one case, for less than half what they get in the other. Putting such a construction upon the business as is urged here, there is not a single road in the world, not even between two States, that would be under the provision of section 4, and could not be. But this is the position they take. It is the philosophy and dialectics of sophistry that people who feel the hand of the law and are conscious of doing injustice, resort to-as is fair for counsel if they can persuade anybody to believe it-to escape from a plain responsibility. The same is true in the reverse order. The Central Vermont will not be liable under that claim, because they have nothing to do with what the Lowell Road gets the moment you cross into New Hampshire, and the Lowell nothing to do with what the Central gets the moment the line of Vermont is crossed the other way. Neither is responsible. It is only necessary to state such a proposition to see the fallacy of it, and make an end of it. Congress has not any power over interstate commerce, if that proposition be correct. But, if there being any arrangement to do that thing brings them within the jurisdiction and power of Congress, then the doing of it must be within its remedial power of prohibi tion. And they do it. I will call your attention to the case where the Boston & Lowell, within its own State and its own corporate boundary, makes the rates you have heard in the evidence. It does not charge any more for carrying goods to Manchester than it does to carry them to White River Junction, if it is going to stop there. Mr. Mellen tells you with entire frankness: I get twice as much for doing that thing to White River Junction as I do if it is going to Montpelier. But if it is going to be a purely local, intrastate traffic, then I do not charge any more for carrying a thing to Manchester than to White River Junc tion; but if it is going to be interstate traffic, then I fly directly in the face of the Law. Although it does not appear on my tables, yet as a matter of fact I make an arrangement by which I get twice as much for my short dis tance as I do for the longer distance of which | the master (as every man has a right to receive I form a component and "arranging" part. Excusing Circumstances and Conditions. Now, then, we come to the only question in this case, that is under section 4, as to whether it is made out that the circumstances and conditions are such that you are bound to find, or ought to find fairly and justly, that these companies ought to be relieved from this duty. I will say something later upon the question under the other part of the statute. The first reason they urge as an excusing circumstance is the length of their line. I respectfully submit that the length of line over the same line over which the freight goes any short distance and long distance is no different as to these roads than it can be on any other line in the country. So that length of line only enters as one element in the matter of competition at some distant point of the system, and in no other respect whatever. profit from his labor which he can sell at any price he chooses to take, or not), will be regulated according to the value of the services performed and not according to the particular circumstances of the person or the corporation who has to perform it. What right has a miller, for illustration, to charge me ten cents a bushel for grinding wheat because there is a mortgage on his mill? What right has a railroad company, like one out in Ohio, managed by Ives, to put its rates up double because double the amount of its stock has been fraudulently issued, into innocent hands, I will assume; and, therefore, to pay a profit the rates must be raised, and the public made to pay it? What right has a railroad to put up its rates above a fair value for the service performed, because the management has been extravagant or unfortunate, and got itself into debt? I deny the proposition. And I say that in less than ten years, unless the people of the United States have lost their reason, this matter will be dealt with by Congress, as far as they have the power, and you will not be troubled with any question about considerations as to competition. You will only be troubled with the question of what is reasonable according to the value of the service performed, because that stands, and can only stand upon principles that are beyond the reach of any contrivances that men may make. Then you come to the difficulty of weather and climate. Is that an element that makes a special circumstance and condition over the same line? If I live in the tropics, where there is no snow at all, is it to be said that because it is hotter at one place on the line than it is at another point on the same line, there is a reason for making a difference in the rates to those respective points? Of course not. If I live in the Arctics, as we do here in the winter, does it cost a railroad any more to haul a But we will take it as it is. I say on the short distance through the snow and get its construction of this Law itself, fairly and justcars out of the snow banks than it does to haul ly, on the special circumstances and condiit a longer distance over the mountains in the tions, that the fact that there is competition, winter? It must costs less, under the cir- although it is the strongest that there is, is yet cumstances, for the shorter distance. The the very smallest of elements that should enter idea, therefore, that the snow or the grades into the considertion of this question. The claim has anything to do with this question of object and purpose of Congress in making use charging more for a short distance than for of that phrase was to guard against some exa longer one over the same line, is preposter-treme and possible circumstances that could ous, with all respect to the honored gentlemen on the other side. Twoo Sides to the Question. not be foreseen. It was intended that those special circumstances and conditions related to the work and the service to be done, and the relations of the parties between whom and by whom it was to be done, and not the relations either of the shippers to the business, or the railroad to its competitors, its enemies or its. friends. There are two sides to the subject of money making and profits, it might be added. These railroads appeal to you to allow them to make a fair profit, as much as they fairly and reasonably can. That is proper enough. But they But we will suppose it is not so. We will owe the same duty to their customers, and you suppose that competition is an element to be owe the same duty to their customers. The considered. Where would you find yourselves, weather is no colder for the railroads in Ver- then, upon any such competition as exists mont than it is for the farmer. It is no colder here? Here is this line, and here are the other in Vermont in the winter for the railroad, than lines in New England competing for this trafit is for the manufacturer, or the passenger, or fic; the lines from Boston to the West crossing anybody else. They are all under precisely the State of New York, or from Baltimore to the same conditions on the same line, as of to the West, from Savannah to the West and course they must be. Therefore, all those con- East and North and South. Every road can siderations fail, entering for what they are say the same thing and be excused from comworth merely into the consideration of compliance with the requirements of the Law. As petition at a distant point. Now, then, I submit with great respect, and I think it will turn out to be so in the next ten years, not upon any supposed construction of this Law that you may make, or upon any too extended a construction of it, but as a fact in the social economics of this country, resting upon justice which gives to every man his due and fair play to all, that every service that a railroad or any body else does for another under public regulations, and of which he is not an illustration of my idea, take the Passumpsic line, if that be an independent one. It will form a good basis for example because it is a parallel line to the Central Vermont in this same north country, and a competitor with the Central Vermont. If a charge were brought against the Passumpsic, that road would say: I am in competition. You must not touch me. I must charge more for the shorter than for the longer distance, because there is such a strong competition to contend against. The which, it is to be presumed, are not unwilling to see the "survival of the fittest." Weak lines are to be swallowed up, competition destroyed, and the very purpose of the Interstate Commerce Law defeated. The rates thus fixed by the trunk lines must be met, or the Central Vermont must go out of the business; and in meeting them another obstacle is in the way. The Boston and Albany Line is about 140 miles shorter to Chicago than the Central Vermont Line. (See Porteous' Milage Computation.) At the same rates from Boston to competing points in the West, traffic would naturally go by the shorter and quicker line. To meet the difficulty and overcome the inequality thus existing between the lines, it was, as early as 1865, conceded by the trunk lines that this line might charge less than the trunk lines to competing points in the West. This line was obliged to do this in order to secure business, and it was conceded by the trunk lines as a matter of justice. On the other hand, while this line was the longest and slowest, it could, nevertheless, make the lower rate because its line reached the great Lakes at Ogdensburgh by a shorter rail line (118 miles) than the Boston & Albany reached the great Lakes at Buffalo, and also because defendant's cars go West empty, unless they take freight at such rates as they can get. They maintain rates for east bound freight. (See maps and Porteous' Milage Computation.) All the foregoing applies to the Ogdensburgh & Lake Champlain Road as well as the Central Vermont. See auditor's statement as to earn ings from through and local business. ville & Nashville Case covers every point. But since the announcement of that decision, Judge Deady has gone a step further, and held that competition in all cases, whether by foreign or domestic corporations, or by water lines, constitutes a dissimilar circumstance. Ex parte Koehler, 1 Interstate Com. Rep. 817. The lines out of Boston that compete for west bound traffic to points in the West are very numerous, and are enumerated in the answers and shown on the maps. Montreal is a competing point. The Grand Trunk, via Portland, is one line competing there; the water line, via New York and Lake Champlain, is another; the Delaware & HudsonCanal Company is another; the Canadian Pacific is another. A vast amount of traffic that, before the passage of the Interstate Commerce Law, used to come over the Grand Trunk and Central Vermont, and was exported at Boston, now stops at Montreal, and is exported that way. IV. a. It is true that the Boston & Albany Company, and everybody else, has a standing before this Commission to complain. But it is observable that this complaint does not come from a shipper who complains of the rates at Ogdensburgh and St. Albans respectively. It comes from a competitor at points on the great Lakes, and that is the real grievance. The Boston & Albany care nothing about the rates at Ogdensburgh and St. Albans. Theirs is not a missionary duty. But the trouble is, they want to get rid of their principal competitor for west bound traffic to competing points in the West. But it has been generally supposed that the object of the Interstate Commerce Law was to encourage competition and to break down monopolies instead of creating them; and so the Commission announced in the Louisville & Nashville Case. e. The decision in the Louisville & Nashville Case (1 Interstate Com. Rep. 278), completely covers this case. That case announces the rule that when the competition is by foreign railroads or lines, competition is of itself a dissimilar circumstance. Also water lines. The principal competitorsfor Boston west How often has it been held that he who seeks bound traffic are the Grand Trunk, via Port-equity must come into court with clean hands. land, and the Canadian Pacific, via the South- Motives are material. Thus when a stockeastern, also a Canadian corporation, and a holder of a private corporation buys the stock water line by ocean carriage from Boston to of a rival corporation for the purpose of bring Halifax, and thence by the Inter-Colonial to ing a suit to destroy the rivalry, he will not be Montreal, and by the other water lines referred heard in a court of equity, when the question to in the maps, answers and testimony. is one of discretion. Especially is this true by the all water line, via New York City, the Hudson River, the Erie Canal and the Great Lakes to Cleveland, Port Huron, Detroit, Milwaukee, and Chicago. New England agents sell their goods delivered in New York, at New England prices. The carriage by water from Boston to New York is trifling. The rates from New York to Cleveland and Detroit are 35 30 25 18 17 15. And Milwaukee and Chicago, 35 30 25 20 18 16. The rates of insurance are much less by this line than by the Central Vermont Line of Steamers, via Ogdensburgh; so that in the ag gregate the rate is 8 to 10 cents per hundred pounds less than on any other line. A vast amount of New England business that used to go via Ogdensburgh now goes by this route, since the passage of the Interstate Commerce Law. 1 Redfield on Railways, 76. The author says: "But when the fact is established that under pretense of serving the interests of one company, the shareholders of a rival company, by purchasing shares for the purpose of liti gation, can make this court the instrument for defeating or injuring the company into which they so intrude themselves, in order to raise questions and disputes on matters as to which all the other members of the company may be agreed, I cannot consider that in such a case it is the province of the court ordinarily to in terfere. In questions of the law of contracts, when there is a discretionary jurisdiction in this court, circumstances affecting the con dition of the contracting parties and the origin of their rights in relation to the subject matter of the contract deserve great consideration." b. The second, third, and fourth sections of the Interstate Commerce Law are merely deIt is unnecessary to go further. The Louis-claratory of the common law. Unjust dis crimination was illegal at common law. So was undue preference; and to charge more for a shorter than a longer distance, for the same amount and class of freight, under the same circumstances, was also illegal. Atchison, etc. R. R. Co. v. Denver, etc. R. R. Co. 110 U. S. 683 (Bk. 28, L. ed. 297). The guiding rule at common law was, What is reasonable? And that is the rule, and the only guiding rule, under this statute, where every case involves a question of law and fact, and where every case depends on its own merits. Points. Ogdensburgh St. Albans, Burlington, The petitioners never have been able to Waterbury, break down the defendant's line as a competitor Montpelier, for through business. Is it reasonable that the instrumentality of the Interstate Commerce Law should be used to accomplish that purpose, when the object of the Law was to promote competition? c. The petition is based on the fourth section. No questions arise under any other section. Petitions must notify parties of what they have got to meet, otherwise interminable confusion arises on trial. Rutland, White River Junction, Points. As to the Petition of the Vermont State Grange. Lyndonville, A. The Rates to Boston, etc. V. The rates between Boston and Ogdensburgh and St. Albans, respectively, and other Vermont points are reasonable, and for a great variety of reasons besides those enumerated above. The rates charged compare most favorably with those of other north and south lines. The character of the country through which these roads run, the cost of construction, the cost of operation and the amount of local support will, of course, be remembered. No proper comparison can be made between Vermont Roads and roads running through Massachusetts, between Boston and New York, where there are numerous rival roads and where the roads pass through large manufacturing districts, and are operated at a comparatively small expense. The only fair test is to take other roads, situated like the Central Vermont and Ogdensburgh Roads, and compare their interstate rates. The Passumpsic Road is of this character. The St. Johnsbury & Lake Champlain Road is another. Ryegate, Points. Island, it will be noticed that the rates given b. As to the rates to Providence, Rhode by the Central Vermont are also less than those of other Vermont Roads to the same point. CENTRAL VERMONT ROAD. Distances dence. Rates 100 lbs. 1st class. 233 58 222 58 Points. The rates made by the Central Vermont Road to Boston are less than the rates of either of these roads for the same distances. The rates made by the Central Vermont Road to Providence, Rhode Island, are also less than those of other Vermont lines. The rates made by the Connecticut River Railroad and the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad for Vermont business are higher, distances considered, than the rates made by the Central Vermont Road from St. Albans and c. As to the rates to New York, it will be other Vermont points to Boston, which latter noticed that the difference in favor of the Cenare the subject of complaint. The tables sub-tral Vermont is great on the first four classes mitted by Mr. Chittenden will show this. The of freight, and still greater on the last two local rates that begin and end in Vermont are, classes. e. The Delaware and Hudson Canal Com- (See Mr. Chittenden's Statement.) pany's Road is an instance of a New York f. The Interstate rates of the Central Ver Railroad running through a country similar to mont from points in Vermont to Boston and this. A reference to the table of that com New York, compare most favorably with the pany's rates, given in Mr. Chittenden's state- rates for like distances of many other roads in ment, shows that the Interstate rates to Boston, the United States which run through farming given by the Central Vermont Road on the districts, though the character of the country east side of Lake Champlain, compare very through which these latter roads run is such favorably with those of the Delaware & Hud- that their cost of construction and operation is son Canal Company's for corresponding points necessarily small as compared with that of on the west side of the lake; and in many in-roads of the Central Vermont. A comparison stances the rates of the Central Vermont for corresponding distances are considerably less. For instance the Delaware & Hudson Canal Company's rate from Westport to Boston, a distance of 298 miles, is sixty cents, while the Central Vermont's rate from Alburgh to the same point, a distance of 284 miles, is only fifty-five cents. of the_rates from points on the Central Vermont Road to Boston with the Interstate rates of the Chicago & Alton Railroad, northwest of Woodhouse, where prices are graduated by distances, shows the following: (See Mr. Chittenden's Statement.) |