in the Interstate
Commerce Act or upon the statute books of other States. It provides that
charges must be reasonable and just, that no undue preference or
advantage shall be given to any railroad patron, and that equal
facilities for interchange of traffic shall be given to all roads; it
prohibits pooling, a greater charge for a shorter than longer haul, the
shorter or any portion of it being included in the longer, and
discrimination against any shipping point. It requires that schedules of
rates and fares shall be printed and kept for public inspection, and
that no advance shall be made in rates or fares once established except
after ten days' public notice; and it empowers the Board of Railroad
Commissioners to make and revise schedules for railroads, the rates
contained in such schedules to be received and held in all suits as
_prima facie_ reasonable maximum rates. The act further provides
penalties and means of enforcement.

It must not be supposed that by the passage of this act the legislature
disclaimed the right to fix absolute rates; it simply chose this
expedient because in the present tentative stage of rate regulation it
seemed most efficient.

There has been much misunderstanding concerning the Iowa law. Many
suppose that the Iowa commissioners have power to make confiscatory
rates for the railroads, while in fact they can only name maximum rates
which shall be deemed and taken in all courts of the State as _prima
facie_ evidence that they are reasonable and just maximum rates until
the railroads show that they are not. They are at liberty to go into
court any day and show this, if they are able. They are, however,
careful not to undertake it, for no one knows better than they do that
the rates fixed by the commissioners are liberal for the railroads.

There are nine States, besides Iowa, in which the power to fix rates has
been conferred upon railroad commissioners. This feature of the law was
therefore far from being a novel one, yet no provision of the act was,
previous to its passage, so furiously opposed, or subsequent to it so
stubbornly resisted as this. Railroad managers realized that a surrender
of the right to make their own rates was virtually a surrender of the
power to practice abuses.

Soon after the passage of the law the commissioners commenced the work
of preparing schedules of the rates for the roads. They endeavored to do
justice to both the railroad companies and their patrons by