er this rule the shipper must pay the
premium which bond-watering and bad management command. The general
enforcement of such a rule would place the public at the mercy of
scheming railroad manipulators. No matter to what extent the business of
a road may increase, a reduction of rates can always be prevented by the
issue of new bonds and the doubling of the already lordly salaries of
its managers. Again, under the operation of this rule a road which
entirely suffices to do the business between two points may be
paralleled by another and the public be compelled to pay excessive rates
to maintain both. It might be said that the public cannot be forced to
patronize any road, that if it would not withdraw its patronage from the
old line, the new line would soon become bankrupt, and that in such an
event its owners, and not the public, would be the sufferers. This
argument may be met by the statement that, aside from the fact that
concerted action among a large number of people can never be secured,
few roads rely for their support solely upon local business, and that
any loss which the older road sustains from encroachments by its rival
upon its through traffic it is compelled to make up by raising its rates
upon its local business. It is the almost inevitable consequence when
one road is paralleled by another that the business which was
previously done by one road will be nearly equally divided between the
two, and under the rule laid down by Judge Brewer the public will be
called upon to pay the operating expenses and the interest on the bonds
of both, together with such dividends on the stock as the financiering
ability of their managers may secure. The better judgment seems to be
that to determine what are reasonable rates is not a question for
judicial adjudication.

The Interstate Commerce Commission, in their fourth annual report,
assert that "there can be no standard of expense which the courts can
act upon and apply, but that the whole field is one of judgment in the
exercise of a reasonable discretion by the managing powers, or by the
public authorities in reviewing their action." Their views upon this
subject are still more definitely stated in the following words
contained in the same report:

"An attempt is made to give authority to the courts to
interfere by the suggestion that property or charter
contract rights, or both, are involved in the matter of
fixing rates, and therefore tha