FOURTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE CORPORATION COMMISSION FOR THE YEAR ENDING DECEMBER 31, 1912 COMPILATIONS FROM RAILROAD RETURNS ARE FOR YEAR ENDING JUNE 30, 1912 RALEIGH EDWARDS & BROUGHTON PRINTING CO., STATE PRINTERS 1913 STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA CORPORATION COMMISSION EDWARD L. TRAVIS, CHAIRMAN; WILLIAM T. LEE, GEORGE P. PELL, COMMISSIONERS. A. J. MAXWELL, Clerk. MISS ELSIE RIDDICK, MISS META ADAMS, J. S. GRIFFIN, Assistant Clerks. S. A. HUBBARD, Bank Examiner. H. D. BATEMAN, Assistant Bank Examiner. 191395 LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL DEPARTMENT OF THE CORPORATION COMMISSION, To His Excellency, W. W. KITCHIN, RALEIGH, December 31, 1912. Governor of North Carolina. SIR: We hand you herewith our report for the year 1912, it being the fourteenth annual report of the Corporation Commission. This report is issued as of December 31, 1912, and it is proper that an explanation should be made of the extraordinary delay in its publication. The General Assembly of 1911 passed "An Act to Amend Certain Sections of The Revisal of 1905, and to Regulate the Public Printing." Section nine of this act reads as follows: "Sec. 9. Strike out in line two of section 1,117 of The Revisal of 1905 the word ‘annual' and insert in lieu thereof the word 'biennial.'" Several months after the Legislature adjourned it became known to this Department that the section quoted above referred to this Department, and that it changed the existing law with reference to publication of reports of the Corporation Commission by providing that its reports should be published biennially instead of annually. Annual reports had been published by the Department since the creation of the original Railroad Commission, in 1891, and as it was thought desirable to maintain an unbroken series of annual reports it was decided to publish the 1911 report in its regular order and to withhold the 1912 report until the amendment quoted above could be stricken out by the General Assembly in 1913. The amendment referred to was so stricken out, and while this report is delayed in its issue, there will be maintained unbroken the series of annual reports with their statistics in detail of finances and operations of all public service corporations doing business in the State, the assessed value of all corporations assessed for taxation by the Commission, together with orders made by the Commission in formal proceedings and complaints adjusted during the year. INTER-STATE FREIGHT RATES. During the year there was a final determination of the rather longdrawn-out suit of the Corporation Commission against the Norfolk & Western Railway, attacking their interstate freight rates to WinstonSalem and Durham, by final order of the Commerce Court affirming the order of the Interstate Commerce Commissin in that proceeding The order in this case reduced inbound rates from the West to Winston-Salem and Durham 9 cents per 100 pounds on first-class and corresponding reductions on other classes. The reductions were so much less than had been hoped for by the Corporation Commission and the public that not much importance was attached to the order by the public, but the railroad companies fully understood its significance and they contested every inch of the ground and appealed it to the Commerce Court. When it is understood that practically all of our through interstate rates rest upon a fabric of exceptionally high rates from the Virginia cities into the State, the importance of a specific finding by the Interstate Commerce Commission that at one point in the wall the rates were too high, and were ordered reduced, is at once apparent when it is considered that rates to all other points in the State are practically on the same general level. It was expected that the above suit would establish a precedent or basis upon which other suits of more comprehensive application could be based, and during the year for which this report is made the Commission filed with the Interstate Commerce Commission three other suits attacking rates from the West and from the North and East in a more comprehensive way, and, with the increased earnings of these lines since the first suit was tried, it is hoped to secure a greater amount of reduction and more general in its application to other North Carolina cities. The Commission wishes to express its entire satisfaction with the able manner in which it was represented in the suit above mentioned, on appeal before the Commerce Court, by the Attorney-General, Hon. T. W. Bickett. Respectfully submitted, E. L. TRAVIS, Chairman. W. T. LEE, GEO. P. PELL, Commissioners. A. J. MAXWELL, Clerk. DECISIONS AND ADJUSTMENT OF COMPLAINTS CITIZENS OF CHADBOURN v. ATLANTIC COAST LINE RAILROAD CO. IN RE REMOVAL OF FREIGHT WAREHOUSE. ORDER. This is a petition for an order to require defendant to remove the building now occupied as its freight depot at Chadbourn, North Carolina, to a site about one hundred and fifty feet distant and across defendant's main line track. This track was formerly the Wilmington and Manchester Railroad Company. The following facts appear: Defendant operates through Chadbourn two lines of railroad, one from Wilmington to Florence (formerly the Wilmington and Manchester Railroad) and one from Elrod to Conway, and these two roads cross each other at right angles within the corporate limits of said town. For many years prior to August, 1910, defendant had a combination freight and passenger station located near the junction of these roads and on what is described in petition as Railroad avenue. Defendant then concluded to provide better freight and passenger facilities at Chadbourn, and for that purpose erected a new and modern passenger station, near the said junction, and at the same time moved the building which it had been occupying and using as a freight and passenger station and warehouse to a point about seventy-five feet east of its old location, and placed and located the same upon and within the limits of its right of way. The said station was located with reference to and for the convenience of shippers and consignees of freight from both of these roads and is about one hundred and twenty-three feet long and about twenty-three feet wide and has a platform seven feet wide on its eastern and southern sides and on its eastern side connected with said platform is a covered platform fifteen feet wide extending eastwardly about one hundred and twenty-eight feet to the highway called Brown street, and defendant was building a platform seven feet wide on the entire northern side of its said warehouse and next to Railroad avenue and upon its own right of way when it was stopped by restraining order sued out by the town of Chadbourn upon the ground that it would encroach upon what was claimed to be Railroad avenue. This action was pending in the Superior Court of Columbus County when this proceeding was begun before the Corporation Commission, but the plaintiff took a nonsuit in said action on February 28, 1911. The Corporation Commission is of the opinion that when the seven-foot platform shall have been completed on the northern side of the freight warehouse, and when the street at the part of the platform which is too high, shall have been raised (work defendant announced it intended to do), the freight warehouse at Chadbourn as at present located will be fully ade |