In the Iowa law of April 15, 1888, which was modeled largely after the "act to regulate commerce," was the following:

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SEC. 4. * All common carriers subject to the provisions of this act shall, according to their respective powers, afford all reasonable, proper, and equal facilities for the interchange of traffic between their respective lines, and for the receiving, forwarding, and switching of cars, and the receiving, forwarding, and delivering of passengers and property to and from their several lines, and to and from other lines and places connected therewith, and shall not discriminate in their accommodations, rates, and charges between such connecting lines. And any common carrier may be required to switch and transfer cars for another for the purpose of being loaded or unloaded, upon such terms and conditions as may be prescribed by the board of railroad commissioners.

The similarity of this provision to that under which the New York and Northern case was decided by the Commission, as above mentioned, is very noticeable. Yet it was evidently felt that its terms were inadequate to meet many cases where the public interests might demand the establishment of through routes and through rates. Accordingly in April, 1890, it was further enacted by the legislature of Iowa that

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SEC. 2. All railway companies doing business in this State shall, upon the demand of any person or persons interested, establish reasonable joint through rates for the transportation of freight between points on their respective lines within this State, and shall receive and transport freight and cars over such route or routes as the shipper shall direct. Carload lots shall be transferred without unloading from the cars in which such shipments were first made, unless such unloading in other cars shall be done without charge therefor to the shipper or receiver of such carload lots and such transfer be made without unreasonable delay, and less than carload lots shall be tranfserred into the connecting railway's cars at cost, which shall be included in and made a part of the joint rate adopted by such railway companies or established as provided by this act.

When shipments of freight to be transported between different points within this State are required to be carried by two or more railway companies operating connective lines, such railway companies shall transport the same at reasonable through rates, and shall at all times give the same facilities and accommodations to local or State traffic as they give to interstate traffic over their lines of road.

SEC. 3. In the event that said railway companies fail to establish through joint rates, or fail to establish and charge reasonable rates for such through shipments, it shall be the duty of the board of railroad commissioners, and they are hereby directed, upon the application of any person or persons interested, to establish joint rates for the shipment of freight and cars over two or more connecting lines of railroad in this State, and in the making of such rates and in changing or revising the same, they shall be governed, as near as may be, by all the provisions of chapter 28 of the acts of the twenty-second general assembly, and shall take into consideration the average of rates charged by said railway companies for shipments within this State for like distances over their respective lines, and rates charged by the railway companies operating such connecting lines for joint interstate shipments for like distances. The rates established by the board of railroad commissioners shall go into effect within ten days after the same are promulgated by said board, and from and after that time the schedule of such rates shall be prima facie evidence in all of the courts of this State that the [rates so fixed are just and reasonable maximum rates for the] joint transportation of freight and cars upon the railroads for which such schedules have been fixed.

SEC. 4. Before the promulgation of such rates, as provided in section 3 of this act, the board of railroad commissioners shall notify the railroad companies interested in the schedule of joint rates fixed by them; and they shall give said railroad companies a reasonable time thereafter to agree upon a division of the charges provided for in such schedule, and in the event of the failure of said railroad companies to agree upon a division and to notify the board of such agreement, the board of railroad commissioners shall, after a hearing of the companies interested, decide the same, taking into consideration the value of terminal facilities and all the circumstances of the haul, and the division so determined by the board shall, in all controversies or suits between the railroad companies interested, be prima facie evidence of a just and reasonable division of such charges.

In England, to whose legislation many of the American statutes for the regulation of railway traffic, including several of the features of the act to regulate commerce, are quite closely assimilated, the establishment of through routes and through rates by public authority has recently been fully provided for.

The act, passed in 1888, contemplates public action on the application either of connecting carriers or of any person interested in the through traffic; and it is provided that

If an objection be made to the granting of the rate or to the route the (railroad) commissioners shall consider whether the granting of a rate is a due and reasonable facility in the interest of the public, and whether, having regard to circumstances, the route proposed is a reasonable route, and shall allow or refuse the rate accordingly, or fix such other rate as may seem to the commissioners just and reasonable.

Provision is also made for the apportionment of the through rate by the commissioners, and they are directed in making the apportionment to "take into consideration all the circumstances of the case, including any special expense incurred in respect of the construction, maintenance, or working of the route, or any part of the route, as well as any special charges which any company may have been entitled to make in respect thereof." Other safeguards are also provided in the interests of the carriers whose lines constitute the proposed through route.

In England, where a few great systems operate, each for the most part in a field exclusively its own, there can hardly be the same necessity for through routing over independent lines as there is in the United States, where it often happens that a certain section of country is interlaced by the tracks of different and hostile companies. Under the latter condition of things it may very likely be the case that the shortest, most expeditious, and in all respects the best route for commerce between certain cities, would be over two or more independent connecting roads; and yet the policy of one or more of the carriers, regardless of the public interest, may keep this route entirely closed to traffic in the effort to control the channels of trade in their own interests alone. And when it is remembered that a vast amount, perhaps it may be said much the greater proportion, of the traffic thus affected is interstate in its character, the inadequacy of mere State action, if not indeed its unconstitutionality, is apparent; and the subject is seen to be one well worthy of the attention of the national legislature.

BILLS OF LADING.

It would seem not unreasonable that the carriers' charges for transportation of freight should have some reference to the degree of risk assumed in undertaking the carriage.

The two elements of risk and cost of service are, in the estimation of many persons, those which should be mainly controlling in the establishment of traffic charges.

To those who have studied the subject in its practical bearings the fallacy of such an opinion is apparent, as it is well settled that classification, or the system of fixing relative charges on different commodities of commerce, neither is, nor consistently with the public interest can be, based upon cost of service and risk alone.

Many other elements enter into the question of the amount to be charged for the carriage of any particular commodity or class of freight. These it is not proposed here to discuss; the object in alluding to them being merely to draw attention to the fact that in determining practically upon the proper classification of an article, or the rate charged for carrying it, the mere question of the carrier's risk must not be given undue prominence. Risk, nevertheless, remains an element, and in some cases an important element, in adjusting the charge.

In the classification sheets of railroads will usually be found a number of cases where the same article is placed in a much lower class, if carried at owner's risk, than if carried at the risk of the carrier; and the lower classification implies that a lower charge for the transportation is in that case imposed.

It is generally understood that, in the absence of an agreement to the contrary between the carrier and the shipper, the risk is in most cases and in most contingencies upon the former. Nor is the risk thus imposed by the law applicable only in those cases where loss or injury to the property occurs through the negligence, default, or wrong conduct of the carrier or its agents. The carrier's risk is unusual and exceptional in its character, and applies in case of any loss or injury however occurring, with a few tolerably well defined exceptions, no matter how great the care, prudence, and skill it may have exercised, or how guiltless of any fault whatever it may have been. In other words, the carrier becomes an insurer, with the exceptions above suggested, of the safe transportation of the property intrusted to its care. Nor does this onerous risk attach during the period of actual transportation only. It is probably safe to say that it begins as soon as any article is delivered into the custody and control of the carrier for a transit to be commenced either forthwith or in the usual course of the carrier's business, without any further order or directions from the shipper.

The period when this special and extraordinary risk of insurer ends is a matter upon which the authorities are not so well agreed; but in

most cases, and in most jurisdictions, the risk remains on the carrier for a time at least, after the actual transit is terminated. It may thus often happen that the carrier will be liable for the loss or destruction of the property in its depot or warehouse by an accidental fire,robbery, or other cause not in any way due to its neglect, before the actual transit has commenced, or even before, in the usual course of business, it could be begun. It may also in some cases be liable where the property, under similar circumstances, is lost or destroyed after the actual transit is at an end and the property has been placed in the carrier's warehouse awaiting delivery. The liability in the latter case depends somewhat on the extent of the carrier's duty in connection with the delivery of the property to the consignee. This is a matter it is not proposed to discuss. It may be remarked, however, that the carrier's duty generally includes the right delivery of the property, or at least due effort to make such delivery according to the usual course of business; and that its risk usually remains until that duty is discharged. The delivery must be either to the consignee, or to a connecting carrier to be forwarded, according to the circumstances of the case or the contract between the parties.

Since by the course of modern adjudications it has been quite well settled that the carrier can be relieved of the risk which the common law thus imposes by agreement or contract with the shipper, and not otherwise, it has become the general practice of carriers to prepare their shipping contracts with that object in view.

These contracts are usually embodied in the receipts or bills of lading, which the carrier gives the shipper when the property is received by it for transportation.

The bill of lading, as the term implies, was originally but a "bili" or statement of what was loaded on the vessel or vehicle for transportation, and constituted both the carrier's receipt for the goods and the contract to carry and deliver them to consignee. The modern bill of lading, however, in addition to this, contains numerous conditions subject to which, as it is therein stated, the transportation is to be undertaken. These conditions are the means by which it is sought to limit the carrier's common-law liability.

Before entering upon any consideration of the bill of lading, with its conditions, as evidencing the rights of the parties arising out of the delivery and acceptance of property for shipment, it may be well to examine that instrument in another of its aspects, which has recently attracted much attention in commercial circles-among carriers as well as among shippers.

The character of the bill of lading to which reference is now made is that of a receipt for property, since the instrument purports on its face to be a receipt, as well as a contract for carriage.

It is a well settled rule of commercial law that the transfer and delivery of a bill of lading is a symbolic transfer and delivery of the property for which it is a receipt. And thus by means of the bill of lading the property can be, and often is, either sold, or, as is more commonly the case, pledged as security for money advanced upon the faith of it. The transferee of the bill of lading will, under these circumstances, be entitled to delivery of the property from the carrier, especially if the bill has been drawn for delivery to the order of the consignee and by him indorsed or transferred over to another.

On the other hand the carrier, being bound to make delivery to the rightful holder of the bill of lading as above stated, can not usually be compelled to deliver the property except on production of that instrument.

These qualities and features of bills of lading, and the use made of them in commercial transactions as security for advancements of money on discounts of drafts and notes, assimilate them somewhat to that class of commercial paper generally known as negotiable instruments. They are not, however, negotiable in the legal signification of that word, implying the right of any bona fide holder, for value, to the property referred to in them.

Possession even by a holder in perfect good faith of a bill of lading lost or stolen from the true owner would not, it is supposed, entitle such holder to delivery of the property receipted for therein; nor, probably, would the carrier be justified in making delivery of such a holder. This consideration sufficiently distinguished bills of lading from strictly negotiable instruments.

But in some of the States the doctrine of estoppel, as it is termed in the law, has been under certain circumstances so applied to the documents issued by shipping agents of carriers, purporting the receipt of goods for transportation, as still further to impress them with the quality of negotiability. It may happen that by carelessness, mistake, or fraudulent collusion between carrier and shipper a receipt or bill of lading may be issued for property which in point of fact has not been received by the carrier at all, or which, if received, is less in quantity or inferior in quality to that mentioned in the receipt.

This erroneous or fraudulent bill of lading may in the usual course of business come into the hands of some person who, in good faith and relying on the truthfulness and genuineness of the instrument, advances money upon the security supposed to be afforded by its possession.

Thus an innocent third party is induced by the representations of the instrument to take such action as will subject him to serious loss, if those representations may afterwards be controverted by the party against whom they purport to establish a right. Under these circumstances the latter party may sometimes be estopped from denying the truth of such representation as against the party misled by them, even though in point of fact they do not really express the truth.