Topic D. Grouping Stations and Basing Points § 592. The system of grouping. 593. Distances considered in grouping. 594. Grouping must be reasonable. 595. Testing reasonableness of grouping. 596. Uniform rate to a group of stations. 597. Commutation rates for suburban passengers. 598. How basing points are established. 599. Whether basing points justified. 600. Determination of base rate. 601. Extent of power over grouping. 602. Creation of a market by preferential rates. $560. Provisions of the Act. The Commission had originally little power over the details of rate making, but by the 1910 Amendment the bases upon which tariffs are made seem to be pretty much in its hands. The provisions of section 6, requiring the publishing of schedules, and insisting upon adherence thereto as the only proper rate to be charged, are old; but to the requirement that on request the officials must themselves decipher their schedules, and quote a correct rate under penalty for failure, is new. And section 15 now provided in detail that the Commission shall have the power to make orders, with reference to rates, tariffs, regulations, or practices which are or may be made or prescribed, and just and reasonable regulations and practices affecting rates, or tariffs, the issuance, form, and substance of tickets, receipts, and bills of lading, the manner and method of presenting, marking, packing, and delivering property for transportation, the facilities for transportation, the carrying of personal, sample, and excess baggage, and all other matters relating to or connected with the receiving, handling, transporting, storing, and delivery of property subject to the provisions of the Act, which may be necessary or proper to secure the safe and prompt receipt, handling, transportation, and delivery of property subject to its provisions. The extent to which in making rates the relations of distances must be observed is more fully discussed in Chapter XVI than here. § 561. Fixing the particular rate. There are certain details relating to the fixing of a rate which must be considered. Rate making has become enough of a science to have its own technique. The separate rate is the definite charge fixed by the person conducting a public employment as the price regularly demanded for performing the service asked. So many kinds of service are asked by so many people, that it would be inconvenient to conduct the business without some established schedule of rates. It would, indeed, be a practical impossibility to fix a separate rate for each service by itself. Thus a classified schedule of regular charges is the usual characteristic of a public business. Indeed by modern legislation such rate schedules are made obligatory, to make sure that all may know the rate in advance, and to make certain that all shall be charged the same rate. Various methods of charging, it will be seen, may be adopted in framing such schedules, so long as the rate imposed may be known with certainty. And this end is furthered by basing rates upon some unit of service. This is indeed the most salient characteristic of a rate, considered abstractly, that it is an entirety-the single charge for the whole service which is performed. Topic A. The Unit of Charge § 562. Characteristics of a rate. It is natural in public calling in the generality of cases that things are done by rule. The very character of the business usually dictates this policy. Public businesses are commonly carried on upon a large scale; and action according to rules fixed in advance is always found necessary for the proper conduct of any great business. This applies to charging compensation as much as it applies to any other thing done in carrying on the business. It is therefore plainly consistent with public duty for those who manage a public service to establish a schedule of rates as the basis of charges. 27 A rate thus fixed is a regulation, and has the legal characteristics pertaining to a regulation made by a public service company to govern the dealings between itself and the public. Thus a schedule of rates once duly established will be presumed to be reasonable unless the contrary is shown. It will be recognized that some minor inequalities are unavoidable in the application of all schedules. It will be considered proper to publish these rates so that a person dealing with the public company may know with some certainty how much he will be charged. 28 And it will be held bad practice to change established rates without giving notice. All these are generally true of other regulations, and it is submitted that they ought to be held as to rates. § 563. Established unit prima facie reasonable. Where the carriers establish a classification and continue it in operation for a considerable time, it may fairly be inferred that the classification is a reasonable one, and it will be so presumed; and the burden of showing the charge unreasonable is on the party, whether carrier or shipper, who proposes a change. "The continuance of a given rate is not conclusive evidence of the reasonableness of that rate; but when a railway company advances a rate which has been for some time in force, the fact of its continuance is in the nature of an admission against that company which tends to show the unreasonableness of the advance." 29 Where, however, a classification is adopted and maintained under an order of the Commission no such presumption can be made, even though the Commission has no power to enforce its order, since the carrier does in fact obey the See Alan Wood I. & S. Co. v. Pa. R. R., 24 I. C. C. 27. 28 See Western Classification Case, 25 I. C. C. 442. 29 Re Charges on Food Products, 4 I. C. C. 48. order, and does not act voluntarily and upon its own judgment. "The carriers classified soap in carloads as fifthclass freight originally, and only changed it to sixth class in compliance with our order in 1891. However limited the compulsory effect of an order by the Commission may be in the present state of the law, compliance with its requirements cannot be regarded as voluntary action by the carriers. There is nothing to show that the carriers would have changed soap in carloads to sixth class in 1891 or later if no order requiring that to be done had been issued." 30 § 564. Classification sheet not varied by representation. The classification sheet, as has been seen, becomes binding from the moment of publication; and it cannot be varied by any private bargain or by any representation made to a particular shipper."1 "It will be convenient, before taking up the official classifications for examination, to consider the complainant's claim that he was induced to locate at Ashtabula by the assurances of defendant's agents that his goods would be taken as sixth class. Some importance is attached to these assurances as establishing equities in his favor. On the other hand, it is contended by the defense that complainant was understood in the correspondence to be asking for rates upon blocks as they are when first cut from the log and with the bark on, and that it was with reference to such blocks that rates were given him. We do not however consider this very material. The official classification must have the same construction in favor of all other persons as is given in favor of complainant; no assurances to him, however honestly made or honestly relied upon, can entitle him to special rates. He could not have special rates under an express promise, and quite as plainly he cannot have them because of any conduct of defendant's agents such as was shown in proof. The law 30 Holmes v. Southern Ry., 8 I. C. C. Rep. 561. 31 Cooley, Chairman, in Hurlbut v. Lake Shore & M. S. R. R., 2 Int. Com. Rep. 81, 2 I. C. C. Rep. 122. requires uniformity and impartiality in the dealings of a carrier with all its customers." 32 § 565. Methods of charging in rate making. It is for the management of the railroad to decide the basis upon which the rate shall be made up. More than this, it will commonly be not unreasonable to employ different methods in arriving at the proper rate in different cases; and if these differing methods are respectively used in appropriate treatment of varying subject-matter, it is plain that this is not only consistent with public duty, but cases can even be imagined where not to do so would be inconsistent with public duty. It is, for example, plainly justifiable for a railroad in making its freight rates to charge for coal by the ton, but for paper boxes by the cubic yard. "The space required is rightly taken into account in the adjustment of freight charges, when the bulk is so considerable in comparison with weight as to occupy space which if taken up by heavier freight would yield larger receipts." 33 What has just been said is of course subject to the limitation that there must be no illegal discrimination of any sort by charging some by one measure and others by another. But where the railway company fixed rates for packages containing a certain number of pounds, it was held that baskets of fish, of a size required by the business, should be rated by the pound and not by the size of packages as contained in the published rates of the railway company.34 32 See Proctor & Gamble Co. v. C., H. & D. Ry., 9 I. C. C. 440. 33 Commissioner Morrison in James v. East Tenn. V. & G. R. R., 2 Int. Com. Rep. 609, 3 I. C. C. Rep. 225. The Commission has recognized the right of carriers, in order to facilitate the movement of business, to fix an estimate weight upon certain standard packages upon which a rate is based. This estimated weight is taken into consideration in the making of the rate itself, and of such estimated weights shippers have the right to complain before this Commission and secure relief. White & Co. v. B. & O. S. W. R. R., 12 I. C. C. 306. 34 Woodger v. Great Western R. Co., 2 Nev. & Mac. 102, s. c., L. R. 2 C. P. 318. Certain conditions govern classi |