the cases decided in the Courts with hardly a reference to the rulings of the Commissions, while the Railroad Rate Regulation in its present form is based almost entirely upon the decisions of the Commission under the Act, only those decisions of the Courts upon appeal therefrom being included, unless some point requires particular discussion.

It may be noted further in explaining the structure of this Second Edition that in the First Edition there was after Book I on the general law of common carriers, Book II with a general discussion of Rates and Discrimination from the court decisions, and finally Book III, having a particular commentary on the Act itself based upon the rulings of the Commission then in existence. This involved not necessarily a duplication of the discussion, but a separation of parts naturally complementary. The basis upon which this new Edition is worked out is, therefore, the consolidation of these separated chapters and the rewriting of them in the light of the mass of cases decided since. Thus the subjects of Rates and Discriminations are brought together under a single analysis of the several elements of the problems therein involved, and it is all remoulded in accordance with the lines indicated by the progress of the administration of the law since the original chapters were written. It should be said, however, that certain chapters stand without structural change as the foundation of the present treatment; this is especially noteworthy in the case of the chapters on Classification of Goods, Discrimination between Localities, Schedules of Rates, and Investigations of the Commission. In each of these chapters fully four times as many cases are cited in the footnotes as in the original chapters; and these long chapters, so fundamental in any book dealing with the principles governing Railroad Rate Regulation deal with matters to which only a few pages are devoted in the general treatment of Public Service Companies.

Moreover, there are many topics peculiar to the subject of the regulation of rates by the Commission under the Act,

necessarily disposed of far too briefly in the First Edition, which can now receive the fullest possible consideration. Thus two considerable chapters in the first book of this Second Edition are devoted to treating of the scope of the jurisdiction of the Federal Government over the regulation of charges for interstate transportation and the extent of the jurisdiction conferred upon the Interstate Commerce Commission over common carriage and other transportation services. When the First Edition was written in 1906 the Commission had just been given power to fix rates for the future, and the power to suspend advances in rates was not granted until 1910; likewise its power to order joint rates, not granted until 1906, was not perfected until 1910. All of the treatment upon the Functions of the Commission in establishing Rates and the Jurisdiction of the Commission over Joint Rates which extends over several chapters in the Second Edition is, therefore, new matter written upon the basis of important decisions, all of which have been decided since the First Edition. The headings throughout are made so specific that the practitioner can easily seize upon the subject which is of interest to him for the time being in the matter he is examining. And after thus placing the business with which he is dealing, the lawyer working up a case will find under the appropriate heading in the Table of Contents the provisions of the Act summarized in the first section of each chapter followed by a statement of the scope of the powers of the Commission.

Attention may be called to the way in which the contrast is brought out between opposing theories of rate regulation where the conflict in the law is as yet not determined. Thus the policies of basing schedules as a whole upon the original Cost of the plant or upon its present Value are elaborately discussed together, with an indication of the collateral effects of a decision one way or the other. Likewise, whether in dealing with particular rates the Cost of the service or its Value is to be taken as the test, receives treatment to the extent of a chapter upon each. The author does not hesitate

to let his own preference for cost as the basis of regulation appear, although he appreciates the modifications to which this theory must be subjected when put into practice. But at the same time in putting this book at the service of the profession at large, he has felt that care should be taken to set forth fully all that could be said for value as the basis of regulation, subject to such limitations as must necessarily be recognized. All of these four chapters on Rates in Particular and the Basis of Rate Structure are so largely rewritten as to be practically new matter.

As in the First Edition unusual space is devoted to the details of practice. Practically every case involving a point of practice of importance before the Commission has been treated in the text of the long chapter devoted to Procedure before that tribunal. And in regard to subsequent Proceedings before the Courts every case in which the action of the Commission has been brought in question in the Courts has been cited in this final chapter. Moreover, in the Appendix there are not merely the statutory provisions, but the Rules of Practice, and along with these Forms of Pleadings, both before the Commission and the Courts, which have stood the test of litigation. To make room for all this detailed matter the extracts from the statutes relating to the State Commissions, which were in the First Edition have been omitted. Indeed, in his work as counsel for the National Civic Federation in 1913 the writer found that the statutory matter collected on this point alone was sufficient to fill a large volume of its publications, such has been the growth of the Commission Control of Public Utilities in the past few years.

There remains the pleasant opportunity afforded by the preface to a Second Edition to express the gratitude of the author to the profession at large for the reception which has been accorded to the First Edition. Seldom has a law book been reviewed at such length in periodicals of standing, and aside from the gratification which an author naturally feels from such consideration, he hopes

that he will be found to have profited from justified criticisms upon certain details. It rather belongs to the publisher than to the author to point out in advertisement of this Edition that this book has at times been quoted and discussed in rulings of Commissions and opinions of Courts and in briefs and arguments. The author trusts he appreciates the obligations which this recognition of the book lays upon him in the making of a Second Edition with the rewriting it has involved.

To many of his former colleagues upon the faculty of the Harvard Law School with whom the author has talked over most of these questions and particularly to Professor Joseph H. Beale, who was his senior partner in the writing of the First Edition, the author first of all acknowledges his indebtedness. But not less does he appreciate the part in providing him the basis for working out this Edition owed to the discussions which he had had in and out of the class room with thousands of fellow students during the past ten years. From the point of view of the practitioner will be of perhaps greater interest what the writer has gained from experience as a consultant from his conferences on the scope of their functions with public officials and regulating bodies and particularly from his service as counsel under railroad executives and traffic officers. In closing, peculiar indebtedness should be acknowledged to Dr. Lawrence B. Evans, formerly head of the Department of History and Public Law in Tufts College now of the Massachusetts Bar, who has done practically all the work of revision on the two chapters on the important questions of Local Discrimination and Court Procedure with the skill and knowledge of an expert in governmental and economic learning.

BOSTON, March 1, 1915.

B. W.

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION

The passage of the Federal Railroad Rate Act of 1906 has both emphasized the present importance and added to the future importance of the law governing the regulation of railroad rates. In all interstate shipments, which comprise so large a proportion of our railroad traffic, and in the local shipments of a very large number of our States, the maximum rates are now regulated by law; either directly by legislature, or (as is usually the case) by the action of a commission under authority conferred by the legislature.

It is hardly necessary at this time to call special attention to the practical importance to every member of the community of the charges made by the railroads. To the vast majority these charges are an important part of the cost of their food; it is in the power of the great trunk lines, except where the law can restrain them, by an increase of rates to cause a famine as serious as would be caused by a complete failure of the crops. To a great number of our people, on the other hand, to the great farmers of the interior, to the ranch men of the plains, to the planters of the South, to the manufacturers of the seaboard, and to the millions of their employees who are dependent upon their prosperity,-railroad charges are of greater immediate importance. The railroads, if unrestrained by law, can prosper or can ruin them; they can build up a great and flourishing business, or they can turn an industrious city into a wilderness again. That power such as this should be the subject of legal restraint is inevitable; that the legal qualities and limitations of such restraint should be of the greatest interest to the profession and to the people at large is clear.

From the earliest times some restraint has been exer