296
The Green Bag
condition. Add to this, as time goes on, the cost of extensions and such improvements as ought to go to capital account; and upon the capital that the two thus constitute-— a ca ital that is definite——allow returns at a de ite given rate, after making provision for depreciation, maintenance and the im
provements that are rightly chargeable to operation and not to capital account. “Second: The traffic rates now charged the public by the carriers are on file with the Interstate Commerce Commission. Take these, or such rates as are on file when the foregoing change goes into efiect, as the second definite postulate; and ascertain at given intervals what the public has saved if anything, by the application of reduced rates, instead of the revious rates, to the
traffic carried during t e precedingiperiod. “Third:
A saving to the pub '0 having
been shown, allow the carrier out of the
accumulation, if there be any, and if the re duction be not at the expense of qualit of service, as a return additional to his . ed return, a certain rcentage of such savings (the maximum to g: definite), as also possib y for a security fund against the ‘lean years,’ this maximum also to be definitely fixed; allow the Emplo ee’s Insurance and Old Age Pension Fun another percentage; and the Employee's Investment Account another percentage, to be invested for them and as their property (the a portionment to be accordm to a e and ength of service) in any aut ori future issues of securities of the carrier for extensions or improvements. "Fourth: Should it appear on such peri odical accounting that the carrier has accumu lated out of the rates char ed the public, over and above the needs a ve set forth, and the constant bettering of the service, further amounts, the same shall go into the United States Treasury, unless within a succeeding given iod it shall have been absorbed in a stil greater bettering of service or a reduction of rates of trafiic charged the
public. . . . “I submit the remedy thus outlined as the logical and the most promising next stage in the progress of events that have brou ht us to where we now are. It is a plica le to those combinations that have ma e them selves monopolies, as well as to the natural monopolies——the anti-trust acts being left to act upon those enterprises that have not become mono lies. But I would not apply it where tari revision would restore com petition; tariff revision, therefore, is bound up with this corporate remedy." "The Adequacy of Remedies Against Monopoly under State Law." By Frederick H. Cooke.
state commercial transactions except in so far as they are modified by Congressional enactments. Here relief was held properly allowed in a state court against illegal dis‘ crimination even in transportation within the scope of the commerce clause. There seems no reason no doubt that the principle is eqlpally applicable to relief against monopoly so t at the commerce clause of itself, in the absence of Congressional legislation thereunder, furnishes no objection to the allowance in a state court of relief on common law grounds against transportation into the state under conditions of monopoly. "Whether criminal liability could be en~ forced by virtue of this principle may not be entire y clear, though the o inion has been frequently expressed that t ere exists on common law grounds, liability for acts pro ducing or tending to produce restrictions upon competition. "American Afl’airs." By A. Maurice Low. National Review, v. 55, p. 119 (Mar.). Anent the judgment of the United States Supreme Court in the Amencan Tobacco Company case: "Every one assumes that the verdict of the Supreme Court will be in the govern ment's favor, and it is this fear that has caused a semi-panic on the Stock Exchan and is checking business; that has ma e investors sell out their shares and has caused business men to run under close-reefed canvas in anticipation of the financial cyclone they see is comin . If the government is sustained there is 8little hope that Congres will repeal or modify a law that many people think 15 too drastic; if the government is defeated the present tem r of Congress is to enact a law that sha meet the defects obnoxious to the Supreme Court, so that whichever way the business man turns he sees little to encourage him. Several pro fessors of economics and publicists have within the last few weeks predicted a great panic in the course of a year or two as the result of high prices, but probably even more important than hi h prices is the fear of the disaster that will ollow when the anti-trust law is sustained. "The Trial of an Old Greek Com-Ring." By Frederic Earle Whitaker, PhD. Popular Science Monthly, v. 77, p. 370 (Apr.).
An account, in the lan
age of modern
legal practice, of the trial of the Athenian
corn-ring, the story of which has been pre served in the writings of Lysias, the Athenian orator.
19 Yale Law journal 356 (Mar.).
"Even if . . . state anti-trust statutes [are] inapplicable to transportation into the state, there yet remains in the states a vast source of power derived from the principle established in Western Union Tel. Co. v. Call Publishing Co., that ‘the prinsjfles of the common law are operative upon inter
Negligence. “Death by Wrongful Act, Neglect, or Default in Virginia." By Charles A. Graves. 15 Virginia Law Register 825 (Mar.).
Discusses in detail the way in which the Virginia act has been construed by the courts.
