PUBLIC SERVICE COMPANIES organized for the purpose of holding the title to certain lands of the railway com pany, caused grain to be purchased in Kansas City in the name of the develop ment company, transported over the lines of the railway company, to Chicago, and there sold upon the market. The develop ment company had no bona fide interest in the transaction. Neither the railway com pany nor the development company pur chased the grain for the purposes of owner ship, the whole transaction being simply a device to secure its transportation at other than the published rate; and the only rate paid was the profit upon the transaction, which varied with each shipment. In the course of its decision the com missioner said, "Suppose that the develop ment company be entirely eliminated from the consideration, and that the transaction be treated, as it in fact was, as the transac tion of the railway company. In that case the railway company owned the grain, trans ported it for itself, and received for its com pensation the difference in price between what was paid and what it sold for, less the commissions. There was no fixed rate. The rate varied with each individual shipment. The rate actually received was much less than was or would have been charged any other person for the same service under the same conditions. Clearly, therefore, the trans action was both a violation of the sixth section and an unjust discrimination under the second and third sections, unless the railway company, by virtue of the fact that ft owned the merchandise transported, was relieved from the operation of the act. We hold that it was not. Granting that the railway company had the legal right under its charter to buy and sell this corn in this manner, still it must own it and transport it subject to the same limitations as every other individual. In its capacity of owner it was a private person; in its capacity of carrier it was a public servant. If it elected to become a private individual in respect of the ownership of this grain, it could extend
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to itself in its capacity as a public servant no other or different privileges than it ex tended to every other shipper. To hold that this respondent might become a shipper on its own account for the express purpose of avoiding the act to regulate commerce would be to nullify that act in many essen tial respects."1 VI This development which is going on in the law was brought to the attention of all not many weeks ago by a striking decision handed down by the United States Supreme Court in regard to the coal roads — New York, New Haven & Hartford R. R. v. Interstate Commerce Commission (26 Sup. Ct. Rep. 272). The complaint in that case was filed by the attorney -general under the provisions of the Interstate Commerce Act, which forbid personal discrimination, charging that traffic was being moved at less than the published rates. It was shown that the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad had sold to the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad sixty thou sand tons of coal to be delivered to the buyer at $2.75 per ton; and it was averred that the price of the coal at the mines where the Chesapeake and Ohio bought it and the cost of transportation from Newport News to Connecticut would aggregate $2.47 per ton, thus leaving to the Chesapeake and Ohio only about twenty-eight cents a ton for carrying the coal from the Kanawha district to Newport News, whilst the pub lished tariff for like carriage from the same district was $1.45 per ton. Upon these facts the United States Supreme Court decided that there was in effect the evil of personal discrimination against other shippers in this arrangement; and the final decree, therefore, was that the Chesapeake and Ohio was perpetually enjoined from taking less than its published tariff of freight 1 Compare Haddock v. Delaware L. & W. R.R., 4 I.C.C. Rep. 296.
