Senator GLASS. No; you can not help that. Senator GLASS. In the adjustment of railroad rates, under what I conceive to be the intent of the law, the result is obliged to be helpful to one section of the country or one class of shippers and in a sense injurious to another, but if you base your action upon a scientific adjustment of railroad rates as to the compensatory nature of those rates that can not be helped. You are not responsible for that. But on the contrary, if you undertake to say that the commission may consider operating conditions, as to whether an enterprise in one section of the country is properly administered, as to whether it pays a living scale of wages, as to whether it operates under certain restrictions and conditions as contrasted with another enterprise, if you can say that, why the Interstate Commerce Commission becomes the arbiter, the master of commercial and industrial success or failure in this country. Commissioner ESCH. We do not say that, Senator. I do not know of any decisions of the commission that assert it. Senator GLASS. Well, but we think that this decision does. Senator BARKLEY. While the commission in the decision, does not assert that right, all through the decision and the report facts are set forth that are used as a basis, which must have had some effect on the mind of the commission in reaching the decision that the rates should be adjusted. Commissioner ESCH. Well, we do that in this decision, and they are all stated in the conclusions of that report, some three pages, and I would like to have those pages inserted as a part of my hearing. That is in this Lake Cargo case. I would like to have those three pages, Mr. Chairman, included in my hearing. The CHAIRMAN. All right. (The conclusions in the Lake Cargo Coal Rates, 1925, No. 15007, case decided May 9, 1927, are here printed in the record in full, as follows:) CONCLUSIONS The finding in our previous report that the rates from the complaining districts were not unreasonable was based largely on comparisons with the local rates on commercial coal to the ports or similar rates to other points. At that time the majority did not see sufficient reason for reducing the rates on lake cargo coal which were already somewhat lower than the rates on commercial coal. Upon further hearing, however, additional facts have been brought to our attention which with the facts theretofore of record indicate the propriety of lower rates on lake cargo coal than commercial coal. Among these facts now of record are the more concentrated movement of lake cargo coal, its movement at a more favorable season of the year than the heaviest movement of commercial coal, the larger proportion of joint-line hauls in the case of commercial coal, the difference in the terminal delivery service, and the greater availability of cars used for shipping lake cargo coal for return loading with ore. The voluntary maintenance by the carriers of rates on lake cargo coal from 78 to 95 per cent of the corresponding rates on commercial coal is not without significance. The lake cargo rates are in the nature of proportional rates, and we have frequently prescribed such rates on a lower basis than the corresponding local rates. Upon further consideration, therefore, in the light of the present record, we are of the opinion that the comparisons with the rates on commercial coal are not conclusive as to the reasonableness of the rates assailed. Upon the more complete record now before us, we are of the opinion that the rates on the same class of traffic from other districts in the same region ship |