Mr. SEWELL. Mr. President, the Senator from Michigan covered a wide field in his remarks on this subject, in which I will not attempt to follow him. The bent of my mind runs in a business line and right to the point to which I wish to arrive.

The only object of this amendment was to bring the competing lines in Canada, so far as their termini within our States are concerned-was in order to have their business which originates within our States under the same control that the bill places upon the American roads.

I had no idea of touching water communication, not a particle of it. I represent a State that, next to the State of Maine, builds more vessels than any other State in the country and that has the largest water transportation running through it of any State in the Union at the present day, not excepting the Mississippi River, and certainly I should not do anything to interfere with my constituents in that way. We build more vessels and carry more freight on our vessels than any State in this Union to-day through our own waters.

As I said before, if you take the four great trunk lines which terminate in New Jersey, constituting say 40,000 miles of railroad, onethird of all your mileage; taking these lines and their connections, they represent a capital, in the proportion that the number of miles bears to the whole, of probably $2,500,000,000. Those great corporations have their termini in my State. Their employés alone amount to not less than twenty-five thousand people; and the families that they support are not much less than 10 per cent. of our population. So we get a living for 10 per cent. of the population in New Jersey indirectly through the great corporations that traverse our State and that spread out all the way from New Jersey to Cincinnati, Saint Louis, Chicago, and so on farther west.

This bill, if it becomes a law without some control of the competing lines in Canada which I suggest and which is the only thing I desire to attain by this amendment, would depreciate that property to such an extent that it would be a public calamity.

A large portion of the population of this country to-day exists on the securities issued by railroad corporations, which I suppose amount to seven or eight billion dollars; and every man who has anything for himself or for his family must necessarily have a small amount of investments of that kind.

Now, is it reasonable to suppose that the American Congress will deliberately sacrifice the rights and the investments of those citizens when it has the power to place the same restrictions on connecting lines through Canada under this amendment that it has on the roads chartered by its own States? I did not suppose there would be any objection to this part of the amendment. I think one part that I referred to in relation to the lines in New York running through one State is a fair subject for a difference of opinion, and I expected to have that attacked by some of the Senators who think differently from myself as far as that part of the amendment is concerned; but the main proposition, to control the competing lines in Canada, I did not suppose would meet with any opposition.

The Senator from Michigan has alluded to the State of New Jersey, as he has been in the habit of doing on former occasions, and her system of taxation. I beg to say that what he has said would leave a false impression. The State of New Jersey never taxes anybody unequally. The State of New Jersey to-day is as free as any State in the Union for any set of men to build railroads, and her taxation is just as light as that of any other State. In the early days of railroads, when the first charters were issued, it was considered a fair mode of taxation

that a railroad corporation should pay taxes in proportion to the business it did, and I consider it so to-day. It is only a means of arriving at the basis of taxation. New Jersey once taxed her own passengers and the passengers who passed through the State 10 cents each, and 10 cents a ton on freight going through the State. She did not tax outsiders as much as her own people, because if a citizen went 30 miles in the State he paid just as much as the man who went from Philadelphia to New York, 90 miles. That is true of all other taxes. But the matter was agitated all over the country, and the State changed her mode of taxation, and is getting just as much tax now as she did then, although some other States, I understand, still retain this mode of computing railroad taxation. New Jersey never charged, as stated by the Senator from Michigan, a dollar a head on passengers.

As I said, Mr. President, I had no idea of interfering in any way with the class of traffic mentioned by the Senator from Michigan, and I shall be glad, so far as this amendment is concerned, if the main features of it that I refer to may be adopted, and eliminate from it anything that would interfere with what he desires to protect, and which I have fully as much interest in protecting as he possibly has.

Mr. MILLER. Mr. President, the Senator from Michigan [Mr. CONGER] undoubtedly demolished the proposition which he spoke against, and I do not think that any further argument upon that line would be needed if any such proposition was now before the Senate; but the proposition of the Senator from New Jersey [Mr. SEWELL] was not the one which the Senator from Michigan discussed. We are all delighted with his eloquence and his argument in destroying the man of straw which he had set up. I think he was entirely successful in so doing. The amendment of the Senator from New Jersey, however, does not meet with my approval, even in the modified shape in which it is now before the Senate. Undoubtedly his chief object in offering it was to secure control over the trunk lines of railroads which enter the territory of the United States and then pass through the Dominion of Canada. But it was believed by the committee that we had secured that object substantially by the bill as it now stands, and I think it is quite as well secured in the bill as it now stands as it would be if the amendment of the Senator from New Jersey should be adopted.

The objections to and the difficulties in the way of issuing a license to every common carrier under this bill it seems to me would be so great as to prevent the commission ever successfully carrying out the provisions of the bill if the amendment should be adopted. It will be seen that the first section of this bill provides that all railroad companies doing an interstate-commerce business or doing a business which extends from the United States into any of the adjacent foreign countries is brought under its control. The language is:

That the provisions of this act shall apply to any common carrier or carriers engaged in the transportation of passengers or property by railroad, or partly by railroad and partly by water when both are used for a continuous carriage or shipment, from one State or Territory of the United States to any other State or Territory of the United States, or from any place in the United States to an adjacent foreign country, or from any place in the United States through a foreign country to any other place in the United States, and also to the transportation in like manner of property shipped from any place in the United States to a foreign country and carried from such place to a port of transshipment, or shipped from a foreign country to any place in the United States and carried to such place from a port of entry either in the United States or an adjacent foreign country.

It was believed by the committee that that would control all through shipments passing over the trunk-lines of Canada. For instance, what is known as the Grand Trunk Railroad, receiving its freight in the United

States at Chicago and carrying it through Canada to Portland, Me., or to Boston, on to New York over connecting railroads in the United States, would be as thoroughly controlled by all the provisions of this bill as any of the great through trunk-lines which are entirely located within the bounds of the United States. Quite likely it would not be able to reach freights which starting from Chicago should stop at some point in Canada, and I do not know that we are at all concerned in attempting to reach or control such transportation as that. But I have no doubt that all the other provisions of this bill can be enforced against those companies or their agents and their connecting lines in the United States, for certainly the Grand Trunk Railroad of Canada can do nothing in transporting grain from Chicago to Portland, Me., save as it operates through connecting lines running from Chicago to the Canadian frontier and again from Canada to Portland, Me. After a shipment leaves the Dominion of Canada our control over it, it seems to me, is absolute and perfect.

Mr. SEWELL. Will the Senator allow me to interrupt him there? Mr. MILLER. Certainly.

Mr. SEWELL.

How can you control the Grand Trunk Railroad outside of the United States, unless you have a provision of this kind in the bill?

Mr. MILLER. This bill, of course, would cover the shipments of freight through Canada starting in the United States, passing through Canada, and coming again into the United States. As I have said before, it probably can not be made to apply to the transportation of freight from Chicago, for instance, to some point in Canada and there stopping. If the Grand Trunk Railroad saw fit to give a drawback or a rebate to freight thus disposed of, stopping within its own territory, I doubt very much if we could reach it; but if freight should be transported through Canada into the United States, coming into any of our States, I have not any doubt at all that the provisions of this bill can be enforced against the connecting line in the United States and that they would be held under this bill, and if they were punished under it they would see to it that the connecting line in Canada carried out rigorously the provisions of this act. I do not see how the Grand Trunk Railroad is to allow any rebate to a shipper in the United States when the grain starts from some point in the United States and is landed at another point in the United States; its transactions are entirely with the connecting roads; they are not with the individual shipper at all. The agents of the American line make the rate in Chicago, and the produce is delivered to the agent of a United States road at Portland or at Boston or at New York, and I think there can be no difficulty about reaching such shipments.

Mr. SEWELL. But that does not cover the point. The Grand Trunk road could give a drawback, while the terminal lines in the United States would say they had nothing at all to do with it.

I will state as a matter of information to-day that this line is picking up at Chicago all the dressed-meat business of the West and is doing it through two individuals, making the greatest monopoly in this country to-day by the very system of drawbacks which this bill is designed to reach. It is throwing all that business in the West to day into the hands of two men, and the sellers of beef have to go and pay their price for it simply because they can transport it on better terms than others. Mr. MILLER. Of course the Senator from New Jersey is speaking of a condition of affairs which exists now when this bill is not in force, as it has not been passed and is not the law of the land. I am speaking

of what I believe will be the condition of affairs if this bill should become a law. Under section 5 of this bill

Every common carrier subject to the provisions of this act shall, within sixty days after this act shall take effect, file with the commission appointed under the provisions of this act copies of its tariffs of rates and fares.

They are otherwise compelled by the commission to publish their rates so that they may be known to all our people. In that section it will be seen how the common carriers or railroads are to be punished for refusing or failing to publish their tariff rates. Let me read, commencing

at line 46:

If any common carrier shall neglect or refuse to file or publish its tariffs of rates, fares, and charges, as provided in this section, or any part of the same, such common carrier shall be subject to a writ of mandamus, to be issued by any circuit court of the United States within the jurisdiction where the principal office of said common carrier is situated, and if such common carrier be a foreign corporation, in the judicial circuit wherein such common carrier accepts traffic and has an agent to perform such service, to compel compliance with the aforesaid provisions of this section; and such writ shall issue in the name of the people of the United States, at the relation of the commissioners appointed under the provisions of this act; and failure to comply with its requirements shall be punishable as and for a contempt; and the said commissioners, as complainants, may also apply, in any such circuit court of the United States, for a writ of injunction against such common carrier

And that includes foreign common carriers—

to restrain such common carrier from receiving or transporting property among the several States and Territories of the United States, or between the United States and adjacent foreign countries, or between ports of transshipment and of entry and the several States and Territories of the United States, as mentioned in the first section of this act, until such common carrier shall have complied with the aforesaid provisions of this section of this act, &c.

Then let me say further in this connection that it is forbidden under severe penalties that any greater rate shall be charged for the transportation of freight to any person or corporation than is provided for in these published rates. Thus in this one particular at all events this bill gives complete control in the matter, and in section 2 all common carriers, including the agents of foreign corporations and foreign corporations themselves, are forbidden to give "any special rate, rebate, drawback, or by any other device to charge, demand, collect, or receive from any person or persons a greater or less compensation for any service rendered, or to be rendered, in the transportation of passengers or property, subject to the provisions of this act, than it charges, demands, collects, or receives from any other person or persons for doing for him or them a like and contemporaneous service in the transportation of a like kind of traffic under substantially similar circumstances and conditions."

But, Mr. President, the committee desired most effectually to guard this point, and if it can be shown that it can be more thoroughly and carefully guarded than we have done it I have no doubt the entire committee will welcome any such amendment, but the amendment of the Senator from New Jersey proposes to require of all common carriers as described under this bill that they shall procure a license before they can engage in the business of interstate commerce. It seems to me that that is an unnecessary and a burdensome charge upon commerce and upon the lines. This subject was fully considered by the committee, and after full consideration it was decided that the license provision should be entirely left out. It might of course be provided that corporations doing business between the United States and adjacent foreign countries should receive a license before engaging in that business, and should thereby bind themselves to carry out all the provisions of this act. I doubt, however, if it would be found of any avail

if such a provision as that should be put into the bill. In my judgment the bill contains in its present condition regulations which are sufficient for the protection of the interests of our own lines; certainly it was the desire of all the members of the committee to thus carefully guard it, and I would suggest to the Senator from New Jersey that the provisions of his amendment as he has now altered them would be of little avail in this matter. I believe that they are unnecessary and therefore unwise.

Mr. President, I may say at this time of this bill that the committee which was appointed by the Senate a little more than a year ago upon this particular subject and was given full power to investigate the question in all its bearings, to call before it whomsoever it saw fit and to travel wherever it saw fit for the collection of information, did, after a long time spent in the collection of testimony, come almost unanimously to the conclusion that this bill and its provisions were the wisest that could be suggested at the present time. In that investigation the committee had before it not only many of the leading railroad men of the country, but in nearly every one of the principal cities of the Union it called and did hear the leading merchants and transporters of the country. It called also a large number of manufacturers and farmers, who are directly interested, of course, in the question of transportation. In addition it called to its aid the best legal talent, or I may say the best legal theoretical talent, on the question of railroad transportation to be found in this country, and it advised with them all, and its reports show, if they are carefully read by the Senate, that a vast majority of all those who were called before the committee did, in one way or another, substantially approve of nearly all the provisions of this bill. Not only the railroad men, but the shippers and the producers and the theorists almost unanimously came to the conclusion that this bill, as it is now before the Senate, was probably the best legislation which could be had upon the subject at the present time.

I need not here speak of the difficulties of legislation of this kind; they are well known to us all. The problem of the control of the railroad and transportation interests of this country is to my mind one of the most difficult questions which ever have been presented to a legislative body. Within the life of the majority of the members of this body the entire railroad system of this country has been created. In less than fifty years it has grown from nothing to its present magnitude, when we have nearly 130,000 miles of railroad. It has completely changed the methods of business and of commerce and of manufacture. It has also changed the value of our farm lands. It has made the West possible; it has substantially obliterated distance; and it has made us one people. This great interest has grown thus rapidly until to-day it is estimated by statisticians that the value of our railroads is nearly, if not quite, one quarter of the value of the entire material wealth of all our people. Certain it is that the railroad securities to-day of all kinds, including stocks, bonds, and other evidences of debt, equal in round numbers, $8,000,000,000. It is believed, however, that this is fully double the actual cost of the lines, and thus that commerce is burdened to-day by an attempt at least to pay a fair rate of interest upon a capital twice that actually invested in the business. But this great injury has been done, and it may be true that the railroad companies and those who have organized thein are not entirely to blame in the matter, for this could never have been if there had been wise legislation at the beginning, but neither Congress nor any of our State Legislatures had any fair or proper conception of what the railroad system of this country was to be when railroads were in their infancy, and as a result