People's Pilot, Volume 4, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 January 1895 — RAILROADS POOLING. [ARTICLE]

RAILROADS POOLING.

Imtlh; It to the Discretion of the Conemission. Th£ interstate commerce act prohibits pooling (a division of earnings) by railroad companies. The bill passed by the house last week authorizes pool* ing, provided the * oontract is reduced to writing, filed with the interstate commerce commission and the commission does not disapprove it. The pool goes into effect twenty days after filing contract. The commission may, after a pool goes into effect, modify the pooling arrangement or cancel it. The hill allows any company'to apply to a United States Circuit court to test the reasonableness-of the-Commission’s rulings and the court may approve the pool notwithstanding the commission disapproves it. .The patrons of the road and communities affected by the pool are not given a like right to have the commission’s rulings passed upon by a court. Pending litigation on the subject and appeals to the United States Supreme court, the commission’s orders are in force.

When a railroad goes into a pooling contract it can’t get out of it exeept upon an order from the comfnission or the court. Pooling means no competition. Where there are several companies pulling for the same trade there is competition, rate cutting, etc. The present law prohibiting pooling is no doubt directly violated, but the companies will not he honest with each other and will violate their agreements, and by all manner of scheming each road will get as much traffic for itself as possible. The pending bill compels the companies, when they agree to skin the public and divide the spoils, to stick to the agreement. While the rates fixed in the pooling contracts must be reasonable in the eyes of the commission, that body is considerable of a railroad auxiliary and will not likely consider any rates un-easonable that failed to yield interest on watered 'bonds and dividends on stock that is all water.—Missouri World.