initiate or originate rates generally, but to regulate a rate already fixed or originated by the roads, upon complaint and after investigation.  A heavy penalty should be exacted from any corporation which fails to respect an order of the commission.  I regard this power to establish a maximum rate as being essential to any scheme of real reform in the matter of railway regulation.  The first necessity is to secure it; and unless it is granted to the commission there is little use in touching the subject at all.

Illegal transactions often occur under the forms of law.  It has often occurred that a shipper has been told by a traffic officer to buy a large quantity of some commodity and then after it has been bought an open reduction is made in the rate to take effect immediately, the arrangement resulting to the profit of one shipper and the one railroad and to the damage of all their competitors; for it must not be forgotten that the big shippers are at least as much to blame as any railroad in the matter of rebates.  The law should make it clear so that nobody can fail to understand that any kind of commission paid on freight shipments, whether in this form or in the form of fictitious damages, or of a concession, a free pass, reduced passenger rate, or payment of brokerage, is illegal.  It is worth while considering whether it would not be wise to confer on the Government the right of civil action against the beneficiary of a rebate for at least twice the value of the rebate; this would help stop what is really blackmail.  Elevator allowances should be stopped, for they have now grown to such an extent that they are demoralizing and are used as rebates.

The best possible regulation of rates would, of course, be that regulation secured by an honest agreement among the railroads themselves to carry out the law.  Such a general agreement would, for instance, at once put a stop to the efforts of any one big shipper or big railroad to discriminate against or secure advantages over some rival; and such agreement would make the railroads themselves agents for enforcing the law.  The power vested in the Government to put a stop to agreements to the detriment of the public should, in my judgment, be accompanied by power to permit, under specified conditions and careful supervision, agreements clearly in the interest of the public.  But, in my judgment, the necessity for giving this further power is by no means as great as the necessity for giving the commission or administrative body the other powers I have enumerated above; and it may well be inadvisable to attempt to vest this particular power in the commission or other administrative body until it already possesses and is exercising what I regard as by far the most important of all the powers I recommend—­as indeed the vitally important power—­that to fix a given maximum rate, which rate, after the lapse of a reasonable time, goes into full effect, subject to review by the courts.