It was maintained by the Commission that the forwarding company was a shipper, as settled by the Supreme Court in Interstate Commerce Commission v. Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad Co., 220 U. S., 235, where the court said:

The contention that a carrier, when goods are tendered to him for transportation, can make the mere ownership of the goods the test of the duty to carry, or, what is equivalent, may discriminate in fixing the charge for carriage, not upon any difference inhering in the goods or in the cost of the service rendered in transporting them, but upon the mere circumstance that the shipper is or is not the real owner of the goods, is so in conflict with the obvious and elementary duty resting upon a carrier and so destructive of the rights of shippers as to demonstrate the unsoundness of the proposition by its mere statement. We say this because it is impossible to conceive of any rational theory by which such a right could be justified consistently either with the duty of the carrier to transport or of the right of a shipper to demand transportation. This must be, since nothing in the duties of a common carrier by the remotest application can be held to imply the power to sit in judgment on the title of the prospective shipper who has tendered goods for transportation. The district court adopted this view and issued the injunction as prayed.

Upon appeal, the Supreme Court said, page 446:

The services rendered by George W. Sheldon & Company, although in a practical sense "connected with such transportation," were not connected with it as a necessary part of the carriage-were not "transportation service," in the language of Union Pacific R. R. Co. v. Updike Grain Co., 222 U. S., 215, 220-and in our opinion were not such services as were contemplated in the act of June 29, 1906, chapter 3591, section 4, 34 Stat., 589, amending section 15 of the original act. On the other hand, the allowance for them falls within the plain meaning of section 2 of the act of 1906, to which we referred above. The decree of the district court was affirmed.

VULCAN COAL CASE.

United States et al. v. Illinois Central Railroad Co., 244 U. S., 82. This was an appeal from a decree of the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Illinois enjoining an order of the Commission setting a hearing for the purpose of awarding reparation, and enjoining the Commission from further proceeding with the hearing of the complaints.

Complaints were filed with the Commission by certain coal companies asking reparation against the Illinois Central Railroad Company for failure to supply a sufficient number of coal cars for their respective needs. The railroad company denied the jurisdiction of the Commission to award damages for failure to furnish cars, and averred that in actions of such character the exclusive jurisdiction is in the courts. After a hearing, the Commission filed a report holding that the Commission had jurisdiction to consider the complaints and award whatever damages might be proved.

The Commission found that under section 1 of the act the carrier was required to "maintain a reasonably adequate car supply" and that "the question of what is a reasonably adequate car supply is just as much an administrative one as the question of what is a reasonable rate." Vulcan Coal & Mining Co. v. Illinois Central Railroad Co., 33 I. C. C., 52.

A petition for a rehearing was denied, and the Commission set the cause for further hearing upon the question of the amount of reparation. Thereupon the carrier brought its bill in equity to enjoin the so-called order of the Commission setting the cause for hearing, and all further proceedings.

Before the district court the Commission maintained (1) that the order sought to be enjoined was merely a notice of hearing and was not an order subject to injunction by the district court. (2) That the principal office of the Commission was in the city of Washington and that injunction proceedings to restrain the Commission from proceeding in the cause should have been instituted in the District of Columbia and not in the district court of Illinois.

After argument, the court decreed that the complaints filed by the coal companies were beyond the jurisdiction of the Commission; that the notice of hearing issued by the Commission should be canceled; and that the Commission be enjoined from further proceeding with the hearing of the said complaints.

The Supreme Court reversed this ruling of the district court and held that the notice of the proceeding had no characteristic of an order and could not be enjoined. The court said, page 89:

*

It will thus be observed, as said by counsel for the Commission, "the power of a court to stay the enforcement of an illegal order' is, in a sense, reciprocal to its power to enforce compliance with an order of the Commission, if lawful.' * * And just as the district court would have been powerless in the instant case to compel the appellee to attend the hearing with respect to which the notice had been given, so also was it without lawful authority to annul that notice or to enjoin the Commission from proceeding in the premises." It was a mere incident in the proceeding, the accident of the occasion-in effect, and, it may be contended, in form but a continuance of the hearing. The fact that the continuance was to another day or place did not change its substance or give it the character described in Procter & Gamble Co. v. United States, one which constrained the railroad company to obedience unless it was annulled or suspended by judicial decree.

BUREAU OF CARRIERS' ACCOUNTS.

In our last annual report reference was made to the improved. methods which had been instituted in the conduct of examinations of the accounts of carriers in the field. A creditable number of field examinations has been conducted during the past year, resulting in the discovery, and consequent discontinuance by the carriers, of various erroneous accounting practices. These examinations have proven to be essential and effectively useful, not only in securing uniform accounting but also in the prosecution of our work as a whole. One result of this feature of our contact with the carriers' accounts is that any unwholesome finance, artificial returns of income and outgo, and unlawful rate manipulations, which must of necessity be carried into and be shown on its books or other records, become more difficult of accomplishment.

Recent accounting examinations indicate a noticeable and encouraging activity by the carriers during the last two or three years along constructive and economic lines, and this is particularly true since our own country became a belligerent in the war. Such information becomes accessible under the established accounting system and will be of value in looking toward permanent improvements in the carriers' methods and practices.

BUREAU OF STATISTICS.

To this bureau are assigned the verification and compilation of the annual and monthly reports of railways and other corporations. Annual reports are required from steam railway, electric railway, and express companies, sleeping car companies, telephone companies, telegraph and cable companies, and carriers by water. Monthly reports of revenues, expenses, etc., are required from steam railways having annual operating revenues above $100,000, express companies, telephone companies having annual operating revenues above $50,000, telegraph and cable companies, and the Pullman Company.

Monthly reports of railway accidents are required from steam and electric railways.

Until the year 1916 the annual reports, except for telephone companies and carriers by water, were made for the fiscal year ending June 30. On November 24, 1916, we entered an order changing the period for annual reports to the 12 months ending December 31. Two reports have been required from each class of company for the year 1916; one for the year ending June 30, and one for the year ending December 31, to facilitate comparisons during the period of transition. The change of date has been adopted by nearly all of the state railway or public service commissions. This change had

been under consideration for a number of years and was advocated by the Association of American Railway Accounting Officers and indorsed by the National Association of Railway Commissioners.

Among the arguments submitted in favor of changing the period for reporting to the various commissions to end December 31, are the following:

(1) It ought not to be necessary to define what is meant by a year or a date, and when reference is made by the Commission to 1915, or the year 1915, it ought not to be necessary to use the paraphrase "the 12 months ending June 30, 1915." The word " year" has a definite meaning.

(2) Many carriers are required to make extensive reports to state commissions, covering a calendar year period, for purposes of taxation, thus largely duplicating the work included in the fiscal year report. The two reports may present more or less apparent variance, which would be overcome by having both cover the same period.

(3) Many carriers make a complete report to the stockholders, covering the calendar year. The suggested change would be a decided convenience to them. (4) On the majority of the railways in the United States, the logical business year coincides more consistently with the calendar year than with a year ending June 30.

(5) On most railways the program of maintenance work conforms naturally to a calendar year; and in reporting the details of such work a year ending December 31 has decided advantages over a year ending June 30. The maintenance forces are at the maximum and the heavy work is in progress on June 30, while December 31 is the natural close of the maintenance year.

(6) The suggested change would enable more direct comparisons between the railways as an industry, and other great lines of industry with which a comparison is desirable.

(7) Annual reports to the Interstate Commerce Commission and to the various state commissions can be more easily prepared during the winter than during the summer season, as the summer season is the period for vacations in the general offices.

(8) The outlook for the future seems to indicate that the calendar year will present new advantages from time to time rather than new disadvantages. Among the reasons advanced by the interests opposed to the changing of the reporting period were the following:

(1) A change would necessitate one partial report covering the transition period.

(2) Comparisons would be disturbed.

(3) At December 31 the crops have not been moved, and the end of a cropmoving period for a year is better represented by June 30 than by December 31. (4) It would be necessary to have stockholders of various carriers change the fiscal year for those reporting for some period other than December 31 to that year, in order that the annual reports to stockholders might conform to the fiscal year of the regulating bodies.

17324°-17-3

Rules governing the classification of telephone employees were prescribed by us, effective as of July 1, 1917.

The semimonthly and quarterly reports of freight-car requirements and supply described in our last annual report have been discontinued because this matter will be given special attention by our new bureau of car service created in response to the car service act approved May 29, 1917.

In August, 1917, we were asked by the special committee on national defense of the American Railway Association to give consideration to the possibility of reducing the amount of statistical work required of carriers during the period of the war. It was urged that the numerous resignations from their clerical forces on account of the draft and the competition of other industries for labor made some relief imperative. A conference was held with representatives of the carriers and of the state commissions, and this matter was also considered by the National Association of Railway Commissioners at its annual meeting in October, 1917. As a result, the annual report forms prescribed by us for the year 1917 will be considerably simplified by the omission of certain schedules and the modification of others.

In view of the delay sometimes experienced in issuing the annual "Statistics of Railways in the United States," it is well to call attention to the fact that carriers are allowed three months after the close of the fiscal year in which to file their annual reports. Thereafter it is necessary to verify these reports and to conduct correspondence concerning the errors or omissions found before the tabulations can be completed. The large volume, with its many statistical tables, with no special urgency to give it right of way, proceeds but slowly through the Government Printing Office. The manuscript for the 1915 volume was sent to the printer early in June, 1916, but has not yet been made available for distribution. The inconvenience resulting from this delay, however, is considerably obviated by the more prompt publication of the text of the report giving the summary tables, and by the issuance of a preliminary abstract of statistics of common carriers giving details for all large roads.

In Appendix C there are presented various figures compiled from reports on file in this bureau.