Show important railway decision la in low iowa chicago ocean it may well be doubted if a more important decision ia in its bearings on the railroad interests was ever rendered than one just handed banded down by the tile supreme court of lo 10 w we refer to the group of cases brought by shippers in jasper county against the chicago rock island and pacific railroad company claiming the same rebates bates that bad had been allowed other shippers the demand was not based on statute law state or national but on common law the lower court sustained the claim and so did the tile supreme court the amount of money in evolved in each case is set down aa AS 17 the aggregate of all the deuits in the batch at but the importance of the case bears no relevancy to the amount of these particular claims the highest court of iowa has decided a it principal which in is fundamental to the tile carrying trade and which retroactively carried out would involve many millions of dollars the theory ot of those suits is that the rate which the favored shippers paid was a it reason reasonable ible rate and as a consequence that the difference between it and the tile rate paid by any other shipper was extortionate and under the common law it was illegal and should be paid back it has never been claimed that an unreasonably high rate was legal under the common law but the railroads have all along claimed except as restrained by statute the right to give or withhold rebates to suit themselves if th they y should be compelled to pay ou out timoney money enough to even up all the rebates given in the past few years it is doubtful if any of our railroads could stand the drain even the vanderbilt lines would have bave to go into bankruptcy jf if confronted with such a moun gainous aggregation the tito iowa decision in other words hag has in it the possibility of a drain upon rail way exchequers which the most plethoric of them all could not possibly herein it differs ors radically from the now famous illinois granger decision the practically we do not apprehend that any very considerable amount 0 I 1 I 1 1 1 1 I 1 I I 1 r I 1 ai of claims for rebates can be suc fully prosecuted at least without costing more than they would rea res lileto lie to the 1 prosecutor ra sec it is i not for the public interest that old freight bills should have to be settled over again except in specially aggravating cases but it is important that the tile principle of thia this decision should be observed ia good faith hence forth by the railroads of the country generally the rebate policy is clearly contrary to law and ought to be rooted out wholly from cur or system of public carriage e the citizen who drives a back or an express wagon mut mu t observe the rule of uniformity aud and what is good food law for one common carrier is good law for all in fact the great central mistake our railroad companies have made was in not accepting from the first the corn com mon moo law of common carriers AS a binding upon them A vast amount of dissatisfaction haa has resulted from the policy of di discrimination and in the aggregate of the railroads themselves have lost money by it dot counting the liability to claims under this iowa decision an appeal will probably be taken in one form or another to the supreme coure of llie the united states the principle involved is too far reached to be allowed to to rest short of the highest tribunal of the land but we believe the decision alread already y rendered will be allowed to stand it can call not be denied that it is good law at least it conforms to the plain reading of the common law on the subject uba t as laid down in Blacks blackstone tont and t the he text books generally |