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Show RAILROAD BILL MAY BE PASSED Measure Comes Up This Afternoon Af-ternoon and Its Friends Believe It Will Become a Law. Railroad laws of Utah will undergo Important Im-portant changes If Senate bill No. 95. looking for the codification of present statutes affecting common carriers, is passed today, as it likely will be. The matter was made a special order of business busi-ness for this afternoon. With the exception ex-ception of that section of the bill providing provid-ing that railroads be permitted to own and operate coal or iron lands and mines, and that section providing that railroads own water rights. It Is thought the measure meas-ure will pass without revision. Many arguments are advanced by friends of the bill in favor of passing it in Its entirety. Those in favor of cutting out passages objected to. argue that If railroads are prevented from owning- and operating coal and Iron lands and mines, afcer May 1. 190S, when Interstate commerce laws go into effect ireater coal famines than ever before will occur. Interstate commerce com-merce laws prohibit, after the date mentioned, men-tioned, the shipping of coal from one State to another for commercial purposes. Should the proposed law go into effect, ef-fect, railroads could not supply Utah with coal from fields in surrounding States, and a scarcity of fuel would follow. It Is argued, greater than ever before experienced. expe-rienced. Private coal companies now doing business busi-ness In the State have demonstrated time and time again their Inability to furnish fuel when most needed, and for this reason rea-son friends of the bill are advocating Its passage without changing its construction. construc-tion. To effect some means of compromise. It has been proposed that the time limit be extended from May. 1908, to May. 1909. in order that independent companies secure se-cure capital enough to develop their fields sufficiently to supply fuel demands of the State. |