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Show I Piny expect similar decisions In he cases pending touching tho rates to Reno, Phoenix and other cities. Tha commission will to a moral certalnry reduce the rates to those cities to what it holds to be "reasonable" rates, without considering in the lean what effect it may have on the Jobbing traae of Coast cities. If it should happen that tho commission commis-sion should reduce tho rates from the East to Western interior points to or below the rates to Coast cities. Coast jobbing trade would be contlnod to the territory immediately tributary to Coast cltiea. If, then, tho Coast cities should apply fo- a lower rate on account ac-count of our situation on the sea coa?t, tho commission might easily hold tbat they had no authority to so rule, no-cause no-cause if there was actual effective sea competition the railroads would have to reduce rates, and there would te no need of Invoking the power or the omml8slon. Tho railroads have tne right to "meet" actual sea competition, competi-tion, but it is very doubtful whether they have the right to charge a lower rate than they collect for the shorter distance over the same road and in ihe Bame direction merely for the rea-Kon rea-Kon that there Is a possibility or competition com-petition by the sea. When the Spokane decision was rendered tho Chronicle called the attention at-tention of the people to tho fact that it contained a plain warning that if this and other coast cities expected a differential which would enable them to hold their trade to interior points they must see to it that there were competing sea carriers lighting for the "trade and putting down rates to get it. Commissioner Prouty now. in effect, ef-fect, repeats that warning. We may assume it to be true that ir the interstate inter-state Commerce Commission ever ilxo transcontinental rates on the basis ot what it deems "reasonable" and wc do not see what authority it has to llx rates on any other basis It will not and cannot make rates from Eastern points to Reno which are any greater than those from the same points to this city, and it may mako them less. Should tho question be raised before them, the commission has authority to "permit" tho railroads to meet water competition regardless of tho rates collected to interior points, it can have no authority to compel it, or, possibly, even to allow lower ra'es which are not actually forced by competing com-peting water carriers. COAST FREIGHT RATES. Tho following comments from the San Francisco Chronicle on the prospective pros-pective action of the Interstate Commerce Com-merce Commission In relation to freight rates to Pacific Coast and interior in-terior points are of Interest to tbe reople of Ogden: We have the expert testimony oi Interstate Commerce Commissioner Prouty in support of tho statement often of-ten made in these columns and whlcn in fact, should be obvious to all tnat the Coast cities cannot expect to re tain lower freight rates than obtain to interior points, unless they have actual water competition which the railroads are compelled to meet. The Interstate Commerce Commission has decided that the rates between Spokane Spo-kane and Eastern points are unreasonably unreason-ably high and must be reduced, we |