They are made by two sets of people who. have one common interest



216 PROPOSED AMENDMENT OF INTEKSTATE-COMMEECE LAW.
and that common interest is that the traffic shall move. Unless the
traffic moves, there is nothing in it for the railroads. Unless the
traffic moves there is nothing in it for the shippers; and they have
got to come together on a proposition that will enable the traffic to
move; and that is the distinction, and the vital distinction, between
the making of rates as they have been made in this country, by the
shippers and the railroads in conference, and the making of rates by a
governmental board that sits up and evolves a theory of how the laws
of trade should operate, what community should have an advantage,
and how much of an advantage, and then tries to demonstrate that
theory despite the laws of trade.
Now, that is the vital and essential dijBference. And when you hear
people talking of railroads sitting up and making rates, they are talk-
ing about something they know nothing about. The railroads do not
sit up and make rates^, they can not sit up and make rates; they are
absolutely in the power of these commercial laws. They have got ,to
make rates that will get the commodities to market, that will enable
the commodities to move in competition with the same commodities
moving from some other source of supply, and what they have to do
is to agree with the shipper as to what rates will move the traffic.
