it would seem to be clear that a carrier should not extend to one shipper a credit and refuse another shipper in like situation the same extension. It would seem to be equally clear that whatever privilege was extended must be stated in the published tariffs.174 § 187. Right of Carrier to Route Shipments Beyond Its Own Terminus. In the absence of a contract specifying the routing, the carrier may route freight passing beyond its own lines over any other reasonably-convenient line. If there is a contract on the subject, or if the shipper gives instructions, the carrier must of course, comply therewith. In the absence of instructions, the carrier should route by the most direct and cheapest route.175 There was nothing in the Act to Regulate Commerce before the Amendment of June 29, 1906, that would make illegal a contract by which an initial carrier reserved to itself, as a condition of guaranteeing the through rate, the right of routing the shipment beyond its own line as it might determine.176 The Hepburn Amendment, not prohibiting such right nor specifically granting the power to the Commission to prohibit same, the carrier may yet exercise the right, provided, of course, no undue or unjust discrimination results to shippers thereby. The Commission now has the power to establish through routes and joint rates. The 1920 Amendment gives the Commission power over routing,177 and provides for the recovery of damages for diverting shipments contrary to routing instructions.178 § 188. Discrimination in Billing.-An unjust discrimination may be committed by billing one commodity under a 174 So held in the United States v. Hocking Valley R. Co., 194 Fed. 234. See Gamble-Robinson Com. Co. v. Chicago & N. W. Ry. Co., 168 Fed. 161, 94 C. C. A. 217, 21 L. R. A. (N. S.) 982, 16 Ann. Cas. 613; United States v. Erie R. Co., 209 Fed. 283. Transportation Act 1920 (Post, Section 429) requires carriers to collect freight charges before delivering the freight, except under rules prescribed by the Interstate Commerce Commis sion (See paragraph (2) of Sec. 3 of the Interstate Commerce Act). 175 Dewey Bros. Co. v. Baltimore & O. R. Co., 11 I. C. C. 481; Hennepin Paper Co. v. Northern Pac. R. Co., 12 I. C. C. 535. 176 Southern Pac. Co. v. Int. Com. Com., 200 U. S. 536, 50 L. Ed. 585, 26 Sup. Ct. 330. 177 Sec. 418, post. classification to which it does not belong, by giving it a false weight or value, and by letting one commodity go at the net weight and denying that privilege to a like kind of traffic. This species of discrimination and other like devices and means are prohibited by Section 10 of the Interstate Commerce Act (See post, Section 475). The prohibition of the statute applies to the shipper as well as the carrier. The netweight practice was, in effect, a rebate,179 as are the other practices mentioned, all of which are but devices violating the Act, and subjecting those who are guilty to punishment. The offense is committed when the goods are billed.180 A shipper who, by misrepresentation, obtains a lower classification and rate than he is entitled to, is liable to the carrier for the difference between the rate paid and the rate he should have paid under a proper billing.181 One who, in good faith, by mistake incorrectly describes the goods is not subject to the penal provision of the Act.182 § 189. Tariffs of Rates Must Be Printed, Posted and Maintained. No carrier can engage in interstate transportation of goods "unless the rates, fares, and charges upon which the same are transported by said carrier have been filed and published." The Act requires not only the filing and publishing of such rates, fares and charges," but demands that the published tariffs must be charged and collected. (See, post, §§ 449, 455.) No change in the tariff can be made without reasonable notice. No provisions of the Act are more effective to prevent discrimination and promote equality than are these. The courts and the Commission have sustained and enforced these provisions. It has sometimes been contended that they are unjust when applied to import or export traffic. It is true that such provisions would be inapplicable to purely water traffic. It is little or no more expensive for a ship to carry her full, than it is to carry her minimum, cargo. For this reason, as a ship's sailing day ap 179 Procter & Gamble v. Cincinnati, H. & D. R. Co., 9 I. C. C. 440, 484. 180 Davis v. United States, 104 Fcd. 136, 43 C. C. A. 448. 181 Missouri, K. & T. R. Co. v. Trinity Lumber Co., 1 Tex. Civ. App. 553, 21 S. W. 290. 182 Atchison, T. & S. F. Ry. Co. v. Goetz, 51 Ill. App. 151; Davis v. Pere Marquette R. Co., 10 I. C. C. 105. proaches and her cargo has not been obtained, she does, and should be allowed to, reduce her rates, thereby obtaining her full load. This principle, however, does not apply to that part of a through export or import movement that is had over rail carriers. Ships, as well as individuals, are entitled to know what the land movement will cost and have this cost based upon equality of charge. There is nothing in the law that makes the rail carrier transport its domestic freight at the same rate as its proportion of an import or export movement.183 On this subject, the Commission, in its twentysecond annual report, pp. 14 and 15, says: "Effective April 15, 1908, and in exact harmony with the decision of the Commission in the case of Cosmopolitan Shipping Company v. Hamburg-American Packet Company et al., 13 I. C. C. Rep., 266, a regulation was promulgated by the Commission requiring that tariffs applying on traffic exported to or imported from foreign countries not adjacent to the United States must show the rates, fares, and charges of the inland carriers subject to the act for such transportation to the port and from the port in the United States, and that such rates, fares, and charges be so stated as to be available for all persons who desire to use them. It was provided that as a matter of convenience to the public such tariffs might show through rates to or from foreign points, but that if so prepared they should also show the inland rate or fare of the carrier subject to the act. "Representations were made to the Commission that transcontinental rail carriers reaching our Pacific coast ports were, on account of the long rail haul, at a disadvantage in competition with other carriers serving Atlantic ports and transporting Asiatic traffic via the Suez Canal route. They therefore requested modification of the requirements as to notice of changes in rates, and were given permission to make changes in their rates, applicable to such import and export traffic to or from our Pacific coast ports upon notice of three days of reduction in rates and of ten days as to advance in rates. Subsequently, by supplemental order, the same per 183 Tex. & Pac. Ry. Co. v. Int. Com. Com., 162 U. S. 197, 40 L. Ed. 940, 16 Sup. Ct. 666. mission was extended to carriers subject to the act reaching Pacific coast ports in British Columbia. "The rail carriers in the United States ordinarily known as the transcontinental lines withdrew, effective November 1, 1908, all their through import and export rates via the Pacific ports and applied to the inland carriage of export and import traffic through those ports the domestic rates applicable on traffic to and from the ports proper. The Canadian Pacific Railway, in connection with a large number of carriers in the United States with lines east of the Mississippi River, published and filed proportional class and commodity inland rates applicable to Vancouver, British Columbia, on traffic destined to oriental ports, the Philippines, Australia, and New Zealand, which proportional rates are much lower than the domestic rates applying on traffic destined to Vancouver proper. These tariffs, as permitted by the Commission's rule and for the information of shippers, show through rates to foreign ports in connection with certain named steamship lines. "This rule of the Commission was freely commented upon in the newspapers, but almost without exception from an entirely erroneous standpoint and a total misunderstanding or misconception as to what the rule required. No opinion was expressed by the Commission that the inland portion of export and import rates might not reasonably and properly be less than the domestic rates to the ports. The order simply required the carriers to conform to the plain requirements of the law and to publish, in the manner prescribed by law, whatever rates they saw fit to establish on this traffic." § 190. Misquoting Rates. If a carrier makes a mistake and quotes the wrong rate, the shipper must nevertheless pay the correct tariff rate, even though he suffer severe loss thereby, and for this loss he has no remedy.184 In Poor v. 184 Tex. & Pac. Ry. Co. v. Mugg, 202 U. S. 242, 50 L. Ed. 1011, 26 Sup. Ct. 628; Gulf C. & S. F. R. Co. v. Hefley, 158 U. S. 98, 39 L. Ed. 910, 15 Sup. Ct. 802; Poor Grain Co. v. Chicago, B. & Q. R. Co., 12 I. C. C. 418, 421, 422; Suffern, Hunt & Co. v. Indiana, D. & W. Ry. Co., 7 I. C. C. 255, 278; Houston & T. C. R. Co. v. Dumas, 43 S. W. 609; Chicago, R. I. & P. Ry. Co. v. Hubbell, 54 Kans. 232, 38 Pac. 266, 5 I. C. R. 241; PondDecker Lumber Co. v. Spencer, 86 Fed. 846, 30 C. C. A. 430; Mobile & Chicago, B. & Q. R. Co., 12 I. C. C. 418, 421, 422, Mr. Commissioner Harlan gives the reason for this decision as follows: "And of necessity no other conclusion was possible if the integrity of this regulative legislation is to be preserved. If a mistake in naming a rate between two given points is to be accepted as requiring the application of that rate by the carrier, the great principle of equality in rates, to secure which was the very purpose and object of the enactment of these several statutes, might as well be abandoned. If the act of a railroad clerk, whether through mistake or otherwise, in quoting a less than the lawful rate or in inserting a lower rate in a bill of lading is to be held to require or to justify and excuse the substitution of that rate, on a particular shipment, for the lawfully published rate, the effectiveness of such legislation is at an end and its whole purpose destroyed. For past experience shows that billing clerks and other agents of carriers might easily become experts in the making of errors and mistakes in the quotation of rates to favored shippers, while other shippers, less fortunate in their relations with carriers and whose traffic is less important, would be compelled to pay the higher published rates. "Stability and equality of rates are more important to commercial interests than reduced rates. It was instability and inequality that were the special evils to be remedied; it was the possibility that one shipper, in one way or another, whether by mistake or otherwise, could, and actually did, get a lower rate than another shipper that led to the more stringent legislation. That evil the present amended statute meets in substantially the language of previous legislation." While Mr. Commissioner Harlan was undoubtedly correct in his conclusion as the law then stood, the ruling was one that frequently worked serious injury to shippers. On this subject, the Commission, in its twenty-second annual report, pp. 16, 17, aptly says: "The Act to Regulate Commerce requires carriers to collect their published rates, under severe penalty, and the Supreme Court of the United States has held that this must be done O. R. Co. v. Dismukes, 94 Ala. 131, 10 So. 289, 4 I. C. R. 200; Atchison, T. & S. F. Ry. Co. v. Holmes, 18 Okla. 92, 90 Pac. 22. |