UNITED STATES COURTS IN A NEW ROLE.
THERE is a remarkable tendency toward the centralization of the powers of our government in the courts. It is coming to be deemed anarchy to even criticize court decisions, especially the decisions of the United States Supreme Court. That tribunal is now quite commonly designated "the highest authority in the land," notwithstanding the basic theory of our government that the primary authority is vested in the people. A case has arisen in Georgia, which involves an entirely new feature of judicial prerogative. The case has grown out of a rate war between two transportation systems—the Seaboard Air Line and the Southern States Freight Association. The details of the case are too lengthy and complicated for reproduction here. The cut rates being set on through freight to Atlanta, and not to other cities nearer the seaboard market, the merchants of that city had a decided advantage over those of Augusta and Macon. So, in addition to the quarrel between the transportation lines, the injured merchants also had a grievance. The Interstate Commerce law provides that it shall be unlawful for any common carrier subject to the provisions of the act, to give any undue preference to any particular person or concern or locality, or to any such undue prejudice or disadvantage. It also gives the Circuit Courts of the United States the power to issue writs of mandamus in cases where, according to the relation of parties concerned, a violation of the law has been made. While U. S. District Judge Simonton granted a temporary injunction against the cut rates, in a suit brought by the Port Royal and Augusta Railroad as a matter of self-defense, Judge Speer, of the District Court at Augusta, granted an injunction upon complaint of the Wholesale Grocers' Association, of Augusta. The remarkable feature of the judgment is that the competing companies are ordered to raise the rates to Atlanta. This new and peculiar principle of judicial ruling is thus commented upon by the News and Observer, of Raleigh, N. C.:— "Extraordinary Use of Power by the Courts.—It has never hitherto been even contended that the courts had any power to pass upon railroad rates except when it was complained that the rates fixed by statute, or by a railroad commission under authority of a statute, were oppressive. The only power claimed by the courts was to supervise the legislative action, and that power was so doubtful that in all the cases which have come before the Supreme Court of the Union, while the court has more or less plainly claimed this power of supervision, in not a single case has it ever in fact exercised the alleged power by holding the rates fixed by the Legislature (or by a railroad commission) to be too low. But the action of Judge Simonton and Judge Speer in granting temporary injunctions against a railroad fixing its own rates is an astonishing performance, and absolutely without precedent or reason to sustain them. "Heretofore the corporations at first denied that even the people, acting through their representatives, could fix a maximum rate, but when that power was sustained, the corporations succeeded in getting the courts to hold that the courts had a veto or supervisory power upon the legislative action. Now, they go further, and the corporations get the courts to hold, not by way of passing upon the effect of a statute, but ex proprio vigore that a judge is vested with the power of passing upon rates fixed by a railroad for itself. If the judge can say such rates are too low, of course he is master of the whole subject, and can say they are too high. If this is true, then there is no need of railroad commissioners, and the Legislature itself is traveling out of its jurisdiction to fix rates. The power of fixing rates is also equally taken away from railroad boards and managers. The judges will hereafter say what rates are too high and what are too low, and we have in effect 'government ownership of railways.' It is already here if the courts have such power."