"Since it has been decided that no rate can be put up once it has been put down, without appeal to the law courts, the railway companies have practically arrived at the conclusion that they will not put them down because they do not know whether they will have an opportunity to put them up again.
"Senator Cullom: Do you think it works to the advantage of the people that the railways will not put the rates down for fear they will not get a chance to put them up again?
"Mr. Acworth: Personally, I have no doubt it does not. It is fair to remember always that it may protect the weaker in commercial strife. It is rather hard on the weaker man to be crowded to the wall by a wholesale concern in any walk of life. But if it be true in ordinary business that, on the whole, the public gains by the wholesaling method, it is probably true in railway business also. I think that, so to speak, the heart has been taken out of the railway man. The railway men understand this business; they know how to manage it in their own way. The railway men think 'the responsibility has ceased to be ours; we must maintain the status quo,' and that is what they do.
"The Chairman: You think that dividing responsibility impairs the administrative power of the officials of the roads as well as the service they render to the public?
"Mr. Acworth: From the operating point of view, I do not think our railways have been sufficiently interfered with to prevent them developing the goodness of the service. But as to rate making, I have no doubt that the interference of Parliament, the courts, and the Executive has all tended to stereotype and keep rates at an unnecessarily high level.
"The Chairman: Would you say that, on the whole, the power to make rates generally and primarily should be left to the railroads and to the free play of the forces of the business world?
"Mr. Acworth: Speaking as an individual student, I have no doubt that that is the process that will arrive at the best results for the community, with this exception: That I fully think it is necessary that the community in some way should interfere to protect all customers from unfair treatment.
"The Chairman: You think that the power should reside somewhere to correct excessive and extortionate rates by summary and proper proceedings?
"Mr. Acworth: I am not sure that I should go so far as to say excessive rates regarded as excessive in themselves. I am myself inclined to think that excessive rates will correct themselves. The wise men will discover that it does not pay to charge excessive rates. But I think the law should interfere to prevent unfair rates to A as compared with the rates given to B. It seems to me that the State is bound to insist that the rates shall be public, and that practically will settle it, for if they are public they have got to be fair; I am inclined to think the law should confine itself to securing that, where there is a difference made as between A and B, the difference should be a difference for a commercial reason, and not for any reason of personal favoritism.