This nice question is almost daily pressing for solution at the hands of the Interstate Commerce Commission. It arises every time an increase of freight rates occurs. Take, for example, the Pacific coast lumber cases of 1908. The dissenting opinions of the Commission show how debatable the proposition is.[124] Up to about 1893 the lumber interests of the Pacific coast were quite undeveloped and entirely dependent upon water transportation for reaching markets. At this time low rates of forty to sixty cents per hundred pounds on forest products to markets in the Middle West were introduced, partly to build up the industry and partly to create a back loading for the preponderantly westbound tonnage of all transcontinental lines. Under these rates the business has enormously developed until, on the Northern Pacific road in 1906, the shipments of lumber east bound amounted to one-third of its entire traffic both ways, and yielded nearly one-fifth of its freight revenue. So greatly had this traffic expanded that it aided, if not actually produced, a reversal of the direction of transcontinental empties. Practically all these roads now have an excess of tonnage to the east whereas ten years ago much the larger volume of freight was moving westward. Meantime the lumbermen under the stimulus of these lower rates, and of the phenomenal rise in the price of lumber, had been wonderfully prosperous. The price of logs had risen since 1893 from about $2.50 per 1,000 feet to $13.50 in 1906; partly in consequence of the extraordinary demand consequent on the Valparaiso and San Francisco earthquakes. The mills had moved in from the rivers and the coast, and had become absolutely dependent upon rail transportation for reaching markets. At this stage, and most unfortunately in November, 1907, just at a time of industrial panic, the carriers raised their rates by about ten cents per one hundred pounds. The market price of logs had already dropped from $13.50 per thousand by approximately one-third. These two causes, commercial depression and the increased freight rate, brought about a complete collapse in the industry. And the increased freight rates were contested before the Interstate Commerce Commission in the hope that, as in the southern field the rate increases from Georgia points had been annulled,[125] these might also be found unreasonable. The broad question concerns the obligation of carriers, once having brought about an investment of capital in the industry, to continue to give the same rates as those under which the ventures had been undertaken, due regard being had, of course, to such changes in costs of service as might have ensued. The lumbermen demand that all the increment of profit due to prosperous developments shall remain unto them; in other words, that the carriers' share of the increased values shall remain fixed. On the other hand, the railways defend their increases, partly upon the ground