The Foraker Bill, which is understood to be preferred by the railroads, provides for thorough inspection of books, records, and transactions of interstate roads by agents of the Commission; and if any rate is found to be unjust, or unreasonable, or the carrier “is committing any discriminations forbidden by law, whether as between shippers, places, commodities, or otherwise, and whether affected by means of rates, rebates, classifications, differentials, preferentials, private cars, switching or terminal charges, elevator charges, failure to supply shippers equally with cars, or in any other manner whatsoever, the Commission, if the carrier will not desist upon due notice, may state the case to the Attorney-General, who is to bring suit in the circuit court in any district in which the act complained of, or part of it, was committed, and the court shall summarily handle the case and enjoin such rate or conduct as it finds unlawful or what is in excess of what is reasonable and just.” Appeal shall lie to the Supreme Court. The Bill authorizes agreements between railroads in respect to rates or charges and their maintenance so long as the agreement is not in _unreasonable_ restraint of trade. The provisions for inspection and combination seem to us eminently just and useful, although the latter is strenuously opposed by many on the ground that it authorizes and invites all the railroads of the United States to form a huge trust and monopoly to fix rates for the whole country. This, it is claimed by ex-Senator Chandler, “gives away all that has been gained by the Supreme Court decisions in the cases of the Trans-Missouri Freight Association, the Joint Traffic Association, and the Northern Securities Company. In the Joint Traffic Association case the nine railroad systems between New York and Chicago formed an organization of three billions of capital, made all the rates, and prohibited any one of the roads from lowering any rate without the consent of the nine managers of the trust. The court destroyed this three-billion monster. The Foraker Bill creates a fourteen-billion monster, which will prevent any railroad anywhere in the country from lowering any rates without the consent of the traffic managers of the combination.” The plan of making the Interstate Commission a mere investigating body with no power to fix a rate, but only to state the matter to the Attorney-General, leaving the case to be tried on his initiative piecemeal in the circuit courts all over the country, with appeal to the Supreme Court, seems to us much more objectionable than the permission to form rate agreements. Under any such form of court procedure it will be possible for the railroads to delay final decision, fixing of a just rate, or abolition of an unjust practice for years.