There is much force in some of these points, none at all in others. There is no reasonable doubt that Congress can authorize a commission to fix rates. Railway Commissions in 21 States have power to fix rates, either absolute or maximum, and some of them have exercised the power vigorously, and a national commission may be given the same power over interstate commerce that a State commission may have over State commerce. There is more force in the objection based on the lack of elasticity in commission-made rates. Elasticity, however, may easily be overdone and much of the present elasticity is very undesirable. Many flying tariffs and unfair discriminations lurk under cover of that reputable word elasticity. Moreover the Commission would not interfere with any fair rate-making by the railroads. The bulk of the rates would not be touched but only those that were unjust. So that it would depend entirely on the railroads how much of the flexibility they so much admire should be kept in their own hands. They would keep it all unless they were guilty of dishonest flexibility, in which case the elasticity, which, according to impartial judgment, exceeded the bounds of justice, would be checked. In reference to the alleged necessity of flexibility in tariffs and the ability of traffic managers to accommodate the rates to fluctuating commercial conditions, Chairman Knapp of the Interstate Commission says that there need not be any tendency to iron-clad rules or undue emphasis of the mileage basis on the part of a Government board, but that the necessity of frequent changes in tariffs is greatly overdrawn. He states that the railroads have kept the same basis of rates since 1887 throughout the most important part of the United States, the “official classification territory” or the section north of the Ohio and Potomac and east of the Mississippi, and that “the class rates which govern most merchandise and articles of manufacture and ordinary household consumption have remained unchanged in all that territory.” The railroads changed the classification of many articles about 1900, “but they did not change the rates or the adjustments between localities.” “I take it there is no agricultural product the price of which has shown such wide fluctuations in the last few years as cotton. It is one of the great staple articles of the country; the most valuable per pound of anything that grows out of the ground in large volume. More than half of it is exported and you know the price has gone from scarcely above 5 cents to 16 or 17 cents. And if there is any article which would seem to be susceptible to market fluctuations and the changes in commercial conditions, it must be cotton. But an inspection of the tariffs will show you that the rates on cotton have not been changed in ten years.