"It is seen to some extent in the Northwest as a whole. At the close of the year 1887 the States included by Henry V. Poor in the Central, Northern and Northwestern groups had 25,040 miles of road, while those of the South Atlantic, Gulf and Mississippi Valley had but 24,567. To-day this relation is reversed: the Northwest has but 27,294 miles, while the South has 30,696." Had Mr. Hadley taken the pains to look up the population of these groups he would have found that the "South" is fully three times as populous as the "Northwest," and that therefore his figures prove nothing beyond the fact that at the present rate of gain the railroad facilities of the South will in a quarter of a century be equal to those of the Northwest to-day. But the argument is weak in another respect. The State in the Southern group that made by far the greatest gain in railroad mileage during the period mentioned by Mr. Hadley is Georgia, which gained about 1,000 miles in three years, yet that State prescribed rates for railroad companies six years before Iowa did, and has for many years exerted a more thorough control over her railroads than perhaps any other State in the Union. The smallest increase is in West Virginia, which during the period given gained an average of only 69 miles per annum; and yet in West Virginia railroads charge their own rates and usually have their own way. Finally Prof. Hadley says: "Where are we to find the limit to such unwise action? The United States Supreme Court can do something and has shown a disposition to do something. In the Minnesota cases it repudiated the doctrine of uncontrolled rights on the part of the legislature to make rates, as emphatically as it repudiated the doctrine of uncontrolled rights on the part of agents of the corporation in the Granger cases, twelve years before." It is evident that Mr. Hadley is as much mistaken in his interpretation of the decision of the court as he has been in his other assertions, as will be seen from the following extract from Judge Blatchford's opinion in Budd vs. New York, in which he says, "The main question involved is whether this court will adhere to its decision in Munn vs. Illinois."