How does this transportation question now stand, and what (if any) matters are in progress or contemplation to affect it? In the first place, the companies are all free to manage their own business in their own way; they charge what they like, favor what persons and places they choose, and load on others burdens heavy to be borne. I have before indicated what was the purpose of the bill introduced in the Legislature of 1880, to prevent discrimination by common carriers. "The Oregonian" commented on the loss of the measure in these terms: "We present to-day the report of the (hostile) Senate committee on this bill. The report shows why the proposed measure was both an unjust and an impracticable one. It should be apparent to every one that railways never can be operated in this way. The confusion and disorder would be endless; besides, every railroad which is undertaken and constructed as an actual business enterprise is entitled to make fair earnings. Instead of being annoyed by straw railroads got up for speculative purposes, it ought to have protection from such annoyance." [Sidenote: _OREGON RAILWAY AND NAVIGATION CO._] In further illustration of the working of the present system, I would instance the fact that from Corvallis to Portland for about a year the freight on wheat by the river steamboats of the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company has been one dollar a ton, and of this fifty cents had to be paid for passing the locks at Oregon City; the rate immediately previous to this was three dollars and a half. This ridiculously low rate was put on in order to destroy the traffic of the East and West Side Railroads, and is in strong contrast with the rate from Corvallis to Junction City, some twenty miles up the river, where no such reasons existed, and which stood through this period at about tenfold the one-dollar rate. No sooner did the President of the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company think he had secured "control" of the two railroads, than steps were prepared to quadruple the previous rate. The question of "control" stood adjourned, and the one-dollar rate was confirmed. But, having seen reason to think his acquisition secure, the rates from Portland to Corvallis (ninety-seven miles by railroad), both by railroads and steamboats, have just now (April, 1881) been raised to six dollars per ton--a rate equal to that charged in the infancy of the business, twenty years ago.