Excerpt from Findings of Facts: Relative to the Valuation of Railroads in the State of Washington The original Commission Act provided, in substance, that the Commission should, as early as practicable, ascertain the amount of money expended in the construction and equipment, per mile, of every railroad in Washington. Under this act the Commission, agreeable to its terms, employed experts for the purpose of complying with the provisions of the law. The manifest object of the Legislature was to enable the Commission to ascertain the investment upon which the railroad was entitled to earn a return to be considered in the determination of reasonable rates. After investigating this subject with great care, examining the authorities and particularly the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States, the Commission became convinced that a literal compliance with the terms of the act would be of little, if any, value to the state, as the statute provided for ascertaining but one of the many elements that must of necessity be considered in ascertaining the amount upon which the road is entitled to earn a return. While the original investment is material and should be known, the authorities would indicate that the railroad is entitled to earn a reasonable return on the "value" of the property used by it for the public convenience at the time of the inquiry. And the courts have clearly intimated that in ascertaining this value consideration must be given to not only the original investment, but also to the cost of reproduction, the amount and market value of the stocks and bonds, the density of traffic and, in short, every element that a prudent investor would consider in determining the market value of the property. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.