No less preferential in purpose are the measures of reform recently enacted by the central government.

The amended Inter-state Commerce Law largely increases the power of possible discrimination possessed by the Federal Commission.

The Pure Food Bill forbids many practices, which have arisen in connection with the manufacture of food products, and discriminates against the perpetrators of such practices.

Factory legislation or laws regulating the hours of labor have a similar meaning and justification.
It is not too much to say that substantially all the industrial legislation, demanded by the "people" both here and abroad and passed in the popular interest, has been based essentially on class discrimination.
The situation which these laws are supposed to meet is always the same.
A certain number of individuals enjoy, in the beginning, equal opportunities to perform certain acts; and in the competition resulting there from some of these individuals or associations obtain advantages over their competitors, or over their fellow-citizens whom they employ or serve.

Sometimes these advantages and the practices whereby they are obtained are profitable to a larger number of people than they injure.
Sometimes the reverse is true.