728 " COMMERCE YEARBOOK 
proceeded through their second district; the Norfolk & Western, the 
Santa Fe, the Union Pacific, and the Chicago & North Western 
have second districts practically completed. The Southern Railway 
reported its second installation completed on November 22, 1925. 
LEGISLATION ‘ 
During the second session of the Sixty-ninth Congress in 1925 only 
one important piece of legislation affecting the railroads was enacted, 
This was the so-called Hoch-Smith Resolution, instructing the Inter- 
state Commerce Commission to make a survey of the entire rate 
structure of the country and to make, from time to time, such re- 
visions as this investigation showed to be advisable, with particular 
reference to the value of farm products in relation to railroad rates. 
Several bills of importance were introduced into the Sixty-ninth 
Congress dealing with an amendment of the fourth section of the 
Interstate Commerce Act, with consolidation, with the regulation of 
interstate commerce by motor vehicle, and with the settlement of 
labor disputes. The bill to amend the fourth section was defeated in 
the Senate. The railroad labor act, abolishing the railroad labor 
board and creating new machinery for handling labor adjustments, 
passed the House and Senate, becoming a law in May, 1926. The 
other bills are still pending. 
MOTOR TRANSPORTATION 
There are in operation in the entire world approximately 24,450,000 
automobiles—passenger cars, trucks and busses, not including motor 
cycles. The registration of these vehicles in the United States in 
1925 was 19,954,000, or more than four-fifths of the total. There 
are also in the world approximately 1,520,000 motor cycles, of which 
the United States has only about 140,000. Statistics of the regis- 
tration of motor vehicles in the leading countries of the world, in 
comparison with the number of inhabitants, are presented in the 
table on page 405. 
Registration in the United States in 1925 was 13.4 per cent greater 
«than in 1924, as compared with an increase of 16.6 per cent the pre- 
ceding year. The rate of increase was substantially the same for 
motor trucks as for passenger cars, although in most preceding years 
the trucks had increased more rapidly. 
The increase in the number of motor vehicles registered as com- 
pared with 1924 was shared by every State, and for the most part 
no marked differences appear among the States in the rate of increase. 
Florida reported an exceptionally high increase of nearly 50 per cent.