make lower rates on large
shipments than on small ones for the same reasons that the wholesale
merchant can sell his goods for less than the retailer. But while this
may be a good reason why rates on car-load shipments should be lower
than rates on shipments in less than car-load lots, it is certainly no
good reason why five car-loads belonging to one shipper should be
transported the same distance for less than five carloads belonging to
five shippers. In the case of local shipments the car is scarcely ever
loaded to its full capacity; one shipment after another is taken from it
as the train moves along, and the car perhaps reaches its final
destination nearly, if not entirely, empty. The terminal charges are
here also largely increased, and it is but just that the shipper should
pay the additional cost of carrying and handling the goods. The case is
entirely different when the railroad company carries five full carloads
from one station of its line to another. Whether they have been loaded
by one or five persons, whether they are consigned to one or five
persons, matters little to the railroad company. It merely transports
the cars, and in either case its responsibility and its services are the
same. The car-load must therefore be accepted and is now generally
accepted by the best railroad men as the unit of wholesale shipments,
and any discrimination made in favor of large wholesale shippers is
arbitrary and unjust. In the shipment of some commodities, such as
wheat, flour and coal, a small advantage in rates is sufficient to
enable the favored shipper to "freeze out" all competitors. It is
certainly not to the interest of any railroad company to pursue such a
policy; for by driving small establishments out of the business it
encourages monopoly, which almost invariably enhances prices and
decreases consumption. The railroad thus suffers in common with the
public the consequences of its short-sighted policy. That even railroad
managers realize that these practices cannot be defended upon any
principle of justice or equity is apparent from the fact that one of the
never-varying conditions of special rates is that they be kept secret. A
specimen of a special rate agreement which was placed before the New
York investigating committee is here presented to the reader:

"This agreement, made and entered into this eighteenth day of
March, 1878, by and between the New York Central and Hudson
River Railroad