The carrier also agreed that in the event of active competition with the Pacific Mail for the traffic between New York and San Francisco, the rates charged by rail during the period of competition should not exceed those current on Pacific Mail vessels by more than certain named amounts, ranging from 50 cents on goods taken at rates not exceeding $3.50, to $3 on goods taken at rates exceeding $6. This guaranty was not to be enforced at times when the rates of the Pacific Mail were subject to the control of the railroads. In consideration of these assurances the shipper agreed to forward “by way of the railroads owned or operated by the contracting carriers and such other connecting railroads as might be designated from time to time, all goods, wares, and merchandise handled by the merchants entering into the agreement which might or should be purchased in or obtained from any point in the United States or Canada east of the meridian of Omaha, during the term of this contract, for sale or use on the Pacific Coast.”[376] Rates under System It appears that at the beginning the same rates were quoted to all shippers signing the contract. That is to say, two rate sheets were published, one known as the “white list,” and the other as the “pink list.” The white list contained the open, or public rate; the pink list contained the contract rate. Contracts were made with individual shippers that if they would give to the railroad line all of their traffic for a year to the exclusion of ocean carriers, they would have a rebate down to the figure fixed in the pink list. Somewhat later, however, jobbers on the Pacific Coast were individually dealt with, and the rates began to vary. Mr. Stubbs says in describing this phase of the matter: We tramped the streets here for a couple of months, explaining our ideas to the principal importers. By some we were met with cordiality and approval. Others were a little indifferent. Where a merchant liked the scheme, we would sit down with him, and, by examining his bills of lading by Cape Horn and his insurance policies, we would get an idea of the quantity he would ship by the several routes and the cost to him by the use of the several routes. We would then aim to make the rate so that upon the whole it would average about the same. We would average the rate while he was using the three routes. Still later the railroads returned to the one-rate policy. To arrive at this rate they adopted a plan of “harmonization”; they averaged the rates upon various commodities which had been charged to various shippers and made a new schedule of rates, from which they varied as emergency might require or expediency advise, by the current method of rebating.[377] Administration of Contracts