There is no question that the rate system upon the Pacific Coast made it difficult for intermediate and local towns to import supplies directly from the East and to distribute them through their own organization. This was not the result of the difference between terminal and local rates alone, but was the combined result of the practice of the transcontinental carriers with respect to rates and their practice with regard to carload shipments. That is to say, the carriers not only quoted generally lower rates, carload against carload, and small consignment against small consignment, to terminal cities than to intermediate or to interior towns, but they also granted many carload ratings to terminals which were altogether denied to their interior competitors. In some cases this occasioned an extraordinary difference in the total charge. On the other hand, it should not be forgotten that to encourage distribution through Pacific Coast terminals was not necessarily to concentrate the whole business of distribution. The competition between the Pacific terminal and the eastern jobber was just as real as that between the Pacific terminal and the intermediate point. It is sometimes forgotten how active this eastern competition was. That it continually threatened the western distributor is shown by the fact that in spite of the advantages enjoyed by western terminals, 50 per cent of the jobbing business in the hardware trade in southern California was done in 1902 by houses east of the Missouri River, so that the Interstate Commerce Commission expressed the opinion that in the absence of some distinct advantage in the rate it would be very difficult for Pacific Coast dealers to hold their own.[408] In central California the proportion of the jobbing business done by eastern firms ranged from 25 to 40 per cent. Certainly no decentralization in business would have taken place had the California distributors been compelled to withdraw in favor of men in Chicago and St. Louis, nor would the aggregate cost of getting goods from producer to final consumer have been decreased. Inconsistency