Q. Now, can you state to this commission what your net profit was for carrying that amount over your system?--A. _I do not know._ Q. Can you make any estimate?--A. _No, sir._ Q. You heard the testimony of Mr. Simpson (representing the Flint and Pere Marquette Railroad), did you not?--A. Yes, sir. Q. He stated that his road carried the mails at a dead loss. What that loss was _he was unable to give us_. I understand you to say that you do make a profit out of carrying the mails?--A. I beg your pardon. I said that, because we got approximately the same rate per ton per mile for carrying the mails as for express (and that the express rate had been a matter of careful negotiation as between our company and the express company); I have reason to believe that we would not have taken the express business unless we derived a profit from it, and therefore I think it is reasonable to suppose that we must derive a profit from the postoffice business. Q. Do you mean to tell me that you have no estimate as to the cost of carrying this mail matter?--A. _Not to my knowledge. We have taken what the Government gave us._ As I have shown you, they have never pretended to remunerate us for many services rendered. Q. If you are unable to say what your profit was for carrying this mail, how can you complain that you are not being properly compensated for the service rendered?--A. Because we render so many services today that we did not formerly when the rate was fixed. Q. I understand; but, so far as we know from your testimony, you may be amply compensated for it.--A. We receive, as I said before, a certain rate from the express company for analogous service, and do not render them anything like the equivalent that we render the Postoffice Department, so that we must derive a great deal more profit from the express business than we do from the postoffice. Q. Still, it would not follow that you were not deriving proper compensation for carrying the mail, would it?--A. It would not follow that we do not derive some compensation from it. Q. _Unless you are prepared to tell us what your profit is, or your loss, as the case may be, of course you can not expect us to know it, and, unless we know it, you can not expect us to sympathize with the complaint._--A. _We are not making complaint about the compensation we receive, but the threat held over our heads that our compensation would be cut down._ When they cut us down on the land-grant roads they did not make it a matter of negotiation at all; they just simply took off 20 per cent.