This committee in turn referred the matter to Commissioner Albert Fink, "Seeking a relativity of rates so as to make the charges for transportation, including the expenses incident to the transportation of dressed beef, the same per pound as the charges per pound of dressed beef transported to the East in the shape of live stock." A difficult task this, considering the variety of by-products emerging into value year by year. Cattle rates had been for some time fifty-two per cent., and then later sixty per cent. of the dressed beef rates. This was relatively higher for cattle than had been charged during the seventies. But the western packers demanded that the relativity in favor of the finished product be still further advanced until cattle rates should equal seventy-five per cent. of the rates on beef. This would effectually discourage the shipment of cattle to eastern centres, and would tend to upbuild Kansas City and Chicago at their expense. In 1884, the matter being still in dispute, was referred to Hon. T. M. Cooley, afterward chairman of the Interstate Commerce Commission. He decided that a fair compromise would be forty cents on cattle from Chicago to New York with coincident rates of seventy cents on beef. This would make the cattle rate about fifty-seven per cent. of the beef rate. It was a victory for the stockmen as against the western packers, who at once raised a great outcry. It would have been difficult to predict the final outcome had not an entirely new factor appeared, which transformed the conduct of the beef packing industry.[113] Specially constructed stock cars owned by private companies began to be built. These favored the perpetuation of competition between eastern and western packers. To checkmate this, the western packers had already embarked in 1879 upon the ownership of privately owned refrigerator cars for the carriage of their finished products. The custom was adopted by the railways of paying for the use of these cars by making an allowance of so much a mile as a deduction from the established tariffs. This at once opened the way to secret rebates of all sorts. The refrigerator traffic in these private cars was large in volume, very regular and highly concentrated as to source. A large tonnage could be diverted at any time to that road which could best show its appreciation of the favor. The Grand Trunk, for instance, in 1887 swept the board, monopolizing this entire business for a brief time, obtaining it by secret and discriminating rates. The railways, jointly, sought to free themselves from the domination of the large packers; but the phenomenal growth of their business, both domestic and export, rendered them too powerful to resist. According to expert data, during nine months to May 1, 1889, three shippers alone received from one line of road $72,945 for the use of their cars. This about equalled the initial cost of eighty new cars. For the fiscal