The reason for the persistent pressure for low rates on petroleum products is, of course, that the cost of manufacture is so low relatively to the expense of transportation. An ample manufacturing profit is one-half cent per gallon of crude oil; and the average cost of refining does not exceed that amount. Yet a half cent will scarcely pay freight for more than one hundred miles. Hence it follows that for distances greater than this, the question of profit or loss may entirely depend upon the delicate adjustment of the freight rate. In this regard, a great company shipping all over the country has a great advantage over smaller competitors with a strictly local market, in that it can play off one rate against another. Thus, in one notable case, cited by the Bureau of Corporations, the Burlington road gave an absolutely unremunerative rate from the Standard refinery at Whiting near Chicago to East St. Louis, thereby enabling troublesome competition to be subdued; but it was recompensed by the payment of heavier charges on shipments to other points on the Burlington system, where, there being no competition, the high freight rate could be shifted on to the consumer. The Commissioner of Corporations gives one instance on the Northwestern road of a carload rate from Whiting to Milwaukee in order to meet water competition from independents at Toledo, which netted the carrier just ninety-two cents for the carriage of 24,000 pounds of oil a distance of eighty-five miles, with free return of the empty car.