The peculiarity of many of these rate adjustments of the Standard Oil Company of late years was that they were publicly filed; and hence not open to legal attack. This does not however detract in the least from their discriminatory character. One example, right here in New England, now happily corrected, may be cited from the records of the Interstate Commerce Commission for 1906.[181] The southern half of New England was mainly supplied with kerosene from the great Standard refinery at Bayonne, New Jersey. The oil was brought there from the fields by pipe line; and, being refined, was distributed by tank vessels all along the coast, with a short rail haul thereafter to inland points. The total cost to the Standard company was estimated by the Bureau of Corporations at between fourteen and sixteen cents per hundredweight. To meet this, the independent western refiners had to ship all the way by rail. This was more expensive in any event; but for some years they found their handicap greatly increased by the refusal of the New Haven road to join in any joint through rate. The western independents, therefore, had to pay the sum of two local rates, up to and beyond the Hudson river, thereby bringing their transportation up to approximately thirty cents per hundred pounds. In other words, their cost of carriage per gallon was enhanced more than enough to constitute a fair refining profit in itself. The result was the practical exclusion of competition from this source. Fortunately, however, after this investigation the New Haven was ordered to pro-rate with the western roads, thereby overcoming about half of this disability. This case clearly evinces the necessity of effective Federal regulation of such matters as joint rates; and it also shows how possible it may be to so adjust tariffs, openly and even legally, as to favor one shipper over another.