Such a roundabout route from Wilmington on this diagram to its own natural tributary A could be, and as a matter of fact is, made by passing around by way of Charleston or any other seaport. Charleston wishes to share in this trade at A, and may reach it by similar tactics. It stands towards A precisely as Wilmington stands towards B. They finally agree to enjoy both A and B on even terms. But, as we have already seen, the admission of Wilmington to B is equivalent to the admission of all the rest. Whence it comes about that all four establish B as a "common point." And of course the same procedure fixes all the others, A, C, and D in the same way. In the Savannah Fertilizer case[231] it appeared that there were no fewer than 148 points in ten states from Louisiana to Kentucky, to which rates on fertilizers were absolutely the same from each of the four seaports. The degree of local discrimination of course was negligible at the remoter places; but it augmented in proportion as the immediate neighborhood of each seaport was approached. The apparent anomaly was greatest in a north and south direction along the seacoast. Thus Dinsmore, Florida, was 275 miles from Charleston and only 160 miles from Savannah, yet the rates from both points were the same. The governing feature usually was the entire equality of coastwise water rates, regardless of distance, which in turn compelled the land lines to follow suit. The Cincinnati Freight Bureau case, otherwise known as the Maximum Freight Rate case,[232] affords the best example of the difficulty in practice of adjusting rates over different and widely separated lines on a distance basis, in order to satisfy the demands of commercial competition. Atlanta, Georgia, the key to the southern market, is 876 miles by rail from New York, but only 475 miles from Cincinnati and 733 from Chicago. In other words, Cincinnati is fifty-four per cent. as far from Atlanta as is New York; and even Chicago is only eighty-four per cent. as remote. In general, this valuable southern territory, on the basis of mere distance, is really nearer to the leading middle western cities than to those on the Atlantic seaboard. Yet this geographical situation is not reflected in the railway tariffs. Rates from the West, especially on manufactures, were much higher, always relatively and often absolutely. Thus first-class goods in 1894 paid $1.47 per hundred from Chicago (733 miles), while from New York (876 miles) the rate was only $1.14. At points like Chattanooga the disparity was even greater. This city is only 595 miles from Chicago as against 1,060 miles from Boston. Yet the rates were actually lower ($1.14) from New England than from Chicago ($1.16). The principal reason for this of course was the cheap coastwise water competition by way of Charleston and Savannah. The eastern all-rail routes could charge no more than the combined rail-and-water lines. The difference