"It is always considered desirable to have a long haul, and the rates on a long haul should be much less, in proportion to distance, than on a short haul. This is a principle of rate-making which has grown up as one of the factors in the evolution of the railroad business in this country, and it has greatly stimulated the movement of freight for long distances, has brought the great manufacturing centres in closer touch with the consumer at a distance and the producer in closer touch with centres of trade. It has been of undoubted benefit to both, though it may oftentimes retard the growth of new industries by a system of rates so preferential as to enable the manufacturer a long distance from the field of production of raw material to ship the raw material to his mills, manufacture it and return the manufactured goods cheaper than the local manufacturer could afford to make it, and thus, while building up the centres of manufacture, have retarded the growth of manufacturing in the centres where the raw material is produced." The other aspect of industrial rigidity is manifested through the perpetuation of an industry in a district, regardless of the physical disabilities under which it is conducted. Another quotation describes it well.[308] SENATOR CARMACK. Is it the policy of the roads, wherever they find an industry established, to keep it going by advantages in the way of rates regardless of changes in economic conditions? Mr. TUTTLE. I think in so far as it is possible for them to do so. It has not been possible in all cases. We could not keep iron furnaces running in New England; they are all gone. One cannot for a moment doubt the advantages of such a policy as a safeguard against violent dislocating shocks to industry. It may render the transition to new and better conditions more gradual and easier to bear. It has been of inestimable value to New England, as exposed to the competition of newer manufactures in the Central West. But on the other hand, it is equally true that in the long run the whole country will fare best when each industry is prosecuted in the most favored location--all conditions of marketing as well as of mere production being considered. If Pittsburg is the natural centre for iron and steel production, it may not be an unmixed advantage to the country at large, however great its value to New England, to have the carriers perpetuate the barbed wire manufacture at Worcester.[309] Each particular case would have to be decided on its merits. My purpose at present is not to pass judgment on any of them but merely to call attention to the effect of such practices upon the process of industrial selection.