The amount of reduction to be allowed on shipments by carload as against consignments in small lots is a nice and most perplexing problem in classification. Attention has already been directed to the great increase in distinct carload ratings which has accompanied the development of trade. As affecting the interests of shippers in different parts of the country, the question came up almost immediately after the passage of the Act to Regulate Commerce. In the so-called New York Board of Trade case,[358] complaint was entered by eastern merchants against a great increase in the number of wholesale ratings in 1888. More than five times as many commodities as before were abruptly given lower rates when shipped out of New York by the carload. Inasmuch as a very large proportion of groceries and other supplies went by box or package, this reduction accorded on carload shipments greatly benefited the jobbers all through the West and South. Under new conditions provincial middlemen could buy in carloads; and then re-distribute from local centres much more advantageously than before. The Commission, called upon to decide as to the relative rights of these two classes of jobbers, attempted to bring about an adjustment which should, in the main, conform to the existing trade conditions; and yet should take into consideration the relative cost of service in the two cases. The competitive struggle between eastern and both southern and western dealers revealed in these early proceedings, has cropped out continually in official proceedings ever since that time. In a modified form the same question came to the front in connection with the general advance of freight rates in 1900.[359] The changes at this time were twofold--not only modifications in the number of carload ratings, but also an altered differential or spread between the charges for the two sorts of shipments. The question is a vital one to all the shipping interests of the country. It is one of the most troublesome elements in the establishment of a uniform classification for the United States as a whole. For inability to standardize reasonable differences between carload and small shipments, under the widely different trade conditions and practices in various sections of the country, is an almost insuperable difficulty in the way of that reform.