The problem as it affects the manufacturer is akin to that concerning the jobber. Originally, as a matter of fact, the carload reduction was essentially a manufacturers' rating, especially for goods in which the cost of raw material formed a large part of the price of the finished product. The relations of the carload rate on the former to the less-than-carload rate on the latter, it is obvious, may readily become an important element in industrial success. It is plain enough that carload charges under such circumstances should be substantially less than those upon small consignments; but that is far from affording a satisfactory answer to the question as to the proper spread or difference in charge to be allowed between the two. Obviously, in any representation as to the reasonableness of the discount which shall be allowed on carloads, either on the basis of cost or of traffic principles, the interests of localities are commercially pitted one against another. The New York or Chicago jobbing house desiring to sell its goods directly to the retailers throughout the West, wishes to have a relatively low rate on such small shipments as the retailers in lesser places alone can afford to purchase. Participation in this distributing business, however, is resented by the middlemen located in western centres--Omaha, Denver, Kansas City, etc.--who all insist that there should be so wide a difference between carload and less-than-carload rates that they may ship in their wholesale purchases at a low rate, and thus compete in their own territory with the manufacturer in the East or the jobber in New York who desires to sell direct.[361] Comparison of the classifications in different parts of the country reveals the influence of these local interests. The railways in Official Classification territory desire, of course, to build up the manufacturing and jobbing cities tributary to them. This can best be done by encouraging the growth of eastern jobbing centres, stimulated by as low rates for retail as for wholesale shipments. The railways in the western and southern territory, on the contrary, are obliged to consider the claims of their constituents, and to correspondingly minimize the advantages which foreign competitors of their local wholesale dealers enjoy. Another consideration must also be kept in view, namely, that carload ratings can only be accorded when business has developed a magnitude sufficient to permit shipments of that size. The growth of the volume of business in general, therefore, might be normally expected to produce an increase in the proportion of carload ratings. Experience, as we have seen, confirms this view. The normal development, then, is toward an increase in the number of lower rates quoted for carload lots. This is retarded only by the influence of the jobbers and manufacturers in the eastern trade centres, who insist that they shall be permitted to compete on even terms with provincial middlemen by