western roads, in order to protect their clients in the same markets, to adopt a similar policy. The result is that extra large equipment is relatively more common throughout this territory; thereby conferring a distinct advantage over their eastern competitors upon western shippers of such light and bulky freight. In pursuance of this same protective policy, the western roads have also enforced distinctly favorable rules as to carload lots applied to several small cars instead of one large one.[372] These troublesome details are given in the hope that they may show how far the ramification of trade competition extends. They re-enforce the conviction that any reform of classification is a matter of extreme difficulty; and, if undertaken at all, must be done under governmental compulsion and by a single universal reform, rather than by any attempt at piecemeal improvement. Next to ability to load and carry, as a determinant factor in fixing minimum carload weights, the consuming capacity of the market must be considered. A reasonable minimum carload in the East might well be unfair in the West or South. An old-established factory in New England might satisfactorily use a quantity of raw material which in a carload lot would overwhelm a western or southern plant. Thus it comes about that minimum weights on the same goods quite properly vary widely in different territories; being higher in the East than in the West, and least of all in the South. The problem, therefore, of standardizing carload rates throughout the country, unfortunately becomes exceedingly difficult. A compromise will fail to satisfy anybody; and, moreover, such a change of minimum carload weights at once necessitates a remodelling of the particular distance tariff to which it applies. This point was well illustrated in a recent case.[373] A railway accepted for the same carriage at different times two carload shipments of lime from a given concern. On the one, a rate of thirty-four cents per one hundred pounds was based upon a minimum carload weight of 24,000 pounds. On the other twenty-nine cents was assessed upon a minimum of 30,000 pounds. The carrier alleged that these differences in rates per pound were entirely compatible in view of the difference in carload minima. It then appeared that these minima, especially with a perishable commodity like lime, varied considerably according to destination. Large distributing centres were given low rates on high minima, while small towns, consuming relatively less, were best served by a lower carload minimum to which a higher rate per pound was applied. In other words, the close interrelation between the rate and the minimum was a matter of great commercial importance.