Among these confusing elements in the problem of trunk line rate adjustment five distinct phases were prominent. In the first place the four trunk lines were a unit in opposition to the diversion of traffic to the Great Lakes and the Erie Canal. However much they might bicker with one another afterward,--apportionment of the rail business being a distinct feature of the problem,--their interests at the outset were identical respecting the necessity of holding the business on land. Water competition by way of the lakes or the Ohio river was a danger common to them all. The intensity of this pressure may be understood from the statement that the trunk lines were not even consulted in making the Chicago-New York rate on which the western lines pro-rated. They had no voice in it, merely accepting the figure offered them by their connections into Chicago.[393] The second feature of the problem, namely, the division of the all-rail traffic among the competing carriers, is immaterial to the main question before us. Thirdly, it was essential to the trunk lines to restrict and control the activities of the subsidiary cross lines and feeders, most of which, as has been said, were independent. Many of these, aside from having a direct interest in their longest haul to a terminus on the lakes or the Ohio river, had been built by local capital, and were administered in the interests of the lake cities or Cincinnati and Louisville. There was no unity whatever in their policies, and the most ridiculous wastes of transportation resulted. Grain was literally meandering toward the East instead of moving by a direct route.[394] Joint through rates would be made by the most extraordinary chain of connecting links leading to the seaboard by very circuitous ways.[395]