made incredibly low in order to fill cars that would otherwise go empty, or to use the road as nearly as possible to its full capacity. In the twenty years following the introduction of steel rails the traffic of the New York Central increased from less than 400,000,000 ton-miles to decidedly over 2,000,000,000; while the average rates fell from 3.09 cents per ton per mile in 1866 to 0.76 cent in 1886. This is but a single instance of a process which has gone on all over the country. The average freight charge on all railroads of the country to-day is a little over one cent per ton a mile: less than half what would have been deemed possible on any railroad a few years ago. The progress of railroad consolidation contributed greatly to this economy. It saved multiplication of offices; it saved re-handling of freight; it enabled long-distance business to be done systematically. So great were its advantages that co-operation between connecting lines was carried far beyond the limits of actual consolidation. Through traffic was handled without transshipment, sometimes by regularly incorporated express companies or freight companies on the same plan, but more commonly by what are known as fast-freight lines.[30] These are little more than combinations for keeping account of through business; they are by no means ideal in their working, but they have the advantage of few expenses and no income, so that the temptation to steal, which is the bane of such organizations, is here reduced to a minimum. But all these things, while they increased the efficiency of the service, also increased the power of the railroad authorities and rendered the shipper more helpless. The very cheapness of rates only made a recourse to other means of transportation more difficult. If _A_ was charged 30 cents while his competitor _B_ was paying only 20 cents for the same service, he was worse off than when they were both paying a dollar; and the fact that no other means of conveyance could be found to do the work for less than a dollar simply put _A_ all the more completely at the mercy of the railroad freight-agent. In other words, the fact that rates were so low made any inequality in rates all the more dangerous. The lower the rate and the wider the monopoly, the less was the chance of relief.