The methods by which the Standard controls New England are still in full swing. The report of the Industrial Commission tells how the Standard Oil railroads keep the independent refineries at Cleveland out of New England through high rates on oil by rail, while the Standard ships by water, and by making oil second class unless the shipper has a private siding or tank opposite the rails of the New Haven and Hartford Railroad, but fifth class if the shipper has such siding or tank, _i. e._, if the shipper is the Standard Oil Co.[295] “The freight rate from Cleveland to Boston,” says the report, “was formerly 22 cents per hundred pounds alike on iron articles, grain, and petroleum. But since the Interstate Commerce Act the rates have been changed, so that the rate on grain is 15 cents per hundred pounds, on iron 20 cents, and on petroleum 24 cents. Again, on almost every commodity through rates are made from Cleveland and other western points to points reached by the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad. On petroleum there are no through rates, but a local rate is added to the Boston rate. Moreover the New York, New Haven and Hartford prescribes that petroleum and its products shall be in the second class of freight unless the person to whom it is shipped has a private siding or tank opposite the rails, in which case it is fifth class, the rate for fifth class being probably one-half that for second class. These arrangements are explainable by the fact that the Standard Oil Company ships oil from its seaboard refineries to Boston largely by tank steamers, and distributes it from there for a comparatively short distance at the local rates.”[296] In the West the Standard has persuaded the railroads to lift the rates on oil so high as to make competition difficult. The rate from Pennsylvania points to Chicago was raised from 17½ cents to 19½ cents, and the rate from Chicago to St. Paul went up from 10 cents to 20 cents.[297] The Standard pumps oil to Chicago by pipe, and the higher the rates by rail the more impossible it is for the independents to compete. Of course it is against the direct interests of the railway stockholders to have rates so high as to check the traffic in oil by rail, but the Standard does not care about that, and it is a small matter even to the railroad managers compared to incurring the displeasure of Standard Oil, which has sufficient control in the railway world to cause any disobedient railroad most serious loss and even make a railroad war upon it. Before the Standard found other methods of controlling transportation and milking the public it used to receive half a million dollars a month in rebates. But some railroad men who are in a position to know say that since 1900 the Standard Oil has not asked for rebates, the reason being that the tariffs are made in such a way as to give the Trust all the advantage it requires.[298]