Denver still suffers from the sort of discrimination described in the preceding section.[313] The rate in cotton goods from New England to Denver is $2.24 per hundred. From New England to San Francisco, 1500 miles further on, the rate is $1 a hundred in carload lots. On a shipment in relation to which a Denver merchant made complaint, the Burlington road received $25.95 from Chicago to Denver, whereas if the same shipment had been intended for Frisco the Burlington would have received only $4.50. Salt Lake City also is wrestling with adverse freight rates. On cotton goods the rate from New York to Frisco is $1, while on the shorter haul from New York to Salt Lake it is just double, $2 per hundred.[314] The rate on window-shade cloth from New York to Salt Lake City is $2.30. Carrying it 800 miles further, New York to California, the railroads charge only $1, and this affords a slight profit. Is it not clear that the $2.30 is excessive?[315] “The men who build a city in the interior cannot expect to get as reasonable a rate as the men who build their city on the shore of the sea, but the difference should be a reasonable one.” It would seem that the men who build in the interior might expect that they would not be called on to pay railway fixed charges on coast traffic as well as on their own. It is unfair to give the coast people the celerity of railway traffic at the cost of water traffic. The railroad theory that every pound of freight is to be secured that will pay the cost of hauling or a little more, though a water route or a shorter rail line might carry the freight at less absolute cost, is not in accord with sound public policy or the saving of industrial power. It is an economic absurdity to haul by rail what can go more cheaply and as safely by water. A co-operative company or a consolidated company of any honest and sensible variety, owning both the railroads and the steamboat lines, would divide the traffic in such a way as to secure the maximum economy and convenience, and would make a reasonable payment for the extra speed and other advantages of railway transit the main condition of selecting that method of transportation, with an option in the company under specified conditions to facilitate the full loading of trains and boats through the adjustment of rates. The case of Spokane is a specially aggravated one. The rate on bar iron from Chicago to Spokane is $2.07 a hundred against $1.25 to Seattle; iron pipe $1 to Spokane, 50 cents to Seattle; lamps $2.35 to Spokane, $1.10 to Seattle; belting $3.13 to Spokane, and $1.65 to Seattle; mining-car wheels $1.26 to Spokane and 85 cents to Seattle; cottons $1.75 to Spokane, 90 cents to the coast; soap (toilet) $1.23 to Spokane, 75 cents to coast cities; wire and wire goods $2.35 to Spokane, $1.50 to the coast; sewing machines $2.25 to Spokane, $1.40 to coast; typewriters $5.96 to Spokane, $3 to the cities of the coast.