As Hadley says: “The points where there is no competition are made to pay the fixed charges.”[327] The railroads make whatever rates are necessary to get business on the through routes, and compel the rural districts to pay rates high enough to make up for the low rates on through traffic. In many cases local rates in country districts are almost as high as they were in the old stage-coach days. Senator Dolliver suggests that every village and interior community in the United States has a grievance against the railways on account of discrimination against them in favor of the large centres.[328] Every small town, and every small shipper and every farmer has to pay tribute to the big cities. The effect is to build up the cities in wealth and population at the expense of the country. For example, while Indianapolis increased by 32,389 inhabitants from 1880 to 1890, 49 counties remained stationary, and 21 counties lost. So Detroit grew greatly, while 20 counties in the State, nearly all the counties in Southern Michigan, lost population. “It is manifest that the railroads are greatly aiding the cities in drawing to themselves the best and the worst from the country, and every moment are increasing the magnitude of the municipal problem.”[329] Mr. Alexander says that the railways should have credit for decreasing the discriminations made by nature. “Thirty years ago it cost over a dollar a pound to carry from New York machinery and tools to work the mines of Utah, and the trip consumed the whole summer, during which the purchaser lost the use of his money. Now the trip requires but two weeks or less, and the rate is about two cents. Comparing these rates, and considering the character of the present service as compared with the old, it is not an exaggeration to say that the railroads have removed about ninety-nine one-hundredths of the discrimination against Utah which nature ordained in surrounding her with deserts and mountains.”[330] It is true that the railways have greatly reduced the obstacles of nature, but it is also true that they have used their power of reduction unequally, arbitrarily, and unjustly. The discriminations of nature have not the quality of justice or injustice that attaches to discrimination by human agencies. In the exercise of the function of removing the difficulties of nature the common carrier must be impartial. CHAPTER XXIX. NULLIFYING THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF.