This would indeed be a drastic remedy, and very effective for the prevention of the discovery of discrimination. An association of railroads might ferret out preferences under such a rule, but it would be almost impossible for a public board to do it. It has been for the most part, as we have seen, practically impossible for the Commission to get evidence of specific facts of discrimination, even under the comparatively mild laws they have tried to enforce. And under such a law the difficulty would be increased tenfold. Moreover, if discrimination were discovered and the rule proposed were put in action, discriminations would thereby be crystallized and legalized, and great disturbances produced in the business of railroads and of the community. Suppose it were discovered that a certain shipper of wheat from Chicago east had a 10 cent rate over the Erie, while the published rate on all the lines was 15 cents. Immediately the 10 cent rate would be open to all shippers over the Erie. The Erie might be stricken with a sudden dearth of cars, and be unable to handle the traffic at all. It would pay the other roads to arrange with the Erie to be stricken that way. For if the Erie handled the traffic, the other roads would have to come down to 10 cents and suffer a severe loss, or lose the business and suffer a severe loss that way. Moreover, the difference in rates on wheat and flour and other commodities would constitute serious discrimination, petrified and perpetuated by law. Again, if many cut rates were discovered in various lines of business and various degrees of discount, the whole tariff would be thrown into confusion worse than the normal chaos. Rates not in the discovered list would have to be raised to save the revenues of the roads, the long and short haul rule would go to the winds, and bankruptcy would threaten not only the culprit railroads but individuals and communities not conditioned so as to be favored by the cut-rate lists. On the other hand, if the railroads tried to be good, the pressure of the big shippers for concessions would put many roads to serious inconvenience and threaten them with dangers and losses almost as great as those accompanying disobedience, and far more immediate and certain. Under such circumstances the temptation to secure secrecy at any cost, and if need be to control the Commission and the courts, would be irresistible.