The C. B. & Q. hauled stock from points beyond the Missouri River to Chicago for $30 a car, while charging $70 a car on much shorter hauls to points in Iowa. The Northern Pacific charged twice as much from New York to points a hundred miles or more east of Portland, as from New York clear through to Portland. Freight was shipped from New York State to Council Bluffs and then back to Atlantic, Iowa, 60 miles west of Council Bluffs on the Rock Island, for less than the charge direct to Atlantic. From Chicago to Kankakee, 56 miles, the Illinois Central charged 16 cents per cwt. for fourth-class goods, while it carried the same goods to Mattoon, 116 miles farther on, for 10 cents per cwt. The grain rate on the Pennsylvania Railroad from Chicago to Pittsburg was 25 cents in 1878, while the same road would carry the grain clear through from Chicago to New York for 15 cents. Glassware paid 28 cents a hundred from Pittsburg to Chicago, and only 14 cents from Philadelphia to Chicago, half the rate for nearly double the distance. A tub of butter from Elgin, Ill., to New York, 1000 miles, paid 30 cents, while the freight on the same tub from points 165 miles out of New York City was 75 cents. The railways put the farmers of Western New York further from market than their competitors in the West. By such arrangements as this it was claimed the railroads had caused a depreciation of $400,000,000 in the value of improved lands in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, and Delaware, while the area of improved lands in those States had increased 4,500,000 acres.[20] The evils of unjust rates and railway favoritism for persons and places were earnestly discussed in the press, and in State legislatures, and in Congress. One of the examples of discrimination that caused much discussion in Congress was the Winona case. Cotton paid $1 a bale from Memphis to New Orleans, 450 miles; from Winona to New Orleans, 275 miles, travelling possibly in the same train with the Memphis bales, the rate was $3.25 per bale. Another example adduced in Congress was the 75 cent rate from New York to New Orleans, while points half way paid $1.00 for the same service. _The Granger Laws._ In the early seventies (1872 and following years), Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota, Kansas, and other States of the Middle West passed what are known as the “Granger laws,” fixing maximum rates and forbidding discriminations. Railroad commissions were also established in these States to control the roads, and it was hoped that these commissions, which grew out of the Granger agitation and were to represent the public interest and the people’s sovereignty in their relations with the railways, would be able to diminish greatly and perhaps abolish unjust discriminations. In this hope, however, the people were disappointed.