“MORTON. Well, I think there was a great deal more than any sum you mention paid out. “CLEMENTS. By your company? “MORTON. By all the companies. I think we paid out $50,000 a year or more. “CLEMENTS. Who would have the direction of that? Who would see that it was paid? Who would direct it to be done? “MORTON. I would. “COMMISSIONER PROUTY. How much does it cost your company on all its business in any one year to deviate from the published rates? “MORTON. I should think between $500,000 and $1,000,000 a year.” By means of private cars, mileage payments, rebates, and control of rates, the big packers had advantages which enabled them to ruin the smaller packers all over the country. The Lincoln, Neb., Packing Company, for example, was “driven out of business,” the manager says, “by freight discrimination, rebates, and the private car. After doing a losing business for 5 or 6 years against these odds, the company closed down with a loss of 75 percent of the investment.” And this is a fair sample of what has happened to many, many of the competitors of the Beef Trust. CHAPTER XIII. IMPORTS AND EXPORTS. The low rates in favor of foreign goods and of domestic goods intended for export amount to a serious discrimination. Paul Morton told the United States Industrial Commission that goods were carried from Hamburg to Denver for less than the rates from Chicago to Denver.[113] Complaint was made many years ago that the Pennsylvania Railroad and other roads charged lower rates, even 50 percent lower, on goods shipped in from foreign countries than on domestic traffic of the same sort. Investigation revealed in some cases a far greater difference than 50 percent. At one time the rate on tin plate from Liverpool via Philadelphia and the Pennsylvania Railroad to Chicago was 24 cents a hundred, while the rate from Philadelphia over the same road was 28 cents.