A thoughtful writer in the _Popular Science Monthly_ says: “The most serious class of unjust discriminations includes those which have for their victims the entire populations of towns, cities, and even extensive districts, which are made to suffer from the unfair adjustment of railway rates. Practically the whole region south of the Potomac and Ohio and east of the Mississippi has continuously suffered from discriminations of this kind through the system of making charges to a few selected cities the basis for through rates to all other points. Through rates are made to and from about two hundred of the larger towns, including Atlanta, Birmingham, Chattanooga, Vicksburg, New Orleans, and Mobile, and traffic shipped from or to all other points is charged the rate to one of these basing-points plus the local rate from such basing-points to final destination. In practice it is common to make the combination by the use of rates to and beyond whatever basing-point will give the lowest total, whether on the line traversed by the shipment or not. Thus a shipment from Cincinnati to a point on the line from that city to New Orleans may be charged the full rate to New Orleans plus that from the latter back to the local point. The condemnation of such a system cannot be too severe. It not only limits the commercial activities of the towns unjustly discriminated against and restricts the sources from which they can directly draw supplies, but by hindering their growth it retards the development of the entire section, including the cities supposed to be favored.”[142] In a case decided in 1894 it was found that hay was being carried from Memphis through Summerville to Charleston for 19 cents a hundred, against 28 cents a hundred from Memphis to Summerville, the 9 cents difference being equal to the local rate from Charleston back to Summerville. “The difference of $1.80 per ton was sufficient to preclude the Summerville dealer from selling in neighboring towns in competition with Charleston dealers. The Summerville dealer was thus practically confined to Summerville for a market, and even there had to compete with dealers doing business at Charleston 19 miles away. If $3.80 per ton is profitable to the carriers for bringing hay in carloads from Memphis to Charleston, then $5.60 per ton, nearly 50 percent more, from Memphis to Summerville, which is nearer than Charleston is to Memphis, represents an extra profit of $1.80, which the carrier did not and could not show to be equalled by extra cost of transporting a car of hay and delivering the same at Memphis.” The Commission (June 1894) ordered the carriers not to charge more from Memphis to Summerville than from Memphis to Charleston, holding that competition of markets or of railways would not justify a higher charge for a shorter than for a longer haul. The order was made in September. In its report to Congress in December the Commission said, “The order has not been obeyed.”[143]