Railroads can discriminate against a whole industry by advancing rates on particular commodities above the fair level, as illustrated in the recent advances on hay and lumber.[230] CHAPTER XXIII. DISCRIMINATION BY CLASSIFICATION. The intricacies of classification afford boundless opportunity for favoritism. Classification is always more or less arbitrary by necessity, and is frequently more arbitrary than necessary. One industry or wholesale trade is often charged two or three times as much as another for the same service. The New York Railroad Commission found the railroads charging twice as much on dry goods as on coffee or sugar and protested against the rule as utterly indefensible, but the railroads refused to comply with the request for a change. Iron and coal cost less to transport than grain, yet the ton-mile rates on iron and coal from Pittsburg have been at times for years together from 2 to 5 times the rates on grain from New York to Chicago. In 1890 the Interstate Commerce Commission ordered the railroads to transfer soap from the 5th to the 6th class. In 1900 the railroads changed it back to 5th class in carload lots, and from 4th to 3d class in less-than-carload lots, but if shipped in mixed lots with dressed beef it goes as 5th class. So that Armour, Swift & Co., of the Beef Trust, have been able to ship soap in less-than-carload lots at much lower rates than their competitors.[231] The Commission ordered the roads to cease their excessive discrimination on less than carload lots, etc. The roads refused to obey. The Circuit Court has sustained the order of the Commission. Under the Illinois Central tariffs at one time it made a difference of $40 a car if a man shipped a peck of potatoes in a car of 16,000 lbs. of strawberries. If there were no potatoes in the car so that it was not a mixed load, it cost $40 more than if there were a peck of potatoes in with the strawberries.[232] The classification of castor oil on the Lake routes affords a curious example of the freaks of tariff classing. Vegetable castor oil is 5th class, or 16½ cents a hundred, from Cleveland to Chicago, while mineral castor oil takes a rate of 25 cents a hundred.[233] The law has not yet definitely touched the favoring of large shippers by excessive difference in the rates on carloads and less than carloads. There is not more than 5 percent difference in the cost of transporting goods in carload lots and less-than-carload lots, and yet the rates vary from 30 to 80 percent, as a rule, and sometimes 150 percent.[234]