and the benefit of the railroads without the co-operation of the producers, and the only point we discussed was whether it should be a combination or co-operation. I took the ground personally against forming a combination inasmuch as the interests of the producers were in one sense antagonistic to ours, one as the seller and the other as the buyer. We held in argument that the producers were abundantly able to take care of their own branch of the business if they took care of the quantity produced. They were only liable to depression from our production, therefore they had in their own hands directly the power of holding the market at six or eight dollars a barrel. _Q._ You did not take into consideration the good of the consumers of the country, which is by far the larger part of the population of the country? _A._ Yes, we did. _Q._ You wanted to put up the price of oil? _A._ In answer to that I will state that the producers and refiners were both suffering under the depression that existed. The refiners were not getting enough to pay their expenses. All we asked was a fair refiner’s profit. _Q._ What effect were these arrangements to have upon those who did not come into the combination or co-operation, as you have termed it, as to the price to be charged for transporting their oil, both refiners and producers? _A._ I do not think we ever took that question up. _Q._ Were the railroad companies to charge the same increase of freights to those who did not come into the combination that they did to you without giving them a rebate? _A._ Yes, sir. _Q._ Now in case you could control the oil produced by these people in any combination that you made, were you not to have a rebate upon the oil? _A._ We were not to have a rebate, we were to have a drawback. _Q._ What is the difference between a rebate and a drawback? _A._ There is not much difference in one sense. A rebate is made at the time we pay our freight; a drawback is made afterward. _Q._ That is a technical, rather than a real, difference, is it not? _A._ I want to state it as you will find it in the contract. _Q._ The effect was that those who did not go into the combination could not get their oil as cheaply as you could? _A._ No, sir; they could not; I want to explain in what relation that occurred and why this arrangement was made. I may say that it never entered into my head that the refineries would not all be brought in; a fair manufacturer’s profit was all we wanted. They were all to be brought in on equal terms, and the object of the drawback was not to cover all the oil to be refined in this country, but only the oil that was to be exported. _Q._ If all had gone into the combination, then the result would not have been to injure the producers and refiners, but to injure the consumers of the country? _A._ No, sir; the purpose was not to injure them.