which is made by adding to the local rate of 46 cents from Chicago, 7 cents per barrel across the lake. In the division of this rate, the railways allow the Boat Line from 30 per cent to 33% per cent on business beyond the Mississippi River, or from 16 to 18 cents per barrel for the transportation across lake. The effect of this division, together with the intimate relations existing between the salt shipping company and the boat line, it is alleged by the Detroit shippers, is to absolutely bar the Detroit salt people from business west of the Mississippi through the Chicago gateway, and to render it impossible for them to do business at a profit on lines on which these rates are in effect through St. Louis, Hannibal, Quincy and Keokuk.

The Boat Line pays to the International Salt Company 5 cents per barrel on salt for the use of docks of the latter company and for certain handling. The International Salt Company has docks at Chicago, South Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Joseph, Benton Harbor, Michigan City and Duluth. It receives the salt from the boats, stores, handles, reloads, insures and takes care of it until it is delivered. This service last year cost $187,153.75 or 6.46 cents per barrel, for which the salt company receive from the Boat Line 5 cents per barrel. In other words, it cost the salt company 1.46 cents per barrel more than 53 cents, the joint rate, to transport salt, Manistee and Ludington to Omaha.

The International Salt Company claims that it failed to do business successfully from the works by all-rail transportation for the reason that it could not obtain cars and supply orders promptly. Docks are necessary for prompt delivery. After deducting the dockage charges the Boat Line has a balance of about 8 to 9 cents per barrel. The fixed charges incurred by the Boat Line in the transportation of salt across the lake amount to 8.5 cents per barrel, composed of the following items: Charge for stowing by stevedores at Manistee and Ludington 1 cent per barrel, unloading and cooperage at Chicago 2.5 cents per barrel, dockage charges already referred to 5 cents per barrel.

General Manager Tracy of the Boat Line was interrogated as to the point whether or not any rebate is paid from

the tariff on salt to the International Salt Company. The following testimony was added:

Q. "Do you know whether there is any account taken of the rate, what division of the rate you get for transportation in settlement with the Salt Company, whereby that is used as a rebate?"

Mr. Tracy: "There is none whatever. The Salt Company pays the published rate from Manistee on every pound we handle."

Q. "And that goes into the treasury of the transportation company?"

Mr. Tracy: "That goes into the treasury of the transportation company."

Q. "There is no manipulation?"

Mr. Tracy: "None whatever; we conform with the laws of the United States as nearly as we understand them. The only compensation the salt company receives from the M. I. & I. line is where they furnish us storage, and that is on a written contract."

Q. "Is that made excessive in order to cover a portion of this transportation?"

Mr. Tracy: "No, sir; it is the cheapest storage that I know of anywhere in the world."

In addition to the Boat Line various other steamship lines are operated on the lakes under the same, or quite similar, conditions as those surrounding that company. These include the Sheboygan and Port Huron Transportation Company, which is being merged, or transformed, into the Great Lakes Transportation Company; the Ludington Transportation Company and the Michigan & Ohio Transportation Company of Detroit. These companies publish through tariffs in connection with various western lines, including the Chicago & Northwestern and the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul, on salt from Manistee, Ludington and Port Huron via Sheboygan, Manitowoc, Milwaukee and Chicago, the rate being 53 cents to the Missouri river, the same as that via the Boat Line, and the division accruing to these boat lines about 30 per cent as in the case of the M. I. & I. The relations of these boat lines to various salt shipping companies are

much the same as those described in the case of the M. I. & I. Boat Line.

The National Salt Company of New Jersey, in 1899 entered into a contract with the Detroit Salt Company whereby the Detroit Salt Company sold all its product for five years to the National Salt Company and stipulated that, in case of failure to move the salt produced by the Detroit Company, the National Company should pay certain liquidated damages, the result being that the National Salt Company did not remove the Detroit Company's product and the latter received liquidated damages in the amount of $144 per day from March 14, 1901, until the middle of July, 1901, while their factories were standing idle. The Detroit Salt Company is one of the companies which, it is alleged, has been compelled to stop business on account of discriminating rates.

In 1895 J. M. Mulkey, one of the Complainants, entered into a contract with the Wabash road whereby the Wabash, in consideration of Mulkey's building salt works on the River Rouge near Detroit and from time to time enlarging the same and protecting the interests of the Wabash at competitive points and giving the Wabash the preference at such points where the rates are the same, agreed to give Mulkey rates on slack, pea and nut coal that should not exceed 85 cents per ton from Fairmount to Detroit and $1 from greater distances on the Wabash east of the Mississippi River. The Wabash also agreed to maintain the established differentials, during the term of the agreement, that then existed in favor of Detroit. This contract dated in 1895 was renewed and is still in force. The main feature of this contract was the differential regardless of tariffs which the Wabash agreed to maintain-a differential as against Manistee and Ludington of 8 cents.

At the time this contract with the Wabash went into effect, Saginaw salt was manufactured by exhaust steam, and it was understood that no Detroit manufacturer could live against that competition; and Mr. Mulkey testified that, as the Wabash was getting no salt business from any other source, it wanted the salt from the plant at Detroit.

As to his complaint and the change in conditions which he believed should be made, Mr. Mulkey testified as follows:

Mr. Mulkey: "We simply ask the railroads to restore the rate to what it has been in the past."

Q. "What figure did you want it restored to-53 cents was it, you wanted it restored to ?"

Mr. Mulkey: "If the rate is 46 cents from Chicago, which it is now, I want to pay (from Detroit) 56 cents, or 10 cents more than the Chicago rate."

Q. "What is the rate from Manistee that you complain of?" Mr. Mulkey: "What I complain of is the giving of a boat line, controlled by the salt interest, 3313 per cent of one through rate, which allows them 17 cents for hauling which costs but 8 cents."

Q. "Then you have no complaint of the gross rates, have you?"

Mr. Mulkey: "No, sir."

Q. "You have absolutely no complaint to make here of rates? You only complain of a certain division between the Boat Line and the railroad?"

Mr. Mulkey: "I complain whenever the rate gets more than 10 cents more than the Chicago rate."

Mr. Tracy, General Manager of the Boat Line, defended the proportional of the through rate accorded to his company in the following language:

"We have the right to say to the C. B. & Q. as any man would say in making a trade in any commercial transaction: 'If you go to Manistee or Ludington for your salt for Omaha by the Pere Marquette road you will have to give the Pere Marquette railroad earning based on 296 miles rail haul. If you go to Manistee or Ludington for your salt for the Missouri River by the way of Milwaukee you will have to give the Chicago & Northwestern or the Goodrich Line, or the Wisconsin Central or the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul to haul the salt from Milwaukee to you 30 per cent of the rate from Milwaukee to the Missouri River for bringing the salt from Milwaukee to Chicago, and in addition to that you will have to get the acrosslake line to bring salt to Milwaukee. That will cost you mere

money than the proposition we make to you, which is the present division."

"I hold that we are entitled to take advantage of all the conditions in making a division of the through rate with these roads that come to Chicago for salt and cannot get to Milwaukee and these other places.

"I say when we perform a service from Manistee and Ludington to Chicago for railroads that do not go to Milwaukee, Sheboygan or Manitowoc, and who are obliged to find a connection from Chicago to this great salt field, we are entitled to a division of the rate which would accrue to the only other way that they could get to the salt, which would be by rail.”

As a matter of fact, were the salt carried by rail from Manistee to the Missouri river, the carrier transporting it to Chicago would, upon a mileage basis, be entitled to a division of 36.2 per cent of the through rate.

Mr. Keepers, of the Illinois Central, testified in regard to the strength of position held by the carrier with whom freight originates, and which is available in securing, by the originating carrier, an advantageous division of a through rate. He said, as illustrating this fact, that freight brought from Milwaukee by the Goodrich Steamboat Line to Chicago and thence shipped west paid the Goodrich Line 30 per cent of the through rate to destination, although, at the same time, the all-rail rate to such destination was the same from both Milwaukee and Chicago. For instance, if the Northwestern road received the freight at Milwaukee and carried it west, whether through Chicago or not, it got the whole of the through rate. If, however, the Goodrich Line secured the freight and brought it to Chicago, and then turned it over to the Northwestern road, the Goodrich Line would receive 30 per cent of the through rate for so doing.

The distance from Manistee to Chicago is about 185 nautical miles or 206 statute miles. The mean distance from Chicago to the Missouri river is 512 miles. A division of the rate of 53 cents from Manistee to the Missouri river, made upon the basis of mileage as given above, would give the Boat Line approximately 29 per cent and the railway 71 per cent. The present division of the rate gives the Boat Line from 30 per cent to