“Mr. Biddle. No; the arrangement we had with the Southern Pacific was an agreement as to what they would pay for their coal.
“Mr. Field. You paid no attention whatever to the published tariffs?
“Mr. Biddle. I don’t know that we published a tariff on Southern Pacific coal at all.
“Mr. Field. When you published a tariff for the information of the public and the Interstate Commerce Commission, it was with the reservation that you might modify that tariff to certain consumers as suited your business?
“Mr. Biddle. It didn’t apply to coal when destined to the Southern Pacific.
“Mr. Field. That is another way of saying that it didn’t apply when you didn’t want it to apply.
“Mr. Biddle. It means just exactly what I said it meant. I said that the rate we published to Deming on coal was published with the full knowledge that it did not apply on coal destined to the Southern Pacific, or coal going to points on the El Paso and Southwestern.
“Mr. Field. With whose full knowledge?
“Mr. Biddle. With my full knowledge.”
That is to say: The law requires all rates to be published and adhered to, so that the Commission and the public may know what rates are being charged. The traffic manager publishes a rate on coal, knowing that he intends to give a secret cut rate to special customers, and then testifies that the secret rate is no breach of the published tariff or violation of law because the tariff was published with his full knowledge that he wasn’t going to stick to it. The law in such case depends entirely on what the railroad manager whispers to himself when he issues the tariff. If the manager says to himself, “I intend to follow this tariff which I’m sending to the Interstate Commerce Commission,” then a rate lower than the tariff is in violation of the law; but if the manager says, “I intend to give the Southern Pacific and the El Paso lower rates than this tariff shows,” then the tariff is issued with full knowledge that it doesn’t apply to Southern Pacific and El Paso, and cut rates to Southern Pacific and El Paso and their customers constitute no violation of law.