“Q. Are you sufficiently acquainted with the commercial community of Stockton to know whether they have any reluctance in making complaint ... before any Court of justice, or in going before the Railroad Commissioners, or an investigating committee? A. All I know about it is the impressions I have drawn from what I have heard.
“Q. To what effect? A. I would be very reluctant to come before this body and state what firm I belong to, or represent, for fear that the railroad might chastise me for it, or my firm.
“Q. Is that opinion generally shared among the merchants? A. As I understand it, that is the general opinion.
“Q. What do you mean by the word ‘chastise’? A. They might take our contracts away from us.”
This testimony was corroborated by at least one well-established merchant in San Francisco, who declared before the same Senate committee that business men in San Francisco were afraid to testify against the railroad for fear that their contracts might be broken. (Testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee of the Legislature on Assembly Bill No. 10, 1884.)
[381] Business Men’s League of St. Louis v. Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fé Railroad, 9 I. C. C. R. 318 (1902). The number of vessels with their tonnage which entered the port of San Francisco in the trade with the Atlantic ports of the United States by way of Cape Horn from 1867 to 1884 was as follows:
| Year ended June 30 | Number | Tonnage |
| 1867 | 103 | 110,721 |
| 1868 | 119 | 124,504 |
| 1869 | 139 | 153,784 |
| 1870 | 111 | 126,726 |
| 1871 | 53 | 66,289 |
| 1872 | 63 | 70,956 |
| 1873 | 87 | 104,586 |
| 1874 | 62 | 83,248 |
| 1875 | 75 | 110,071 |
| 1876 | 88 | 124,793 |
| 1877 | 86 | 124,746 |
| 1878 | 68 | 104,544 |
| 1879 | 57 | 92,683 |
| 1880 | 53 | 86,332 |
| 1881 | 55 | 89,097 |
| 1882 | 67 | 104,157 |
| 1883 | 71 | 118,494 |
| 1884 | 48 | 84,196 |
[382] Proceedings of the Transcontinental Association, 1885. The special contract system was strikingly similar to the system of “deferred rebates,” until recently in good repute among ocean steamship companies. The argument in defense of this last-named system shows how slowly an understanding of the advantages of equality in matters of transportation rates spreads in a community. It is the view of the writer that both the special contract and the deferred rebate systems were and are contrary, to sound public policy, whether applied on land or sea.
[383] A miner in Shasta County wrote to the San Francisco Examiner in 1893:
“I will state some facts about the attempt that was made to ship ores from here. Up to 1887 little or no assorted gold ores had been shipped. It was so new an enterprise that it was not classified in freight rates of the railroad company. The company was asked to establish rates, which it did—at $50 per car from Redding to San Francisco. This was satisfactory to the miners. We commenced to ship, and in a few months were sending down over 100 tons per month and had hopes of building up a permanent business. All at once, without notice, the freight was increased to $73 per car, and in a short time it was again raised, this time to $95 per car, and lots of less than one car were raised from 48 cents to 76 cents per 100 pounds. I went to San Francisco to see why this was done, and after considerable trouble gained an audience with an official at Fourth and Townsend streets. I spoke to the official about the advance on ore freight rates. His reply was: ‘Why, you are sending down ore that would make a prince rich. We can’t pull high-grade ore on low-grade rates.’ I reminded him that it was billed at a valuation of $100 per ton and that the railroad company’s responsibility ended there, and that we wished rates on all grades of ore, as there were so many values we could not classify them.