[393] Harbor City Wholesale Company of San Pedro, California, v. Southern Pacific Company, 19 I. C. C. R. 323 (1910).
[394] Commercial Club of Santa Barbara, California, v. Southern Pacific Company, 12 I. C. C. R. 495 (1907).
[395] Santa Rosa Traffic Association v. Southern Pacific Company, 24 I. C. C. R. 46 (1912); 29 I. C. C. R. 65 (1914); Transcontinental Commodity Rate to San José, Santa Clara and Marysville, California, 32 I. C. C. R. 449 (1914).
[396] In 1887 a steamer of the Pacific Coast Steamship Company left San Francisco weekly for Vancouver, where its freight was loaded upon cars of the Canadian Pacific Company and taken east across the mountains. The Canadian Pacific demanded, and in 1888 was conceded, the privilege of accepting freight from San Francisco to Chicago and points east at rates less than those charged by the other transcontinental lines. (Martin v. Southern Pacific Company, I. C. C. R. 1 [1888].)
[397] Business Men’s League of St. Louis v. Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fé Railway Company, 9 I. C. C. R. 318 (1902).
When the Interstate Commerce Act was passed in 1887 the transcontinental carriers agreed to grade eastbound rates back to the Pacific Coast. Under tariffs issued April 5, 1887, Missouri River rates were applied for about 350 miles west of the river, from which point they gradually decreased to Denver. The Denver rates were applied from Denver to a point near Green River, over 300 miles west from Cheyenne. From Green River the rates again decreased gradually to the Pacific Coast. The tariff of April 5 was published in order to comply with Section 4 of the Interstate Commerce Law, and it was superseded by other tariffs in April and May, 1887, by permission of the Interstate Commerce Commission. (Martin v. Southern Pacific Company, 2 I. C. C. R. I [1888].)
In later years transcontinental rates to interior points were not uniformly built by combination upon the terminals. In many cases, even in westbound rates, the terminal rates served as maxima beyond which intermediate rates were higher than to terminal points, but not by the full extent of the local back. Thus on the Central Pacific in 1902 the company named class rates to intermediate points which acted as maxima to all points, which meant that when the specified intermediate rate was less than the terminal plus the local back, the lower rate prevailed. Nor must the influence of the Interstate Commerce Commission in reducing intermediate rates be left out of account. Yet it was the conclusion of this same commission as late as 1902, that the point where the direct rate from the East was at least as high as the sum of the terminal rate and the local rate from terminal to intermediate destination, was on the average 300 miles east of the Pacific Coast, and in some instances several times that distance, a fact which is sufficient to characterize the system as a whole.
[398] Business Men’s League of St. Louis v. Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fé Railway Company, 9 I. C. C. R. 318 (1902). See also Rates on Asphaltum, etc., 33 I. C. C. R. 480 (1915).
[399] In so far as there is rail competition between transcontinental carriers, this rivalry also is keenest upon the Pacific Coast, and weakest in the intermediate territory.
[400] Report of Senate Judiciary Committee on Assembly Bill No. 10, 1884, testimony C. S. Stevens.