competing points named east of the Mississippi. Specific rates are asked in the complaints, differentials lower, generally, than the rates from St. Louis to the same points, modified at the hearing to a request for a relative adjustment recognizing Cape Girardeau's advantage in distance over most of the competing points involved, particularly with relation to St. Louis. The St. Louis Sand & Material Company, which operates a mill at Prospect Hill, Mo., within the switching limits of St. Louis, and the Oklahoma Portland Cement Company of Ada, intervened in opposition to the complaints. We consider the complaints separately in the order in which they are numbered.

NO. 7109. SOUTHERN ARKANSAS AND LOUISIANA WEST OF THE MISSISSIPPI

RIVER.

When the complaint was filed and at the time of the hearing, Cape Girardeau had rates 3 cents per 100 pounds lower than the rates from St. Louis to points in northeastern and central Arkansas; rates 2 cents lower to points in northwestern Arkansas, and to some points in southeastern Arkansas; the same rates as St. Louis to the remaining points in southeastern Arkansas and to all points in southern and southwestern Arkansas and Louisiana west of the Mississippi River, hereinafter referred to under this complaint as Louisiana. Before cement mills were established at St. Louis, Iola, Cape Girardeau, and other points west of the Mississippi River the cement used in Arkansas and Louisiana moved from New Orleans after shipment to New Orleans from the east, or through Memphis, Cairo, and St. Louis. The Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railway served Arkansas and northern Louisiana from Memphis; the St. Louis Southwestern, hereinafter called the Cotton Belt, from Cairo; the St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern, from St. Louis. Water competition also affected the rates to Little Rock and other points accessible by water. Rates were made from St. Louis to central Arkansas differentials over the rates to the same points from Memphis, with the rates from Cairo intermediate. New Orleans was given the same rates as St. Louis to points on or south of the Rock Island line from Memphis through Little Rock to Oklahoma; slightly higher rates than St. Louis to points north of the Rock Island's line. The adjustment described to Little Rock applied to all junction points in central and northeastern Arkansas and to some junction points in southern Arkansas, such as Pine Bluff and Camden. When mills were erected subsequently at Iola and other gas-belt points they were given rates equal to the St. Louis rates, regardless of differences in distance, to promote commercial competition. Ada was given gas-belt point rates for the same reason. Cape Girardeau was given the Cairo basis.

Rates of 17 cents from St. Louis to Little Rock and 19 cents from Harrys to Little Rock were approved in Little Rock Chamber of Com

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merce v. St. L., I. M. & S. Ry. Co., 26 I. C. C., 341; a rate of 15 cents from gas-belt points, Ada, Bonner Springs, Kans., and Sugar Creek, Mo., to Fort Smith, Ark., in Board of Improvement, Water Works Dist. No. 1, Fort Smith, Ark., v. A., T. & S. F. Ry. Co., 26 I. C. C., 539; a rate of 17 cents from Kansas gas-belt points to Little Rock in Merchants Freight Bureau of Little Rock, Ark., v. A., T. & S. F., Ry. Co., 26 I. C. C., 543. Water competition from New Orleans is said to have influenced the rates to northern Louisiana. Rates to Louisiana points less than 80 miles west of New Orleans make on New Orleans; rates to points farther west on the western junctions of the delivering lines. In Oklahoma Portland Cement Co. v. M., K. & T. Ry. Co., 24 I. C. C., 158, a rate of 17 cents from Ada to Shreveport, La., was ordered reduced to 15 cents as a maximum, with the expressed expectation that the carriers would readjust the rates from Ada to other Louisiana points conformably. Subsequently, in Oklahoma Portland Cement Co. v. A., L. & G. Ry. Co., 32 I. C. C., 221, we held that Ada was entitled to a differential of 3 cents per 100 pounds under the rates from gas-belt points to points in southern Arkansas and a differential of 2 cents to points in Louisiana. Such rates with numerous incidental readjustments from other points have been published since the hearing had in this case. The present adjustment with short-line mileages, regardless of the routes actually worked, is as follows, rates stated in cents per 100 pounds:

Complainant asks rates from Cape Girardeau 3 cents per 100 pounds lower than the rates contemporaneously in effect from St. Louis to points in southern Arkansas, rates 2 cents lower than the rates from St. Louis to points in Louisiana.

Ada is about 110 miles nearer than a point midway between Dewey and Iola to southern Arkansas points, 153 miles nearer to points in Louisiana. Cape Girardeau is about 105 miles nearer than St. Louis to points in southern Arkansas, 107 miles to points in Louisiana. St. Louis in turn is about 117 miles nearer than Hannibal to points in southern Arkansas, 117 miles to points in Louisiana. Shipments from Ada, Hannibal, and Cape Girardeau all require two and three line hauls, as compared with one and two line hauls available from St. Louis, but as found in Little Rock Chamber of Commerce v. St. L., I. M. & S. Ry. Co., supra, cement traffic from St. Louis usually does not move directly from St. Louis, but indirectly across the Mississippi at St. Louis, thence south to Thebes, Ill., and thence back into Missouri over the Thebes bridge. The routes. involving the fewest carriers from Ada and Cape Girardeau are longer than the short-line routes, but as only rate relationships are involved comparisons by means of the shortest routes from all points are competent. The Frisco is the initial carrier both from Cape Girardeau and from Ada. Ada's advantage in distance over gas-belt points to the destination points involved is recognized in the relation

ship prescribed in Oklahoma Portland Cement Co. v. A., L. & G. Ry. Co., supra. The similar advantage of St. Louis over Hannibal is recognized in a 4-cent differential in favor of St. Louis maintained voluntarily to points as far south as the Vicksburg, Shreveport & Pacific Railway and to many points still farther south. Cape Girardeau's similar advantage over St. Louis is recognized only as far south as points in northern and central Arkansas, as follows, rates in cents per 100 pounds:

The treatment accorded Cape Girardeau in anomalous. The conditions which produced the rates maintained in central Arkansas also obtain in southern Arkansas. The distances to southern Arkansas points are greater but not enough greater to justify a total disregard of Cape Girardeau's distance advantage over St. Louis, especially as the similar advantage in distance that St. Louis has over Hannibal is recognized voluntarily to points in Louisiana. Defendants urge that the rate applicable from St. Louis to Malvern, immediately south of Little Rock, 18 cents, obtains as a blanket rate to points as far beyond as Texarkana and Shreveport. The 17-cent rate from St. Louis to Little Rock, however, also is a blanket rate applicable to numerous points north of Little Rock which take a rate of only 14 cents from Cape Girardeau. St. Louis territory is said to include Cape Girardeau and Cairo for all traffic to Texas and Louisiana, and defendants fear that if their definition of St. Louis territory is wrong for cement to Texas and Louisiana points it is wrong for all traffic to the same points. The conclusion is too broad, for, of course, groups may be proper for some kinds of traffic and improper for other kinds. No cement is produced at Cairo or at any of the other points in southwestern Missouri grouped with St. Louis. Traffic from Cairo, moreover, would have to cross the Mississippi River. The same carrier competition exists from St. Louis, Cairo, and Memphis to southern and southwestern Arkansas and northern Louisiana as exists to central and northern Arkansas.

The conclusion is impelled that St. Louis is a deliberately favored point, as is further evidenced by the adjustment northbound. The rates to the twin cities, for example, are 10 cents from Hannibal, 10

cents from St. Louis, and 17 cents from Cape Girardeau, 64 cents to St. Louis, 10 cents beyond.

Defendants' principal justification for their whole adjustment on southbound traffic is commercial competition. We virtually found in Oklahoma Portland Cement Co. v. A., L. & G. Ry. Co., supra, however, that commercial competition has been pressed too far in this territory and that differences in distances had been too much ignored. We adhere to that decision and upon all of the facts disclosed find that Cape Girardeau is entitled to carload rates on cement 3 cents per 100 pounds lower than the rates contemporaneously maintained on the same traffic from St. Louis to points in Arkansas, south of the line of the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railway from Memphis, Tenn., west to Little Rock, Ark., and south of the continuation of the same line west through Mansfield, Ark., and 2 cents per 100 pounds lower than the rates from St. Louis to points in Louisiana west of the Mississippi River.

SUB-NO. 1. WESTERN KENTUCKY AND TENNESSEE.

Most of the rates on cement from Cape Girardeau to this territory are combination rates based either on Cairo, Ill., or Memphis, Tenn.: 5 cents to Cairo, 7 cents or 9 cents to Memphis, depending on the route, plus the several rates applicable from Cairo or Memphis to destinations. The destination points involved are common and local points on the Illinois Central Railroad, the Mobile & Ohio Railroad, the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Railway, and the Louisville. & Nashville Railroad, west of the Tennessee River. The competing producing points emphasized are St. Louis, Hannibal, Kosmosdale, and Richard City, although La Salle, Buffington, Speeds, and Mitchell also compete.

The Illinois Central has a line from East St. Louis through Cairo and Jackson, Tenn., to New Orleans, another from Louisville through Kosmosdale and Paducah to Memphis, a third from Cairo to Paducah. The line to New Orleans intersects the line to Memphis at Fulton, Ky., just north of the Kentucky-Tennessee state line. The Mobile & Ohio extends from East St. Louis south through Cairo and Rives, southwest of Fulton, to Jackson, Tenn., where it crosses the Illinois Central's New Orleans line, thence south to Mobile, Ala. It crosses the Illinois Central's Memphis line at Rives. The Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis extends northwest from Chattanooga, Tenn., to Nashville, and thence southwest through Hollow Rock, Tenn., just west of the Tennessee River, and Jackson, to Memphis. A branch extends from Hollow Rock northwest to Hickman, Ky., another