Note 195 — Chapter XIX · THE COLORADO FUEL REBATES AND OTHER CASES.

I confess, however, that I do not see how, in the light of the records in the Colorado Case, the Santa Fe counsel could tell the Senate Committee this year that his road had made no discriminating rates (see above, p. 114). Neither is it easy to see how Mr. Biddle could testify that he had not known of the payment of any rebates for 12 years. The Commission says the Santa Fe paid rebates to the Fuel Company till November, 1904, and other preferences have been unearthed, as we shall see hereafter. Some shippers and some consignees have had better terms than others. Mr. Biddle does not call these preferences rebates. The Commission sees that when the Santa Fe collected the published freight rate, $4.05, from the El Paso people and paid for the coal out of that, instead of collecting the $4.05 as freight and leaving the El Paso folks to pay for the coal in addition, the effect was the same to the El Paso people as the payment of a rebate equal to the value of the coal, and the same to the Fuel Company in respect to securing a monopoly of the market, and so the Commission, looking at the substance of the matter and the form too so far as could be judged from the published tariff, called the payments rebates, or payments out of, or deductions from, the regular tariff rates.