Page:United States Reports, Volume 209.djvu/148

 122 OCTOBER TER, 1907. Opon  t. 3)9 U. . coreling to the fourth finding the rates in question given to the packers at the Missouri River and St. Paul were the re- suit of competition. W'thout ,recapitulating all the facts dis- closed in that finding it is enough to say that the Chicago Great Western Railway Company, which had the longest line from Chicago to Missouri River points, made a reduction in the rates, and did this, as its president testified, "for the purpose of securing a greater proportion of the traffic in the products of live stock than it had been previously able to obtain." That is one of the facts inducing competition, and one of the results expected to flow from a reduetion of rates. It certainly of itseft deserves no condemnation. In order to secure to them- selves what was likely to be transferred to the Great Western by virtue of its reduction of .rates, the other companies also made a reduction and, as shown by the fifth finding, the com- petition was not the relt of agreeaent, but was an "actual, genuine, competition." It may be true, as contended by coun- sel for the appellant, that even a genuine competition which results in a change of rates does not necessarily determine the question whether the rates as fixed work an undue preference or create an unlawful discrimination. Those rates fixed may make a preference or discrimination.irrespective of the mo- tives which caused the railway companies to adopt them, and yet the fact of a genuine competition does make ag irt the contention that the rates were intended to work injustice. An honest and fair motive was the cause of the change in rates; honest and fair on the pat of the Great Western in its effort to secure more business, and equally honest and fair on the part of the other railway companies in the effort to retain as much of the business as was possible. In other words, this competition eliminates from the case an intent to do an un- lawful act, and leaves for consideration only the question whether the rates as established do work an undue preference or discrimination; nd as the findings of the court show that the result of the new rates has not been to change the volume of traffic going to Chicago, or materially affect the business

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