The second natural tendency in the development of classification above mentioned, is an increase in the number of separate ratings for large and small shipments. The normal growth of trade ought to make possible a steady increase in shipments by the carload, rather than by the box, barrel, or case; and the increase in the number of separate carload ratings--always, of course, at a reduced rate by comparison with less-than-carload lots--conforms territorially to the growth in the volume of trade. In 1877, even in trunk line territory, only twenty-four commodities were accorded a special carload rate.[327] By 1880 the number had increased to 50, and seven years later to 160. Just before the passage of the Act to Regulate Commerce there was no distinction between carload and small lots in eighty-five per cent. of the articles enumerated. A sudden change supervened in the first Official Classification issued after the Federal Act. The number of carload ratings was suddenly raised to 900, provoking a storm of protest from eastern shippers who resented this advantage accorded to jobbers in the West and South, because it enabled the latter to buy their supplies directly at wholesale.
The dispute between dealers in the older and newer commercial centres came to a head in the so-called New York Board of Trade and Transportation case of 1888, elsewhere discussed. Yet notwithstanding this protest of jobbers and manufacturers in eastern trade centres, who insisted that they should be permitted to compete on even terms with provincial jobbers by making their shipments direct from New York or Boston in small lots as cheaply as the local jobber could buy them by the carload, the number of separate carload ratings steadily augmented year after year. By 1893 more than half of the articles enumerated in the Official Classification were allowed a lower rate for large shipments. Present conditions are set forth by the statistics in the preceding paragraph. From these it appears that in trunk line territory nearly three-fourths of the commodities now enjoy carload ratings; while in the South, on the other hand, only about one-fifth of them make such distinction between carload and less-than-carload lots.[328] One reason is evident; namely, that throughout a large part of the South few jobbers command a business of sufficient magnitude to make use of carload shipments. It is but recently, to take a specific illustration, that business has developed in volume sufficient to permit of the shipment of fly paper in carload lots. Until such time no distinction between large and small shipments could well be made.