“ The question is not how much better off the complainant would be today if it had paid a lower rate. The question is how much worse off it is because others have paid less.
The answer to that question is not independent of time and place and circumstance. It calls for something more than the use of a mathematical formula. If by reason of the discrimination, the preferred producers have been able to divert business that would otherwise have gone to the disfavored shipper, damage has resulted to the extent of the diverted profits. ”

“ Nothing in the recital of evidentiary facts is inconsistent as a matter of law with this negation of loss. The Commission does not find, and the complainant does not assert, that the rate was unreasonable in the sense that it would be subject to condemnation if a like rate had been charged to others similarly situated. What is unlawful in the action of the carriers inheres in its discriminatory quality, and not in anything else. When discrimination and that alone is the gist of the offense, the difference between one rate and another is not the measure of the damages suffered by the shipper. ”

“ The finding is that 'the lumber is sold in competition with that produced throughout the country,' though 'especially with that produced in the same general territory.' For all that appears the prices charged for lumber by producers within the group were the market prices current generally throughout the entire field of competition. [1] If that is so, the producers in the favored territory were not making use of the preference to mark the price down to an equivalent extent, and thus deprive the complainant, less favorably situated, of a reasonable return. ”

“ Rates within the favored territory might be raised to the same level as those outside of it, and yet after the change the complainant would be no better off, if the discrimination had not tended to hold market prices down. ”

“ It also admits that the charge of the S.C. & M. is not unreasonably high.' The controversy hinges upon the effect of an unlawful preference.
For rate-making purposes the producing territory tributary to the B. & O. in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and West Virginia is divided into several groups. One of these groups known as the Richwood group has its terminus at Allingdale. So also has another group known as No. 9. Lumber dealers competing with the complainant do business within this territory, and pay the group or blanket rate, which takes no heed of distances within the group area. ”

“ Associated Press, 228 N.Y. 370, 379, 380, 127 N.E. 256. It is evidentiary circumstance to be viewed along with others in the setting of the occasion. It is not the measure without more. Pennsylvania R. Co. ”