The first important point to be established, then, in this second variety of the oyster case was as to the relative distribution of traffic from the more distant competitive point by the several lines open to it. The next concerned the absolute reasonableness of the rate at the intermediate point. In the third place, we must inquire whether the rate at the more distant point may not be unreasonably low. This was a contingency not possible, as we have just seen, in the Spokane case. But others may be different in this regard. One is thus forced to consider the effect of the presence of roundabout competitive lines upon the level of rates at the more distant point. An indirect rival road may, as in the St. Cloud case, carry only seventy-three carloads a day as compared with a daily movement of one thousand cars by the direct lines. On the other hand, as in the Savannah Freight Bureau case, Valdosta, Georgia, may receive nine-tenths of its supply of fertilizer by indirect roads. But in any event it is the potential, not the actual, movement of tonnage, which may count in the long run. It is indisputable that the short line between two points never pares its rates down to an irreducible minimum except under compulsion. The presence of a roundabout route affords just this pressure to reduction. Even allowing that in the last analysis the long line will strike bed-rock of no profit first, it is indisputable that such lines frequently, instead of merely meeting rates made for them by the direct routes, seek to divert business by actually undercutting those rates. Having only a small share of the tonnage, they take risks which would be fatal to others. To transport at an absolute loss is of course no more defensible than the argument of the merchant that the only way to compensate for selling goods below cost was to enlarge the volume of his business. But, of course, there is always the chance that, by enlarging this volume sufficiently, operating expenses may be so far cut down that a loss may be transformed into a profit. The diversion of enough traffic from the direct railroad line to accomplish this end would, of course, reduce the volume of its traffic and thereby unduly burden it, to the manifest injury of all local points like X.