The new dominion. [volume] (Morgantown, W. Va.) 1876-1904, 1889-09-14
TRUSTS AND M0N0P0LIES
TARIFF A NURSING MOTHER
THE CONDITIONS THAT Favor
TRUSTS.
Where Trusts Originate-The Tariff
the Chief Cause.
Hamilton For Low Tariff-The Nec-
essaries Of Life.

We have now reached the stage
in our discussion where we may pro-
fitably inquire what the conditions
are under which trusts may be sue
cessfully formed and maintained.
These will be found primarily to
be two in number.
First 1t must be possible to
bring into the trust all, or nearly all,
who supply the market with the
particular commodity.
Second. The commodity itself
must be one of necessary or general
consumption which the public can
not do without, or at least will not
cease to purchase, because of the
proposed advance in price. Any
combination among less number
of traders, or among those of some
ioSai ihaihtt WHICH Gun NC easily
and readily supplied from elsewhere,
cannot sensibly or long affect prices.
Consumers, too, will stint or de
cline to use articles of voluntary use
if they find an attempt is made to
raise their price artificially.
WHEN COMBINATION BECOMES EASY.
Now such combination among
traders will become feasible when
they are few in number, and their
number may be limited either by
natural or artificial causes.
An instance of the one would be
in any article where production is
confined to small area, so that
those who own or control that area
may join to fix the prices at any
figures "the tariff will bear"
An instance of the second kind
would be where the State. or any
other effective power, intervenes
among trades to give some special
advantages to part or to impose
some special disabilities on them; in
either case part are driven from
the field
AS the oil fields were for many
years practically limited to certain
districts in Pennsylvania and the
adjacent border of New York, a
combination could have been made
among the producers of crude oil to
increase its price, because nature
had limited to their territory the &C
cessible supply for our own and for
eign countries.
But the combination did not take
place among the oil producers, for
whom there was natural limitation
of the area of supply, but among the
oil refiners, whose business was open
to general prosecution, and was
brought about by an artificial limi-
tation of the number of those who
could successfully prosecute it.
How, then, did business, open to
all who chose to enter upon it, be-
come a virtual monopoly in the
hands of few? The answer was
given in a former paper, which told
how the railroad companies, possess
ing the only highways to market,
exacted such heavy tolls of all other
refiners as to vest in a single favored
company and it's associates the re-
fining business of the country.
The managers of the railroad com
panies, through secret contracts.
and doubtless for secret reasons,
gave protection to this one combina-
ton against its competitors until
they fostered it into monopoly
strong enough not only to overwhelm
it's rivals but to defy its creators
and also the public.
While competing producers lost
in the blighting of their prosperity
and the ruin of their business, and
while the railroad companies event
ually lost the oil carrying trade, tine
great consuming public are the chief
losers, for they are made permanent
ly tributary to the trust.
The Standard Oil Trust is, there
fore, the creature of the railroad
company, made SO strong through
their favoritism and protection that
it became at last their imperious
master.
THE SUGAR TRUST BORN OF THE TARIFF.
In the case of the sugar trust the
interference with free competition
has come, not from natural causes,
nor from the favoritism of the rail
roads, but from the protection of
the government. Under our tariff
laws the government says to the
consumers of sugar, "You shall not
buy a pound of sugar brought from
abroad without paying me tax or
fine more than three-fourths of the
value of the sugar" Being thus re-
lieved from fear of outside competi-
ton, the great concerns into whose
hands the large bulk of the refining
business had passed found it very
easy to form trust which can raise
and keep up the price of sugar The
only limit to this increase of price
is the price of corresponding grades
of foreign sugar, with costs of
freight and the government tax add
ed. Not until that limit is reached
can the public get outside relief
from the exactions of the trust.
The sugar trust is therefore the
child of the tariff, the first-born of
its prolific and ever-increasing brood
of trusts. Without the keeping out
of foreign sugars by the government
through it's high tax upon them, it
could not for day hold its power in
the American market.
THE WHISKY TRUST HYBRID.
The whisky trust cannot be charg-
ed to any one origin, for it is favor
ed by several rather complex in
fuences. The internal revenue tax,
the tariff tax and the habits and
tastes of the people all concur to
make it possible, and to insure it an
almost complete monopoly of the
home market. The internal revenue
tax helps to throw the production of
liquors into the hands of the large
distillers, because capital is needed
even more for advancing the govern
ment tax than for producing, but ]
am convinced that the removal of
fhaf fax mould NOT nc fron nanfl L.,