The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1889-12-24
TRUSTS AND MoNoPoL1Es.
Tariffs as Nursing Mothers--The Con-
ditions That Favors Trusts.
Where Trusts Orggamate-Ihe Tariff the
Chief Consolidation for a Lou
Tarif-he Necessartes
%LJe.
From the Baltimore SUM-
NUMBER TX.
From the Baltimore SUM-

We have now reached the stage in
discussion where we may profit
ably inquire what the conditions are
under which trusts may be successful
ly formed and maintained.
These will be found primarily to be
two in number:
First. It must be possible to bring
into the trust all, or nearly ali, who
supply the market with the particular
commodity.
Second. The commodity itself must
be one of necessary or general o
sumption which the public cannot do
without, or at least will not cea to
purchase, because of the proposed ad-
vance in price. Any combination
among a less number of traders, or
among those of some local market
which can be easily and readily sup
piled from elsewhere, cannot senslbly
or long affect prices.
Consumers, too, will stint or decline
to use articles of voluntary use if they
find an attempt is made to raise their
price ~srtifcially.
WHEN COMBINATION BECOMES EASY.
Now such a combination among
traders will become feasible when they
are few in number, and their number
may be limited either 0y natural or
artificial causes.
An instance of the one would be in
any article where production is con-
fined to a small area, SO that those
who own or control that area may
join to fix the prices at any figures
'sthe tariff will bear"
An instance of the second kind
would be where the State, or any
other effective power, i%ntervenes
among trades to give some special adj
vantages to a part Or to impose some
special disabilities on them in either
case a part are driven from the field.
AS the oil fields were for many
years practically limited to certain dis
tricts in Pennsylvania and the ada
cent border of New York, a combina-
ton could have been made among the
producers of crude oil to increase its
price, because nature had limited to
their territory the accessible supply
for our own and foreign countries.
But the combination did not take
place among the oil producers, for
whom there was a natural limitation
of the area of supply, but among the
oil reiners, whose business was open
to general prosecution, and was
brought about by an artificial imita-
ton of the number of those who could
successfully prosecute it. How, then,
did a business open to all who chose
to enter ubon it, become a virtual
monopoly in the hands of a few ?
The answer was given in a former pa
per, which told how the railroad COM
panies, possessing the only highways
to market, exacted such heavy tolls
of all other r~efners as to vest in a
single favored company and it's asso-
ciates the refining business of the
country.
The managers of the railroad COM
panies, through secret contracts, and
doubtless for secret reasons, gave
protection to this one combination
against it's competitors until they fos-
tered it into a monopoly strong enough
not only to overwhelm its rivals but
to defy it's 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 eventually lost
the oil carrying trade, the great con-
Stunning public are the chief losers, for
they are made permanently tributary
to the trust.
The Standard Oil Trust is, there
fore, the creature of the railroad com
pany, made so strong through their
favoritism and protection that it be-
came at last their imperious master.
THE SUGAR TRUST BORN OF H TAR .FF.
In the case of the sugar trust the
Interference with free competition has
come not from natural causes, nor
from the favoritism of the railroads,
but from the protection of the govern
ment. Under our tariff laws the gov
eminent says to the consumers of
sugar, "You shall not buy apound of
sugar brought from abroad without
paying me a tax or fine more than
three.fourths Of the value of the
sugar" Being thus relieved from fear
of outside competition, the great con-
Germs into whose hands the large bulk
of the refining business had passed
found it very easy to form a trust
which can rise and keep up the price
of sugar. The only limit to this in
crease of price is the price of CORES
ponding grades of foreign sugar, with
costs of freight and the government
tax added. Not until that limit is
reached can the public get out relief