The new dominion. [volume] (Morgantown, W. Va.) 1876-1904, 1889-08-31

. NOPOLY.
! 1T WORKS TO SUPPRESS COM
PETITION.
A RObber of the Great Body 0
Consumers.
Its Purposes and Its Operations Alik
Confirm the Charge.
| endeavored to show in my las
paper that the two grounds on whicl
trusts have been chiefly defende,
are both untenable, and furthermore
that they are not the real object
aimed at by these combinations.
Their primary object is not t.
prevent adulteration or debasemen
in the quality of the objects the,
produce, nor, ON the other hand
merely to secure the benefits tina
flow from production on a large scale
Experience has abundantly shown
that the public can protect itself
and at the same time the homes
producer, from frauds in the qualit,
of commodities without having re
course to the subtle and expensive
machinery of the trust. Very brie
but very instructive experience has
also been sufficient to show tha
whatever advantages for cheapenine
cost have been secured by it's pro
duction on large scale have always
been appropriated by the combina
ton itself and never shared will
the consumer.
Moreover, when under the sugar
trust eleven retineries are made tc
earn large dividends on the watered
stock of sixteen refneries, when un
der the whisky trust twelve distill
cries are in like manner made to carr
liberal dividends on the watered
stock Of eighty-one distilleries, nc
amount of special pleading or econo
mic legerdemain can obscure the
fact that the public is compelled to
pay excessive prices for their pro
ducts, and that this result has been
accomplished through a combina.
ton that has been able to limit sup
ply, and by such limitation to run
up prices.
TRUE OBJECT OF A TRUST.
And this control of supply is the
true and final object of every trust
But there can be no such limitation
permanently and effectively accom-
plished as long as there is either
competition or the possibility OF
competition in open market between
Independent producers of the same
article. Accordingly this competi-
ton must be entirely or largely neu-
tralized to clear the ground for a
trust. The price of a commodity is
settled by what has been called the
"higgling of the Market" in other
words, it is the outcome of the con-
test between sellers trying to get
the highest prices for their wares
and buyers trying to buy at the low
est; and the law which controls this
higgling is the law of supply and
demand, which in the long run
makes the normal price of commodi-
ties. The trust is scheme to limit
supply by lessening, and if possible
eliminating, the competition which
has hitherto compelled rival produ-
GERS to seek their profits not so much
in high prices as in large sales. Its
avowed object is to substitute com
bination for competition, which is
the very definition of monopoly-not
the meaning of that much abused
word in the loose and random decla-
nation of the hastings, but its de-
finition by the most exact thinkers
and those who are guarded and pre-
else in their terms.
wherever competition is not
monopoly is said John Stuart Mill,
and so say all great writer's on the
history and laws of trade.
A SINISTER WORD.
There is scarcely a word in our
vocabulary that conjures up ideas
more repugnant to equality of citi-
zenship and to free institutions or
which comes down from the past
freighted with more sinister import
than the word monopoly. 1t is asso-
ciated with all those wrongs and
hoary abuses by which, in the older
natioas of the world, the great mass
of the people have at times been
sunk in hopeless poverty and toll
that privilege might roll in wealth
and idleness. We are bound, there
fore, to inquire how far in its OBJ
served operations the trust merits
and justifies the stigma that such a
classification would stamp upon it.
Each one of the combinations we
have examined aims to intervene
between the producer of the raw
material and the purchaser OF the
manufactured article, and, as far as
possible, to control the production
of some commodity of necessary or
general consumption.
PRODUCERS OF RAW MATERIAL.
Let us begin, therefore, by inquir-
ing what has been the effect of the
trust on the producer of its raw
material.
In order to measure this effect
fully we must, if possible, select a
trust that is, if not the sole, at any
rate the chief, consumer of the raw
material of it's particular industry.
The sugar trust cannot Immediately
or greatly depress the price of raw
sugars, because by long usage in the
trade that price is established by
the quotations in the London mar
ket, and as nine tenths of our raw
sugars come from abroad, their ship
pers have choice of markets, and
will not come here unless they have
assurance that the New York market
is as good as the London market,
and this assurance they can com
mand by contracting for the sale of
their cargoes before starting. Yet,