appears to indicate that
the Trust's prices, as we saw in the Standard Oil Company, fluctuate
with the degree of their monopoly, falling rapidly under the pressure
of actual or threatened competition, rising when the danger is past.
Finally, opponents of the Trust allude to certain Trusts which, in
spite of the greater economies of production they possess, have raised
prices.

Excepting by the inverse and questionable method of arguing that the
high profits distributed by a Trust are themselves proof that prices
have not fallen as they would have fallen under free competition, it
is not possible to build a very convincing condemnation of the Trust
from statistics of price. And even when profits are high it is open to
the defenders of the Trust to maintain that they only represent the
saving of the cost of competition, and that if competition were
introduced the profits would be squandered in the struggle instead of
passing into the consumer's pocket.

It is only from a deductive treatment of the subject that we are able
to clearly convict the Trust of possessing a power over prices
antagonistic to the interests of the consuming public.

A Trust, or other company, or a single individual who has a complete
monopoly of a class of goods for which there is a demand, will strive
to fix that price which shall give him the largest net profit on his
capital. The question with him will be simply this, "How many articles
shall I offer for sale?" If he offers only a small number the
competition of more urgent wants among the consumers will enable him
to sell the small number at a high price. Assuming, for the moment,
that the production of these articles was subject to the law of
constant returns--_i.e._, that a few things were produced relatively
as cheaply as many, this small sale would give the highest rate of
profit on each sale, for the "marginal utility" of the supply would be
high and would enable a high price to be obtained for the whole
supply. But if he possesses large facilities of production it may pay
him better to sell a larger number of articles at a lower price with a
lower rate of profit on each sale, because the aggregate of a larger
number of small profits may yield a larger net profit on his whole
capital. How far it will pay him to go on increasing the supply and
selling a larger number of articles at a lower price will entirely
depend upon the effect each increment of supply exercises upon demand,
and so u