oing
business plenty of chances to evade the laws against conspiracy.
Certainly with a properly drawn law with reference to the publicity and
stability of prices, it should be possible to practically wipe out the
evil of discrimination by monopolies. It is also to be noted that the
requirement of non-discrimination and of public and stable prices would
bring profit in doing away with the waste of competition.

We have now to inquire what means it is possible to take to ensure that
the prices charged by the monopoly shall not only be the same to all,
but that they shall not in themselves be so exorbitant that the monopoly
will reap large profits at the public expense. How can we keep the
prices charged by the monopoly from rising far above the point where
they would stand if free competition were in force? Two methods are open
to us. We may keep down the monopoly's rates by what we will call
_potential_ competition, or we may reduce them directly by legislative
enactment.

The right of the public to take this latter course may be defended on
the ground that the monopoly has voluntarily made itself a necessary
public servant, and in that capacity offers to the public its goods.
While it is true that the people permit the monopoly to become a
necessary public servant and protect it in the contracts by which it
restricts competition, it is also true that the monopoly cannot justly
make merchandise of the necessities of the people. The public may allow
a combination to obtain control of all the sugar refineries, for
instance, and protect the combination in its formation. But suppose the
owners of the combination then say: "The people are obliged to have
sugar and we control the supply. We will set a high price on sugar,
therefore, because we know that they will pay it rather than go
without." They are then making the necessity of the public a source of
gain, and it cannot be believed that this will be permanently suffered.

The serious difficulty in fixing by direct government action the prices
which a monopoly of this sort shall charge, is that we cannot stop at
that point. When once the government steps in to do so radical a thing
as to fix the price which a monopoly shall charge, it becomes in equity
responsible to the owners of that monopoly for the maintenance of their
incomes from their capital invested. If their profits have been so
reduced by this action as to seriously injure the value of their
property, they hav