double the price of its product. What is to
prevent great injury to the consumer?"

"The courts. Having but one man--the responsible manager--to deal with,
protective legislation and its enforcement would be a very simple matter.
If there were a thousand manufacturers of safety pins, scattered all over
the country in as many jurisdictions, there would be no controlling them
at all. They would cheat, not only one another but the consumers, with
virtual immunity. But there is no disposition among our trusts to do any
such thing. Each has the whole market, as I said, and each has learned by
experience what the manager of a large business soon must learn, and what
the manager of a small one probably would not learn and could not afford
to apply if he knew it--namely, that low prices bring disproportionately
large sales and therefore profits. Prices in this country are never put up
except when some kind of scarcity increases the cost of production.
Besides, nearly all the consumers are a part of the trusts, the stock of
which is about the best kind of property for investment."

"What!" I cried,--"do not the managers so manipulate the stock by
'watering' it and otherwise as to fool and cheat the small investors?"

"We should not permit them. That would be dishonest."

"So it is in my country," I replied, rather tartly, for I believed his
apparent _naivete_ assumed for my confusion, "but we are unable to prevent
it."

He looked at me somewhat compassionately, I thought. "Perhaps," he said,
"not enough of you really wish to prevent it. Perhaps your people
are--well, different from mine--not worse, you understand--just
different."

I felt the blood go into my cheeks and hot words were upon my tongue's
end, but I restrained them; the conditions for a quarrel were not
favorable to my side of it. When I had mastered my chagrin and resentment
I said:

"In my country when trusts are formed a great number of persons suffer,
whether the general consumer does or not--many small dealers, middle men,
drummers and general employees. The small dealer is driven out of the
business by underselling. The middle man is frequently ignored, the trust
dealing directly, or nearly so, with the consumer. The drummer is
discharged because, competition having disappeared, custom must come
without solicitation. Consolidation lets out swarms of employees of the
individual concerns consolidated, for it is nearly as easy to conduct one
large concern