Page:Earle, Does Price Fixing Destroy Liberty, 1920, 176.jpg

176 action of exchange. And when we wish to ascertain the exact value of a thing we offer it at auction or in some other way subject it to competitive offers. * * *"

Whilst the writer would be proud beyond measure had these immutable principles been mere original thoughts of his own, all this, most fortunately for our country, has, on the contrary, been pointed out, contended for,—even fought for, and actually achieved at least since Magna Charta, and nowhere better than by our Supreme tribunal in Monongahela, Harvester and Collins cases, as well as the others that have already been referred to. We thus have a complete explanation of why restraints of trade and monopolies have always been said to be so pernicious; for what makes things more difficult to obtain in trade, necessarily enhances their value, and all these impediments to free trading, of necessity, increases the cost and difficulty of maintaining our life. But the remedy is not to be found by arbitrary and unconstitutional additional discouragement and impediments to trade, but solely keeping it under the spur that its regulation by free competition always best supplies. Not by making them Communistic slaves, not by the injustice of giving unequivalent return for what is taken, but by the encouragement, that perhaps more encourages production than anything else, of knowing that they will not be unjustly treated as to the results of their toil when created.

It will thus be seen that neither seller nor any jury