Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 45.djvu/315

Rh has been longest when, along with these conditions, the product has been of such a nature that the payment therefor ultimately comes from those not concerned in its immediate purchase. But it is a fact that in the industrial history of the last quarter century, notwithstanding these obstacles, many a combination strongly fortified in the maintenance of undue profit has, sooner or later, had its power broken by the flow of new capital into its field.

In the manufacture of steel beams and steel rails are required plants of great value, and the services of experienced managers and skilled workmen. The charge for beams falls upon the renters of apartments in buildings of the construction of which the beams are part, and the charge for rails upon the travelers and shippers over the railways; and, as the immediate purchasers of the greatest quantities of beams and rails are often, if not generally, not the direct owners of the property for which the purchases are made, and therefore neither the immediate nor the remote payment comes from the pockets of the immediate purchaser, the action of competition in effecting a reduction in the prices of such material has been subjected to extreme delay, but that it finally effects such a reduction is shown by the fact that whereas seven or eight years ago the beam combination was composed of but five establishments who obtained over three cents a pound for their product, there are now over a dozen establishments engaged in this manufacture, and the price obtained is about one and a half cent per pound, and likewise combination after combination of steel rail producers that have endeavored to maintain unreasonably high prices has been broken.

Another corrective of the maintenance of inordinately 'high prices lies in the fact that a combination making one product upon an extensive scale is prone to discover means whereby waste, incident to that production, which could not be utilized by the smaller producer, can be made a valuable article of commerce, and the combination, therefore, has found it to its interest to stimulate the consumption of its principal product by reducing prices, in order that it may obtain the additional profit consequent upon the increased production and sale of the subsidiary product. For example, when a dressed-beef concern of Chicago found that oleo oil could be made from the inside fat of cattle, it reduced the price of beef to a narrow margin of profit, that it might increase the sale thereof and thereby obtain the increased supply of fat for the production of oleo oil, for which there is great demand. Other dressed-beef producers were forced to reduce the prices of meat accordingly, the result being of great benefit to the consumers of meat, who are practically the entire population.

It has also happened that the maintenance of inordinately high