THE MEANING OF CORPORATIONS AND TRUSTS. 299 



lay has been longest when, along with these conditions, the prod- 

 uct 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 cen- 

 tury, 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 shipjDers 

 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 pay- 

 ment comes from the pockets of the immediate purchaser, the 

 action of competition in efi^ecting 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 unrea- 

 sonably 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 oJ3tain 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 con- 

 sumers of meat, who are practically the entire population. 



It has also happened that the maintenance of inordinately high 



