224 JEREMIAH W. JENKS 



at once subject to penalty. The conditions could be made 

 whatever congress deemed wise. The important conditions 

 named by the attorney general which might be enforced by 

 either of the methods mentioned merit consideration from the 

 economic as well as from the legal point of view. 



1. The publicity implied in the words "visitorial super- 

 vision" is a remedy which has been long and ably advocated, 

 and beyond question, if it could be properly enforced, would 

 be very serviceable. The corporations, however, which most 

 abuse their power would make every effort to evade such 

 supervision, and, as appears later, in many cases such evasion 

 would be easy. 



2. Discrimination in prices between different customers 

 for the purpose of crushing rivals and strengthening monopoly, 

 as Professor Clark, of Columbia university, has ably shown, 

 is of three kinds: First, the great corporation sells at ruin- 

 ously low rates in localities where rivals are at work, while re- 

 couping itself for the loss by demanding high prices elsewhere ; 

 second, with many kinds of products at its disposition, while 

 its smaller rival has only one or two classes, it may, to destroy 

 the rival, make ruinously low though everywhere uniform 

 prices for these specific classes, while keeping high prices on 

 its other products; in the third place, it may grant especially 

 favorable terms to those purchasers who buy only its goods. 

 It is perhaps too much to say that it is impossible to stop these 

 practices, but any one who knows business will realize that it 

 is extremely difficult to stop any of them, especially the 

 second 



Moreover, it is not absolutely clear that they should be 

 stopped; such discriminations may at times be beneficial to 

 society. A rival of a great combination often makes its way 

 by giving special rates on certain articles used as leaders and 

 by discriminations among customers. The principle of dis- 

 crimination in freight rates on railroads, it is generally con- 

 ceded, is evil, but railroads are natural monopolies. It is 

 useless to talk of encouraging competition among them. On 

 the other hand, the so-called trusts are in industries which 

 are normally competitive, and we wish to keep them so. If, 

 then, rivals in competitive trade against the great corporations 



