190 BOARD OF AGKICULTUKE. [Pub. Doc. 



nership, a small corporation is short-lived, — it cannot 

 therefore invest capital except for immediate returns ; but 

 the gigantic monopolistic corporation makes contracts for 

 ninety-nine or nine hundred and ninety-nine years. Such 

 a railroad combination is not required to build temporary 

 structures, but may build with steel and stone that which 

 shall last a thousand years. 



10. Thus and in other ways does the trust prevent waste, 

 which small concerns cannot accomplish. The utilization of 

 the waste products of gas companies, of oil companies, of 

 meat packers, sugar refineries and of other large establish- 

 ments has become the great source of marvellous profit. It 

 secures also a great saving of time, and time is money. 

 The time of the working man is saved, and the time during 

 which machinery lies idle is shortened. Recent contracts 

 for bridges and for locomotives were secured in England 

 by American companies, because the American company 

 required only days instead of the months asked by the Eng- 

 lish. If a machine can be run sixteen hours a day, instead 

 of eight, the interest on the capital is lessened nearly fifty 

 per cent, as counted in the cost of production ; or we may 

 say that in the given time the machine will earn twice as 

 much. The larger the product of a factory, the less must 

 be the cost of each particular article. One can make ten 

 thousand hats much more cheaply per hat than it would be 

 possible to make a single hundred. 



11. But, great as is the saving in the cost of production, 

 there is a much greater saving in the cost of selling the prod- 

 uct when once made. Heretofore, to sell an article cost 

 much more than to make it. Sewing machines that sold for 

 $75 might be made in quantities for $15. The $60 went to 

 the jobbers and wholesale dealers and retail merchants and 

 agents, for freight and advertising, for credits granted and 

 for debts lost. The trust reduces the cost of selling to a 

 minimum. Mr. Bradley, of the distilling company, testified 

 that the trust saved $1,000,000 by dispensing with the 

 services of three hundred travelling salesmen. 



12. Producing its special commodities in large quantities, 

 and possessing virtually a monopoly, the trust may fix its 

 own price. This, from its own point of view, is a very great 



