78 The Tariff and the Farmer. 



held at a high, unfair level. Price is no longer deter- 

 mined by cost, but all it is thought the trade will bear is 

 exacted. 



Said the Midvale Steel Company, in a letter^ sent to 

 the Ways and Means Committee protesting against 

 change in the rates of duties on metals, etc., ''It is well 

 known to the honorable members of the committee that 

 the price at which nearly every article manufactured in 

 this country is sold is not based on its cost so much as it 

 is fixed by agreements or understandings between manu- 

 facturers, who regulate the amount of product and the 

 output to the factories, points of deliveries, and the 

 prices and terms at which manufactured article is sold." 



A one-price system has become widely prevalent. 

 Group monopoly has become an established fact. The 

 people are delivered into the power of corporations, of 

 whom Senator Hoar said (see next chapter) they have 

 no soul and no conscience, and are not zealous for honor 

 or reputation except so far as these are essential to get- 

 ting money. 



But to a large portion of these industrial groups one 

 thing more was essential to the perfect working of 

 monopoly schemes: they must he shielded from the effect 

 of importations from abroad of products similar to their 

 oivn. Here comes in manufacturers' defense by govern- 

 ment against competition, which is 



The Protective System. 



Of what avail would be group combinations if over the 

 Canadian border and from every seaport similar prod- 

 ucts had free course? Merchants would then fill their 



* Published in Semi-Weekly X. Y. Evening Post, Jan. 27, 1897. 



