POSSIBLE REMEDIES FOR MONOPOLISTIC CONDITIONS 29 



felt that prices would remain the same for a long period, they 

 would cut their timber as fast as the market would absorb the 

 product, unless the Government also in some way taxed or 

 regulated the output. 



If the commission were to follow a policy of permitting lum- 

 bermen to raise prices merely because the supply of timber was 

 decreasing, when there was no increase in the cost of produc- 

 tion, it seems that it would to some extent fail in its avowed 

 purpose, which is to protect consumers from unreasonably 

 high prices. 



Advocates of Government regulation of prices sometimes 

 point to the experience of the Interstate Commerce Commission 

 as an example of success in Government regulation. Without 

 entering into any discussion of the Interstate Commerce Com- 

 mission and its work, it may be said that it is not very signifi- 

 cant as to the desirability or feasibility of regulating general 

 commodity prices. In the first place it was absolutely neces- 

 sary that interstate commerce rates be regulated; and this 

 cannot be said of lumber prices. In the second place, perhaps 

 it cannot be said that the Interstate Commerce Commission 

 has been so successful in its work up to the present date as to 

 throw a particularly favorable light upon the general policy 

 of Government regulation. The commission has been mainly 

 interested in preventing unjust discrimination between per- 

 sons, localities or kinds of freight, and has done very little, if 

 anything, in the fixing of specific schedules. The general rate 

 structure for the country as a whole has been determined al- 

 most entirely by the railroads themselves. There is little prob- 

 ability that the commission itself could ever have made out 

 entire rate schedules for the roailroads, and applied them suc- 

 cessfully. The work now done by the Interstate Commerce 

 Commission is very different in many ways from that which 

 would be required of a commission for the regulation of lum- 

 ber prices. 



It might of course be argued that the lumber commission 

 could follow out a policy similar to that of the Interstate Com- 

 merce Commission, simply adopt the present price schedules of 

 the lumber companies and permit no advances except upon 

 proof that such advances were reasonable. Since lumber 



