RELATED TOPICS 273 
from Australia, there ensued something of a panic in 
the local wheat market. Fortunately for New Zealand 
it was found at length, that the supply of wheat was 
actually over 6,600,000 bushels, and this supply, as a 
matter of fact, was sufficient for the demands of local 
consumers until the harvest of this year.’’ 
(d) The Problem of Price Control—oOf recent years 
the attitude of economists towards the possibility of 
publie price control being efficacious has changed con- 
siderably. The classical economists were opposed to 
the assumption of this duty on the part of the State, 
as they were to State interference generally. This 
attitude was undoubtedly the product of their own 
experience, and they did not anticipate the most recent 
development of capitalism, the concentration of capital 
with monopoly as its objective. In a recent work on 
Monopolies* Dr. W. Jethro Brown shows clearly that 
‘“‘the advent of the trust and the combine invalidates 
the assumptions of classical economists; and many econo- 
mists of to-day advocate extensions of the sphere of public 
control which in former times would have met with 
universal condemnation. ‘I see nothing for it,’ writes 
Prof. Sir. W. J. Ashley, ‘but that in countries where the 
monopolising movement is well under way, governments 
should assume the duty in some way of controlling 
prices.’ Prof.. Wyman, of Harvard, after advocating 
the creation of an Inter-state Trade Commission, with 
power to give relief against extortionate charges, con- 
eludes, ‘confine its power over prices to reducing prices 
against which specific complaint has been made to it, 
but disposing of such complaints let it fix the price in 
question for the future.’ ‘I feel constrained to advo- 
cate,’ says Prof. Seager, of the Columbia University, 
‘government regulation of prices, just as most of us 
*««The Prevention and Control of Monopolies.’’ (August, 
1914), page 142. 
