use of his particular device-experiments that usually cost the roads far more in extra parts and repairs than any possible saving in price.

It would not be difficult to name article after article the consumers of which would vote unanimously, if they could, that prices should be fixed to all alike and maintained for definite periods without variation.

There is scarcely a manufacturer who would not prefer to have the prices he pays for raw material—yes, and for labor-fixed from season to season.

III

To test their attitude the following questions were put to the representatives of some twenty independent and sharply competing companies engaged in the manufacture and sale of an output, the raw material of which is steel as it comes from the rolling mill.

"If you had your choice, which would you prefer, to have the prices of the raw material you buy fixed from season to season, or have the power to combine and fix the prices of what you sell?"

"We can take care of ourselves if given a fair deal by the mills."

"What do you mean?"

"That no rolling mill shall give one company an unfair advantage over another."

"Explain."

"There is a market price for the steel we use; to-day it is 1.10 Pittsburg. Everybody is supposed to be paying that price, and when we bid most of us are compelled to use that figure as a base in making our estimates of cost, but we know that certain companies, closely allied to the

mills, get lower prices; they get as low as 1.00, possibly .90. What chance is there for the rest of us?"

"You mean you will have to go out of business if you cannot buy your raw material as low as the favored companies?"

"Exactly, they are selling below our cost."

"But isn't that just the sort of competition the public wants?"

"No, for it means monopoly in the end-it is the rankest sort of competition, and when we are driven out of business the public will pay the piper for the fiddling."

"Then what you want is a uniform price for what you buy?"

"Yes, the same price to all, large and small—a square deal, no rebates, no favors."

"The same price for how long, a week, a month, a year?"

"In our business the price of raw material should be fixed for periods of not less than six months.”

"With notice in advance of changes?"

"Of not less than three months."

"These propositions will strike the public as novel; you gentlemen have come together to devise some way to improve conditions in your industry; the natural supposition on the part of the outsider is that your first step will be to 'fix' the prices of what you have to sell, and here you are demanding that the rolling mills fix the prices of what you have to buy."

"Yes, if they will do that we can all start even and compete on the same basis; we are not afraid of open competition in selling if no one has a secret advantage in buying."

"But what you demand means some sort of a combination on the part of the mills."

"Yes, and without some form of coöperation whereby

the same prices are quoted to all buyers alike, competition is a farce."

"That sounds like a new proposition."

"But it isn't. All we ask from the rolling mills is the same treatment the law says we shall have from the railroads the same rates and the same service to all, with no sudden changes made to help one man or one locality at the expense of another."

IV

While the prevailing demoralization in the prices they were getting was a matter of serious concern, the usual remedies by way of "understandings," "gentlemen's agreements," etc., etc., were dismissed as inefficacious; the discussion invariably came back to the proposition that the prime cause of disastrous conditions was secret and unfair discrimination on the part of those from whom they bought.

It was conceded that each of the companies represented could make a good living in its own locality if it could buy its raw material on the same basis as larger companies located at a distance, but if any large company had an “inside" price from a mill on raw material, then it had the same unfair advantage it would have if it had an "inside" arrangement with a railroad on freight-the local company is out of the running.

It is not from collusive bidding and price fixing that the public suffers most, but from the secret methods of the old, the false competition.

It is not that men get together too much, but that they do not get together enough-and in the open.

V

It is unfair when the great rolling mill gives a secret price to one customer to enable it to get contracts against competitors who are charged more for their material, but the practice is just as unfair when the lumber yard in a small town gives a secret price to a favored carpenter to enable him to get work as against others who are charged regular market prices for the lumber they need-and this is done so generally that it is often known which carpenters are allied to particular yards.

A favored contractor is often in a position to make a bid at what the material costs a competitor, and, if he gets the contract, make his profit on the secret discounts he gets from the parties who supply him.

All this is within the experience of every man who has had occasion to build or have any amount of work done. The "tricks of the trade" are infinite in number and variety.

"Sharp" buying is by no means confined to the purchasing agent of the large corporation; he but practices systematically what the farmer, the carpenter, the mechanic do instinctively.

The farmer who is about to build a barn takes his bill of stuff needed and goes from lumber yard to lumber yard, from mill to mill, getting prices; like the purchasing agent, he does not hesitate to say, "I've got lower figures than yours," or, "I can do better'n that," "You're too high by a good deal," when he has no better prices.

The carpenter does the same thing, he plays one yard against another until he gets a price below what the lumber should be sold for, all depending upon conditions at the time.

In some towns the lumber yards are shrewd enough to

meet this sort of buying by a secret agreement to inform one another regarding prices made to certain contractors.

Coal yards are subjected to the same misrepresentations by buyers who contract for winter supplies, with the natural result that as prices are cut lower and lower inducements to give short weight and inferior coal multiply,

Blame for false measures, inferior and adulterated goods is laid at the door of the maker and dealer, when buyers are themselves responsible; they make it difficult for the absolutely honest merchant to make a living.

True, in time a reputation for squareness, for honesty, for good goods at fair prices, becomes a man's most valuable asset, but it takes time and money to build up that reputation, and many men in business are not in a position to wait; unless they can make money at the start they must give up they are the ones the public, by unfair and unscrupulous buying, literally force into unfair and unscrupulous selling.

VI

All this is apropros the proposition that whatever evils are found in the management of large corporations are not peculiar to trusts, but have their roots in human nature and the legislation that reaches them will probe deep.

The open-price policy-explained in succeeding chapters of the new competition will help greatly to expose and correct some of the more glaring evils.

When all prices, all bids are made openly so that both customers and competitors may examine and analyze same, it will be exceedingly difficult to hide agreements intended to favor some to the detriment of others.

Just now the people are crying for "More Competition," what they want is more coöperation. Competition has run mad, it is responsible for nine-tenths of the eco