In this way the Trust has a great deal of money at its command, and can buy the finest machinery to make its goods, and, because of the enormous quantities needed to supply all the members of the Trust, can obtain the material needed for the manufacture at the lowest possible price.

Through the means a Trust has for producing goods, it can make and manufacture at a much smaller cost than a single manufacturer, and can control the amount of the output of the goods, so that too great a supply shall not be made at one time, and the markets be so flooded that the price falls and it no longer pays to make them.

The idea of a number of persons clubbing together and helping each other with their money and brains, and working together to produce an article at the least possible cost, is of course a very excellent one.

It would seem as though these methods would help to make the articles that we daily need much cheaper to us, and that the cost of living would be less.

But unfortunately it is not always so.

While Trusts could and should work for the benefit of the people, they are too often used as a means to harm them.

When Trusts get so large that they include nearly all the manufacturers of a special article, they are not only able to produce the article at the least possible cost, but to say for how much it shall be sold.

A Trust is formed that the manufacturers may make a better article at a lower cost—­at least, that is what the Trusts say; but the danger is that they may obtain entire control of the market, create a monopoly, and having the public at their mercy, make the prices as high as they please.

A monopoly is the sole power of dealing in any class of goods.

If there were no Trusts controlling the market, no one manufacturer would dare to put his price too high, because another one would instantly step in with lower prices, and take his trade away from him.

This would create what is called competition, because the first manufacturer would not want to lose his trade, and would lower his prices below the second manufacturer.  Others would join in, and would continue to cut prices, until the selling price of the article would be brought down to the lowest possible rate at which it can be put on the market.

The public would get the benefit of this competition, and would find the cost of living less.

This competition is the soul of business, because it obliges manufacturers to better the quality of their goods and machinery in order to sell at all; but Trusts do not care to do this, and therefore desire to put a stop to it entirely.

Each Trust has its system of controlling the store-keepers who deal directly with the public, and it makes them agree to sell at such prices as it thinks best.

In this way the prices are kept up, no matter how much they ought to have been lowered through cheap manufacture, or plentiful supply of the material needed to be manufactured.