The possibility of successfully
maintaining these compacts depends on the ability to resist outside
pressure, the element of monopoly in the trade. When this power is
strong, a local ring of competing tradesmen may succeed in maintaining
enormous prices. To take a humble example--In many a remote Swiss
village, rapidly grown into a fashionable resort, the local washerwomen
are able to charge prices twice as high as those paid in London,
probably four times as high as the normal price of the neighbourhood.
Grocers or clothiers are not able to combine with the same effect, for
the consumer is far less dependent on local distribution for these
wares. But wherever such retail combinations are possible they are
found. Among large producers and large distributing agencies the same
tendency prevails, especially in cases where the market is largely
local. Free competition of prices among coal-owners or iron-masters
gives way under the pressure of common interests, to a schedule of
prices; competing railways come to terms. Even among large businesses
which enjoy no local monopoly, there are constant endeavours to maintain
a common scale of prices. This condition of loose, irregular, and
partial co-operation among competing industrial units is the
characteristic condition of trade in such a commercial country as
England to-day. Competitors give up the combat _a outrance_, and fight
with blunted lances.
Sec. 3. Syndicates and Trusts.
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