try possesses. But this increased power over
the public, thus voluntarily assumed, must inevitably carry with it
increased responsibility to the public. It is the duty of the government
to see that this responsibility is legally enforced.

This first principle, then, should be embodied in a law providing, in
substance, that every person or firm entering into a contract to
restrict competition should, so long as that contract was in force, be
debarred from showing any preference in his or its purchases and sales,
by giving more or less favorable prices to any person or firm than those
quoted to any other person or firm. To enforce this requirement and
prevent its evasion it is necessary to provide also that prices shall be
public and that they shall not be altered without due notice. The
requirement of publicity might be best effected by providing that the
contract restricting competition should contain a schedule of prices,
which would usually be the case in any event.

While this may seem like quite an assumption of authority on the part of
the State, it is exactly what trusts and trade associations are striving
to effect, though with the important qualification that when occasion,
in the shape of an obnoxious competitor, requires, they wish to be at
liberty to put prices up or down at short notice and exercise their
preferences as they choose.

Let us now see what we would effect by the enforcement of this principle
of non-discrimination. We have explained in the chapter on combinations
in trade how one monopoly gains strength by alliance with another; as
when the firms belonging to the car-spring combination made a contract
with the steel combination by which that monopoly agreed to sell to
them at a reduced price and to make an extra rate to their competitors.
Under this law it would be impossible to found one monopoly upon the
favors of another in this manner.

The obnoxious trade boycott, too, which is now becoming so common, would
be effectually checked. And the scheme for crushing out a rival by
giving all his customers specially favorable rates would no longer be
practicable. The fact is that if we can stop the discriminations which
the monopolies have practised, we shall cure a large share of the evils
they have caused. It may be said that the courts will already punish
many conspiracies of this sort; but a monopoly which is already breaking
the law by its contracts of combination, finds in its methods of d