ABSTRACT
The new system became necessary for the simplest of reasons: before trade combination was aimed at manufacturers were supposed to take out their costs of production, and to fix their selling price from the results of such cost-taking. Hitherto has been left to individual opinion only, either on the part of manufacturers or on the part of the experts engaged by them. The notion of self-preservation has been the first impulse and the discovery that none of them were so bad as was supposed has kept them together after they have once met. It aims at the destruction of a suicidal competition by a process of education. It is only one part of a great scheme with many provisions, and extensive ramifications. This is a things which everybody who values the commercial prosperity of this country must regret.
