The exception alluded to above occurs when the monopoly uses the excess which it obtains over the competitive price to pay fair wages to those labourers who were insufficiently compensated in competitive conditions. In such a case the eliminated competitors would have no just claim against the monopoly; for their elimination took place in the just interest of the producers. The case, however, is purely academic, since the discriminative underselling practised by our monopolistic concerns has not been impelled by any such motive, nor has it achieved any such result. _Exclusive-Sales Contracts_ The second unfair method employed by monopolies toward competitors is that of exclusive-selling contracts, sometimes called the "factor's agreement." It requires the dealer, merchant, or jobber to refrain from selling the goods produced by independent concerns, on penalty of being refused the goods produced by the monopoly. The merchant is compelled to choose between the less important line of wares to be had from the former, and the more important line obtainable from the latter. He will not be permitted to handle both. "Here is somebody who has been buying goods, let us say, by way of illustration, from the American Tobacco Company, and a rival producer comes in whom the merchant likes to patronise. He buys goods for a time from the rival, and an agent of the trust sends him a note to the effect that he must not buy any more from that rival corporation; that, if he does so, the trust will give all of its own goods, some of which the merchant is obliged to have, to another agent. That will probably bring him to terms."[180] By this method the independent manufacturer can be deprived of sufficient patronage to injure him seriously, and perhaps to drive him out of business.