At first sight it would seem that stockwatering is of little or no importance to the consumer. Since a monopolistic concern endeavours to fix its prices at the point that will yield the maximum net profit in any case, the amount of stock in existence would seem to be irrelevant to the problem. Nevertheless, the presence of a large quantity of fictitious capital whose owners are calling for dividends, sometimes constitutes a special force impelling the imposition of higher prices and charges. "It will happen at times that overcapitalisation does at least cause a clinging to high prices. The managers of an overcapitalised monopoly may have to face the fact that great blocks of securities are outstanding, very likely issued by their predecessors, and now held by all sorts of investors. They are then loath to let go any slice of its profits. We have seen that often the monopoly principle of maximum net profit is not applied in its full sweep, especially in industries which are potentially subject to public control. Where abnormal returns on the original investment have been made, concessions to public opinion in the way of low rates and better facilities are more likely to come when capitalisation has not been inflated."[188] The United States Industrial Commission found that as regards railroads: "In the long run excessive capitalisation tends to keep rates high; conservative capitalisation tends to make rates low."[189] This indirect influence of stockwatering toward excessive rates and prices becomes effective in two ways. The existence of fictitious capital conceals from the public the high rate of return that is obtained on the true valuation, thus preventing effective action for a reduction in prices and charges; and it sometimes causes the rate-making authorities to allow rates to be sufficiently high to yield something to the investors in the inflated capital. If a trust or a railroad has issued stock having a par value of twice the capital invested, its rate of dividend on the entire capitalisation will be only one-half the rate of interest that it is receiving on the investment. If it pays, for example, seven per cent. on all its stock, it will be getting fourteen per cent. on its genuine capital. While the consumers of tobacco, or the patrons of a railroad, would raise no outcry against seven per cent. dividends, they would probably begin to agitate for an enforcement of the anti-trust laws, and for a reduction in freight and passenger charges, if they realised that they were providing for dividends of fourteen per cent. Nor is the public adequately protected by government investigations of trusts and regulation of railway rates. Despite the anti-trust laws, many American monopolies have for many years received exorbitant profits through excessive prices imposed upon the consumer; and in many of these instances overcapitalisation and its resulting concealment of real profits have been of considerable assistance to the extortionate