_A Typical Instance of Partial Monopoly in Transportation._--We may now trace the development out of a purely competitive condition of a simple instance of what is usually termed monopoly, though in a rigorous use of terms it can hardly be so called. It is a monopoly the power of which is limited. So long as goods made at A are carried to B by some primitive method which insures the presence of competing carriers, the returns for carrying will tend only to cover costs. By a normal adjustment the price of the goods at A only repays the costs of making them, and if these and the carrying charge amount to less than the costs of making the goods at C and transporting them to B, none of them will come to B in this latter way. Makers at A and carriers on the route from there to B will possess the market, and the place value which the goods acquire when taken to B will be fixed directly by the costs of carrying. It is when there is no effective competition on the route between A and B, while there is free competition in making the goods both at A and at C, and also in carrying them from C to B, that a typical case of a partial monopoly is presented. [Illustration: C | | COMPETITIVE | CARRYING | v A------------------------------->B MONOPOLISTIC CARRYING ] The price of the goods at A is a definite amount fixed by competition between producers, and the price at B is also a definite amount fixed by competition between different makers at C and between different carriers between C and B. The difference between these amounts sets the limit of the charge for carrying from A to B; but in that operation there is, for a brief period, no effective competition. For simplicity let us say that this carrying is at first done by a single wagon owned by its driver, and that his charge for the service he renders nearly equals the difference between the cost of making the goods at A and that of obtaining them at B from some alternative source. This lone and honest driver is thus illustrating the practice of the modern railroad, in that he is "charging what the traffic will bear." The goods he transports have one natural value at A and another at B. These two values are determined separately and in ways that are quite independent of the carrier and his policy. When he begins to do his work, he charges an amount which about equals the difference between the two values.