In this diagram we note that from 1870 to 1875 there was a rapid reduction of price in consequence of the fact that these were years of keen competition with other Pennsylvanian businesses. 1875, which marks the establishment of a monopoly of the interior trade in the hands of the Standard Oil Trust, also marks a sharp rise of prices. The expansion of their business brought them into contact with new and more distant competitors, and a fall of price continued until 1879, while prices continued to oscillate until 1881, the year of the formation of the Trust. From the time of the formation of the Trust the fall of price has been only half a cent. The moral is obvious. So long as there is competition, in spite of the expense of conducting the strife, prices fall; when the competition is suspended, and there is a saving of friction, the public gains no further reduction. The reason why, even after the complete monopoly had been attained, the price of oil was not put up again will be apparent when we come to examine the economic limits of the power of a Trust. [Illustration: FLUCTUATIONS OF PRICES OF STANDARD OIL, 1870 TO 1890.] § 10. A large number of these Trusts, similar in their constitution to the Standard Oil Trust, and with the same object of maintaining a scale of prices based upon monopoly, have been founded in the United States. Some have undoubtedly owed their establishment to the prevalence of low profits in a trade where close competition has led to a constant cutting of prices, and their foundation has been leniently regarded as an act of self-defence. To this order belong the Whisky Trust, the Cotton Oil Trust, the Cotton Bagging Trust, and others. Indeed, one well-informed writer upon the subject holds that this is the normal origin of the Trust. "With the exception of the Standard Oil Trust, and perhaps one or two others that rose somewhat earlier, it may be fairly said, I think, that not merely competition, but competition that was proving ruinous to many establishments, was the cause of the combinations."[133]