But the practical ownership of its employees involved in the position of a monopoly is by no means the full measure of the oppressive power exercised by the Trust over labour. Since the means by which Trust prices are maintained is the regulation of production, the interests of the Trust often require that a large part of the fixed capital of the companies entering the Trust shall stand idle. "When competition has become so fierce that there is frequently in the market a supply of goods so great that all cannot be sold at remunerative prices, it is necessary that the competing establishments, in order to continue business at all (of course, under perfectly free competition many will fail), check their production. Now an ordinary pool makes provision for each establishment to run in one of the two ways suggested. Manifestly a stronger organisation like the Trust, by selecting the best establishments, and running them continuously at their full capacity, while closing the others, or selling them, and making other use of the capital thus set free, will make a great saving. The most striking example of this kind in the recent history of the Trusts is furnished by the Whisky Trust. More than eighty distilleries joined the Trust. Formerly, when organised as a pool, as has been said, each establishment ran at part capacity, one year at 40 per cent., one year at only 28 per cent. A year after the organisation of the Trust only twelve were running; but these were producing at about their full capacity, and the total output of alcohol was not at all lessened. The saving is to be reckoned by the labour and running capital which had formerly been employed in nearly sixty distilleries. It must be borne in mind that on the product of these twelve distilleries good profits were made on the capital represented in more than eighty plants. All the greater Trusts, such as the Standard Oil, the Cotton Oil, the Cotton Bagging, and the Sugar Trust, have followed this plan of closing entirely the weaker establishments and running only the stronger, thereby effecting a saving in capital and labour."[143]