Now, it is argued, if it be admitted that prices have in fact fallen under the administration of some of the strongest Trusts, it cannot be maintained that Trusts have a tendency to raise prices. In reply, it is pointed out that in almost all highly-organised modern industries improved methods of production are rapidly lowering the expenses of production and prices, and that therefore the statement that Trusts tend to maintain high prices is quite consistent with the fact of an absolute fall, the question at issue being whether the fall of prices under the Trust was as great as it would have been under free competition. Moreover, a comparison of dates appears to indicate that the Trust's prices, as we saw in the Standard Oil Company, fluctuate with the degree of their monopoly, falling rapidly under the pressure of actual or threatened competition, rising when the danger is past. Finally, opponents of the Trust allude to certain Trusts which, in spite of the greater economies of production they possess, have raised prices. Excepting by the inverse and questionable method of arguing that the high profits distributed by a Trust are themselves proof that prices have not fallen as they would have fallen under free competition, it is not possible to build a very convincing condemnation of the Trust from statistics of price. And even when profits are high it is open to the defenders of the Trust to maintain that they only represent the saving of the cost of competition, and that if competition were introduced the profits would be squandered in the struggle instead of passing into the consumer's pocket. It is only from a deductive treatment of the subject that we are able to clearly convict the Trust of possessing a power over prices antagonistic to the interests of the consuming public.