§ 8. These considerations show that the power of a Trust or other monopoly over prices is determined by a number of intricate forces which react upon one another with varying degrees of pressure, according as the quantity of supply is increased or diminished. But a Trust is always able to charge prices in excess of competitive prices, and it is generally its interest to do so. It will commonly be to the interest of a Trust or other monopoly to maintain a lower scale of prices in those commodities which are luxuries or satisfy some less urgent and more capricious taste, and to maintain high prices where the article of monopoly is a common comfort or a prime necessary of life for which there is no easily available substitute. FOOTNOTES: [138] S.C.T. Dodd, _The Forum_, May 1892. [139] "Trusts in the United States," _Economic Journal_, p. 86. [140] Baker, _Monopolies and the People_, p. 85. [141] Cf. Chapter ix. [142] Mr. George Gunton, in writing upon "The Economic Aspect of Trusts" (_Political Science Quarterly_, Sept. 1888), claims a rise in wages as one of the advantages of Trusts, but Mr. Gunton throughout his argument assumes that a Trust is a large competing capital and not a monopoly. If a Trust were a competing capital its formation would be an economic and social advantage, tending, as he says, "to increase production, to lower prices, and to raise wages." But as a Trust is not a competing capital it does none of these things. [143] J.W. Jenks, "Trusts in the United States," _Economic Journal_, vol. ii. p. 80. [144] H.D. Lloyd, Essay on "Trusts," reprinted in _Boston Daily Traveller_ (June 16, 1893). [145] G. Gunton, _Political Science Quarterly_, Sept. 1888. This statement, however, appears in contradiction to the "Report of the Committee on Investigations relative to Trusts in the State of New York," p. 12. CHAPTER VII. MACHINERY AND INDUSTRIAL DEPRESSION.