It is claimed by railroad managers that pools are the only effective contrivances for checking ruinous competition among railroad carriers, and that they are therefore justifiable as a means of self-protection. This might perhaps be a valid argument if any attack were made upon the railroads which encroached upon their rights or endangered their existence, but if railroad companies are disposed to cut each other's throats, the public should not be made to pay the penalty of their depravity. As long as schedule rates are unreasonably high, railroads will be tempted to offer to certain shippers low secret rates; but as soon as all rates have been leveled down to a point where they will yield only a fair profit with good management, the inducement to cut below them is largely taken away. Pools, far from being a remedy for the evils of excessive competition, will in the end only aggravate the disease which they attempt to cure. The high rates which they maintain attract the attention of speculative men and lead to the construction of rival roads. While the traffic remains the same, the proceeds must then be divided among a larger number of carriers. Thus the construction of unnecessary roads, which has often been the subject of bitter complaint on the part of the older roads, is chargeable directly to their wrong policies. One of the principal objections to industrial and commercial combinations is that they paralyze trade. Competition stimulates every competitor to offer the best at the lowest possible price. This increases the demand for the commodity, and both the producer and the consumer are in the end benefited by the operation of this law. On the other hand, combinations, or, what is the same, monopolies, increase the price, remove the stimulus to excellence, and reduce the demand, and thereby affect injuriously the producer and consumer alike. Competition in the railway service would mean an improved service and lower rates and would speedily be followed by a large increase of business.