NOTE.--The claims of the oil combination to the credit of having cheapened oil have been subjected by competent men to statistical tests. President Andrews, of Brown University, shows that from 1861 to 1872, inclusive--_i.e._, before any combination whatever existed--the net annual percentage of decrease in the price of refining oil and carrying it to tide-water--that is, the difference between the cost of the petroleum at the wells and of the refined at New York--was 10-4332/10000 cents; from 1873 to 1881, inclusive, the trust's infirm and formative period, the decrease was 7-8897/10000 cents; from 1882 to 1887, inclusive, the years of its full maturity and vigor, the decrease was only 2-2879/10000 cents.[624] The New York _Daily Commercial Bulletin_ (April 4, 1892) made a similar study with similar results. It finds that under competition in the refining of oil the difference between crude at the wells and refined oil at New York was reduced from 13.45 cents per gallon in 1872 to 6.02 cents per gallon in 1881; under the reign of the trust the difference was 5.84 in 1891--greater than in 1882, when the trust began operations, when it was only 5.77. It concludes: "It has been claimed that the oil trust has been a benefit to this county; that the economies which it has introduced in the transportation and refining of oil have been shared with the consumer, and that the enormous wealth which it has accumulated during the past ten years has been widely distributed. Not one of these claims has any substantial basis in fact." The comparisons of cheapness are made on the wholesale price at New York of "export oil"--an inferior, almost a refuse product. Its price must meet that made by the Russians. These comparisons, therefore, really shed no light on the price movements of oil going into consumption throughout the country. But the trust really gets the retail price on all its domestic output. A full statistical statement of the price movement in retail markets cannot be had; nor even of the wholesale, for the combination has lately adopted a policy of suppressing the wholesale quotations of the higher grades of oil for domestic consumption. Comparisons, therefore, built on the export price of this poor oil at New York, though good as far as they go, are of oils of a low illuminating power. Comparisons that would really show the part played by the combination as a true merchant--one who discovers and distributes abundance for all at a fair price for his service--can only be made by such illustrations as we have been giving from its utterances, plans, and actions. But for monopoly an average price of 5 cents a gallon could prevail throughout the United States, with a saving of hundreds of millions to the people. Trust prices are artificial prices, independent of supply and demand, and in their perfection superior even to panic. This is illustrated by the comparison below, made by Mr. Byron W. Holt: