Eddy, Arthur Jerome: The new competition: an examination of the conditions underlying the radical change that is taking place in the commercial and industrial world ; the change from a competitive to a cooperative basis (New York [u.a.], 1912)

TRUE VS. FALSE COMPETITION 85
industry may be laid off without wages dropping one per
cent. The period of depression must be very prolonged
and very severe to materially affect the rate paid those
who are kept at work; they will consent to work for less
hours per week before they will accept a less sum per hour;
while the unemployed, however desperate their condition,
are loath to offer to work for less than what they formerly
received.
These conditions show how much better informed and
better fortified certain sections of the labor world are
when it comes to competition than are contractors and
manufacturers.
The contractor has no union, no employment bureau
to which he can appeal for information before he makes a
contract. He is obliged to make his offer in the dark and
when it is accepted he is bound to do the work though it
ruin him; he cannot demand more or quit. When he finds
he was deceived regarding the bids of other contractors
and that they are getting more for similar work and pos-
sibly from the same owner, he must stand by his contract.

VI
Between the blacksmiths of a small village the competi-
tion may be more real, it may be so open, so true that the
charge for shoeing a horse is practically fixed.
Why should a false and vicious competition prevail
among carpenters and a truer form among horseshoers?
The answer is found in the conditions under which
each class does business.
The carpenter bids on jobs no two of which are alike
and each bids with reference to his own particular needs
and with little or no knowledge regarding the bids of
others.