SUPPLY AND VALUE

43

These conditions are realised in some few instances,
approximated to in others.
As the amount supplied is definite, we need only determine
 the one price, which is at once the highest at which
the whole can be disposed of, and low enough to secure that
a sufficient demand to carry off the entire supply will be
encountered. The price which will ensure this will be determined
 by the state of the demand for the commodity. It
will measure the marginal utility of the available supply.
With a higher price than this, less than the whole supply
will find buyers; with a lower price, buyers will demand
more in the aggregate than the total available supply. The
price, therefore, in such a case, will depend on the conditions
affecting demand. The supply is able to be taken for
granted, is uninfluenced by conditions affecting price or
demand, and is completely expressed in all respects by the
mere quantity available.
The problem is varied somewhat if the supply be such
that, while anticipations of high prices will lead to increased
offers of goods, yet the amount offered for sale cannot be in
excess of a fixed quantity. The problem is reduced to the
preceding if the price, which is adequate to ensure the offer
of all possible supplies, yet falls short of the price which
measures the marginal utility of this maximum supply.
Since, in this case, it is unnecessary to contemplate the offer
of anything less than the full maximum of supply, the conditions
 which would lead to the withholding of some part of
that supply need not occupy our attention.
But another variant of the problem is offered when we
must take account of the possible restriction of supply,
owing to the fact that the possessors of some part of it prefer
not to sell the whole of their holdings at prices as low as
those current at any particular time. In this case we cannot
restrict attention to the utility of the goods to buyers and
would-be buyers. We must consider also their utility to
possessors who may become sellers. We revert, in fact, to
the problem treated in the preceding chapter, The valuation
 of goods by sellers may be due to the direct utility
which they possess, as consumption goods or as appliances