SUPPLY AND VALUE 55

the ultimate outcome must be the controlling of the whole
supply by one producer, or a division of the field by agreement
 between surviving competitors, The examination of
the case of monopoly is deferred for the moment, and we
merely note it as the logical outcome, in the long run, of
conditions of increasing return obtaining in reference to
supplies for a limited market.
if the market is expansive, the case is somewhat different,
though a good deal depends on the degree of expansiveness
it may possess. With an expanding market, enlargement
of the productive facilities of a business may not compel a
struggle with competitors, to find an outlet for the increased
product, so keen as to lead to the sacrifice of all the profits
arising out of the economy of large-scale production, or, at
any rate, may not involve the retirement of some of the
producers to make room for the stronger rivals. The persistence
 of numerous contributors to the supply is possible
so long as the market grows fast enough to provide room
for the expansion of the output of the growing businesses.
Further, the situation is likely to impose some limits on the
capacity of individual establishments to expand. Continuous
expansion demands continuous increase of capital, and time
may be required to demonstrate the profitableness of such
investments as a means of securing control of the necessary
further supplies. Enlarged output may well mean changed
organisation, in fact its profitableness may arise from changes
in organisation, and these take time to carry out. Thus the
market may have time to grow while the steps of expansion
of production are being effected, and the persistence of
competition, even under conditions of decreasing cost, be
thus justified.
At a given stage of industrial knowledge and business
sxperience, too, though the enlargement of a producing
sstablishment may be accompanied by a relative decrease
of expenses within certain limits, beyond some definite point
further enlargement may show no further economy, or even
a decrease of economy, in the sense of relatively increasing
expenses. The organisation on effective lines of the larger
scales of production may, further, prove to task the capacity