78

ECONOMIC PRINCIPLES

which the necessity of paying in inconvenience as well as
in cash imposes. The raising of the price of seats on special
occasions is an effort to effect some part of the adjustment
of demand to supply, in a manner more profitable to the
managers of an entertainment than the exaction of the
whole addition to the ordinary price in the form of inconvenience
 endured.
Some attention having been given already to that side of
the subject, we are not here entering on the consideration of
the profitableness or otherwise of the business of providing
a commodity or service at a price fixed by authority or
custom, or the principles which lead to the fixing of one
price rather than another for the goods or services, in regard
to which the variation of the price from time to time in
accordance with the changes in cost of the goods or services
is practically out of the question. The consideration here
given to the problems involved takes for granted the fixed
price, and some of the results of its being a fixed one are
traced,