Pool

This term applies when interests join together for mutual advantage. The anthracite cpal pool, as it formerly existed, was an agreement whereby each company belonging to the pool was to mine a certain percentage of the total production. The production for each month was determined in the preceding: month. The purpose of the pool was regulation of both outti put and prices. By restricting the output to the consumptive demand control of prices was accomplished. A schedule of prices was prepared for each month and all the companies made sales of coal in accordance with it. The anthracite coal pool was declared illegal by the courts on the ground that it; was in restraint of trade.; ww In manufacturing pools are often formed. Formerly the manufacturers of steel rails joined in a pool. The pool fixed prices and each concern was allowed to make and sell a certain percentage of the total output of rails., A freight pool formerly was an arrangement whereby railroads (or other transportation lines) divided among themselves the tonnage for which they were all competing. For. instance, the busine between New York and Chicago formerly was divided among the roads handling it. Each road was allowed a certain percentage of the whole. When a road was ahead of its percentage (had carried more than its percent- _ age) it had to even up (this being the term used) by transferring freight received by it to roads which were behind their percentage. This was called a tonnage pool. At one time a money pool was in existence. In this pool a road that had carried more than its percentage had to pay over in money the amount received for carrying the freight in exce of its percentage. This money went to roads which carried le than their percentages. A pa enger pool was based on the same general principles as a freight pool. To secure a distribution of busine in accordance with the percentages allotted differential rates (lower rates) were permitted to be charged by roads not advantageously situated or not having as attractive a service as other roads. Also, where it was po ible, traffic was diverted from lines ahead of their percentages to lines behind their percentages in order to even up. A money pool in the pa enger busine operated in the same way as a money pool in the freight busine . 416