Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1889-09-13
TRUSTS.

We approve greatly OF the wholesale
discussion of the Trusts that Is taking
place, although we see clearly that the
better they are understood the more nu-
merous they will become, and the more
generally they will be participated in.
In England, which is free trade coun-
try, there is no important industry and
few small ones in an Entrusted condition.
All classes of people have given in their
adherence to the Trust idea, and it has
also taken hold of labor with VEN
geance. Combination for protection is
the motto of all ranks of people, and the
end is not yet visible.
Labor combines. Capital combines.
AS general thing capital has so far got
little the start of labor in the struggles
between the two. But in the end it will
come out all right. Natural law will
prevail in the long run, as it has done
invariably since the waters receded from
this globe. The eternal principle of De-
mand and Supply will regulate all
things, and all the Trusts that the inge-
nuity of man may devise will not prevail
one .iot or little against it.
And no unjust Trust shall live. The
Trust that is oppressive must fall.
If refined oil is put at an unnatural
price, the Standard Oil company will be
smashed. Millions OF money will be
forthcoming to make and sell oil at a
legitimate profit, and the Standard will
go. to the wall. Is sugar too dear? If
it be, down goes the Sugar Trust. And
we note by the way that the capital has
been promptly forthcoming to put up
plant to make thousand tons of sugar
a day in Philadelphia in opposition to
this self-same Sugar Trust. The profit
on the Trust on its output is only a
fraction of cent per pound, and yet
here are millions of money furnished to
wrest than profit from it and divide
it among competing manufacturers
Whose liberties are in any real danger
under any such circumstances as these?
Nobody's; unless, indeed, it be that
grave danger threatens the capitalists.
And it is so with every Trust from
the Standard Oil down to the Peanut,
and the inevitable tendency is to antici-
pate the point at which any injustice is
about to be inflicted on the public. A
fraction of a cent on sugar has precip-
lated powerful competition. A cent
grievious hardship on the consumers of
the pure lard into which the bulk of
cotton oil is converted, or on the con-
sumers of the pure olive oil which is so
largely manufactured from it, lit was
enough, however, to precipiiate compe-
tition, and the Cotton Oil Trust has to
fight for its living just as if it was
grocery fighting another grocery across
the way.
Such is the inevitable and the neces-
sary destiny of the Trusts. That it
should be otherwise is as impossible as
it is inconsistent with natural law and
with the principles of human progress.
Hence our contempt for the outcries of
demagogues, and the silly camor to i'm
pose artificial and legislative restraints
upon the natural expedients of intelli-
gence business men. The Trusts are
modern business expedients, and they
will exist and undergo their own regu-
lation. 1t may be safely set down that
the attacks that are made on them have
their foundation in ignorance or in envy.
The greater number of those who have
attacked the Trusts publicly and through
the press have had no honest motive in
doing so. Some of them have been hyp-
ocrites and demagogues by training and
habit; some of them have wanted to
blackmail their way into Trusts where
they were not wanted; some of them
were in Trusts already, but could not on
that account tolerate the Trusts of their
neighbors; and all of them had poor
motives, and they will remain to the
end convinced that there is nothing so
Infamous as Trust that they do not
participate in.-[New York Sun.