The Mason County journal. [volume] (Shelton, W.T.) 1886-1927, 1890-09-05
TRUSTS AND MONOPOlJEs
What the Public Regulation of Combin,
lions Will Lead To-

What the Public Regulation of Combine
lions Will Lead To.
An actual trust of a strong tvno no,
the power to make outside rivalry
perilous. 1t may push prices beyond
the point where new establishments
would ordinarily be created, and to tba
point where they are in danger of beino
created in the face of the special risk
When the profits of the combination
tempt men to take the chances of a life.
and-death battle with it, extortion
must stop. The interest of the public
and especially of the working class, de.
mands that it should stop far within
the limit thus set; yet there seems tos
be no clearly defined economic influ-
ence that can compel it to do so. In So
far as potential competition is con.
cerned, the public may suffer much
from the exactions of trusts, and the
workmen may experience more than
their due proportion of the evil Is
there, then, further inhu.
ence that can be depended
on to curtail extortion? Our brief on
perlence answers the questions. The
attitude of the people toward trusts i'm.
poses check on their action that ia
beginning to take definable shape. It
does not follow that the managers OF
combinations care for the people in the
least; there is limit to the extent to
which they can afford to antagonize
them. Public action will take place
only when there is considerable rea-
son for it, and it is good policy to
avoid giving such a reason. The action
OF the people, when it takes a positive
shape, is in the main through courts
and Legislatures. But can not trust
own court and Legislature? Possibly:
yet it may prove more difficult than it
has been for corporations to own them.
Back of the court and the Legislature, in
a contest with trusts, stand the people.
Labor organizations are, in this con-
nection, positive and welcome
factor. They enable the general
opposition of the people of such
mOnopolies as we are DISCUSSING
to make itself felt in a way that
would otherwise be out of the question.
They control votes that Legislatures.
courts and, Indirectly, trusts must
respect We are entering an era of
public regulation of monopolies. We
are making our first experiments in ac
quiring the art of such regulation. The
monopolies are here to stay; and while
they have, by reason of latent competi-
ton, far less power than careless
thought attributes to them, they have
power enough to make energetic public
action a moral certainty in the near
future. We shall not need to own these
monopolies if only we can wisely req
ulate them. That, however, is the
nature of the alternative that is pre-
sented: BUY out mOnopolies or control
them" is the word. Possibly, in the
buying out of monopolies, some would
have us omit the formality of pay ing
for them. Socialism everywhere looks
for the absorption of trusts by the
state with or without coniscation.
Sound thinking substitutes regula-
tion for ownership; and events are,
in way, to decide between the
two in summary manner. A public
action that shall wisely and successful
cialism very remote contingency. 1t
will be, in the end, welcome to the
trusts themselves. A moderate gain
that is lawful and safe will be more at
tractive to capital than large one that
is irregular and perilOus. The public
regula ton of trusts is some thing that
casts its shadow before, and the
shadow is an ever widening one.
While decision of court
or legislative statute is imminep it
affects the action not only of the trI2,s
that is directly touched by it, but OF all
others. Potential public action, like
potential competition, keeps extortiOn
within bounds. One actual decision.
one actual limiting statue, has the eff
feet of holding a lash over all
organizations of the kind that
it actually strikes. What we
now see is the beginnings
of the process-a few decisions,
many bills not yet passed, some tenta-
tive work with commissions. But these
mere beginnings suffice to throw some
restraint on the action of monopolies.
The perfecting of the system of regula-
ton may involve a painful and costly
process; but it can only end by trans
lating us into new economic era, one
in which the state, on the one hand,
and an industrial society on the other,
will see what is their true relation to
each other, and will spontaneously as
sumo it. We may theorize as we will
about the limits of state action; studies
in this direction have a speculative in
terest. Events are giving US science
of the relation of the state to industry
almost faster than we can make one III
the study. B. Clark, in New En-
glander and Yale Review.