The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1891-03-17

bmanding Importance in the work and
life of our time. The first is the failure
of competition as the sole controlling
economic force. 3S
The advantages of competition have
been rehearsed by all the IaisSez fare,
tree-trade schoOlO of political economists.
Even as able a man as James f. Hud-
son claims, that competition is the cure
for all the evils of the railway traffic
system. But it has some equally great
disadvantages; and it is now generally
recognized that, as David A. Wells, a
firm aIherent of the Manchester school,
says: The whole tendency of recent
economic development is in the direc-
ton of limiting the area within which
the influence of competition is effective.
There are natural forces limiting
competition. Competition, to be effec-
tive, must be free. 1t is opposed. to all
combination. In 1874 was organized
the movement which eliminated in
the Standard Oil Trust-a movement
fraught with more weighty and mo-
mentOuS. consequences to the trade and
industry of the nation, than any legis-
lative enactment since the civil war.
A list, published in 1888, named fifty
seven leading Industries, which were
controlled, more or less, bytrusts, from
beef and flour, sugar and salt, coal, iron
and copper, to lead-pencils and collins.
No doubt, any such widespread
movement implies some strong, i'm
polling cause. Doubtless, the f,chief
economic cause named is the proven
ton of competitive waste-the diminu-
ton of officers, of agents, of CONNER
cial travellers, of the expenses of offices,
of organization, and of competitive
strife. But stronger far than this is
the fact, that such large amounts of
capital have been lodged in SO few
hands that, with modern means of
communication, the formation of COM
binatiOns to control the-imanufacture
and sale of the leading necessaries of
life become at once feasible and i'm
mensely profitable.
OF course, competition remains as a
powerful factor in business life, but it's
old supremacy has gone. The trusts
have come. The Iowa farmer sells his
stock, fed for market, for one dollar
and seventy-fve cents per hundred
pounds; but we pay in the East as we
have since the var, from sixteen to
twenty cents per pound for steak. The
sugar trust has made a clean profit, in
one year, OF One-third of the capital
employed in the business. It is doubt
full, if we have less glucose; we do not
pay less, and when the tariff has to be
a ljusted, the. refiners are protected.
No careful student of the subject will
merely rail at mOnOpOliSts or declaim
against trusts. The promoters of syn
Dictates have simply adjusted them
selves to present economic conditions,
and done what all competitive business
Peaches. the best for themselves in the
circumstances. The means by which
this has been done, and not the thing
itself, determines the moral character
of the act. Moreover, trusts have come
to stay. But what is the effect on de-
mOcracy of the control of manufacture
and trade, and hundreds of thousands
of employees by these large and COM
handing aggregations of capital,
many times of foreign ownership and
control? Will it not intensity the
commercial aspect of society and the
corruption of governments Will great
masses of the people be content to have
their very means of daily subsistence
controlled by a class, whose tax upon
the necessities of the poor, u the
accumulation of the most overgrown
fortunes the world has seen?
A second tendency of commanding
importance is the extension of the
functions of the modern State. Ac-
complished facts and stable social and
economic forces, are compelling the
recognition of this enlarged function
and duty of the State.
1t is acknowledge everywhere in the
democratic State, that it must super
wise and control the secular education
of the people. It has a right to pre-
scribe a moral level, below which COM
mercial competition shall not descend.
The series of legislative enactments
known as factory acts, prescribing the
length of working hours, prohibiting
For regulating the employment of wo-
men or children, providing for the pre-
ventiOn of accidents, and defining the
employers liability, etc. etc. are all
framed on the assumption that the
State is"a moral personality, and its
supreme end is the welfare of the npeO-
pie. In this relation it properly takes
control of such natural ,mOnopOlies as
it can wisely manage. This is seen in
the governmental administration of
the p~ostoffice, of roads, bridges, canals,
etc. 1t can advantageously manage
the railroads, as has been proved be-
yOnd question in Germany, and tele-
graphs, as in England. Public author
ity in cities and towns can profitably
own and administer the waterwoFks,
gas and electric lighting, and control
street railways, as well as care for its
streets and parks. {:
This shows that the State must con
troll and may manage natural monop-
| Olies. IN
What, then, can the State do? It
can recognize these trusts, as it has al
ready recognized railroad corporations,
and control them. It should insist
that they have a public character, and
are not merely private enterprises for
gain. It should insist upon publicity
of accounts and official statements of
6Do1o;o1 o4orJiDn onI IN tho oopfro1