The daily morning journal and courier., 1896-12-14
HONEST USE OF CAPITAL
THE FUNDAMENTAL LAW OF ALL
 RUSINESS.

 Professor A. Y. Hadley Discusses the Re
 lation of Capital to Labor-Efreot of Com
 blnatlon Instead of Competition.
 Professor Arthur T, Hadley gave a very instructive address before the Y, M. c. A, in Warner hall yesterday af- ternoon before a large audience, Professor Hadley spoke on the subject of Capital and Labor" in part as fol- lows:
 "The campaign which has just closed has given Us a great deal of discussion on the subject of capital and labor, but l do not know whether it has advanced the discussion very much or not
 One side has maintained that the possession of great property is great advantage, while the other has main tained that it is an unlimited evil Now, neither of these views represents the entire truth.
 "The good or evil of the possession of wealth by one member of the com munity to the rest of the community depends to a great extent upon the in- lelllS GIlGS dliN iiOlltSly OL lllG BpSSGoSOl. If man is intelligent and far-sighted he will see that honesty and fair deal ing are not only the best things for the community but also for himself. The man who loses the confidence of his customers by his unfair dealing un- dermines his own business success for temporary advantage.
 , This rule holds true in the relation | of capital to labor. The capitalist who does not pay his workmen fairly, but adopts cheese-paring policy in paying them, does so in the long run at the expense of the efficiency of his em- | ployes and runs greater risk from loss | es by strikes.
 Some will say that prices are the | result of combination and not of com petition, as they were twenty-five years ago, and the question is asked | if we have not lost the protection of | competition for the consumer and la | borer and put these two classes at the | mercy of combined capital.
 Now, there is not so much monop- | oly as many people imagine. It is true | that the oil. match and telegraph, and | to a limited extent sugar refining, in dustries have a practically complete monopoly, but when you have named these you have practically named all the successful combinations of capital to fix, prices. In other industries the prices are still fixed by competition. But it is said that where there are | two thousand competing laborers there is more competition among them than | there is between a few capitalists. Now, this is not true. There is strong CT and closer competition between two than there is between two thousand | men. And a result of this sharper | competition between a smaller number | of capitalists than formerly has been i that it has forced the wages of labor up to the maximum limit since they do not allow wage earners to lay around at odds and ends as much as they did under less competition.
 "Combination as compared with com- petition makes the purchaser look far ther ahead to see his connection with the consumer.
 'In combination you do not feel the effect till a later day, whereas the re- suit of competition is felt sooner. People have not yet learned
 thoroughly this lesson in regard to
 combinations. A man who has been | brought up to run store has learned
 from his predecessors that his success depends largely upon his honesty. This
 is not true of railroads, where special
 rates are often given, the result of
 which is that in discriminating against
 small dealers in places sometimes re- suits in driving out the small business
 men and this has compelled the large
 business firms to also go out of busi-
 ness who depend upon the smaller con-
 cerns So that by unfair schedules the
 railroads have gone contrary to their
 own interests in the long run.