Brownsville herald. [volume] (Brownsville, Tex.) 1910-current, 1912-09-21
HIGH LIVING COST
THE REAL ISSUE
CONTINUED from page one.)

PAOCl IIldI COW-
petition is not often feasible and is
some times financially wasteful in
the field of transportation. when
railways have been developed along
the shortest and most seryiceahIe
lines; but they also know that this
class OF natural monopolies' is COM
p~aratively small, and that there Il
no analogy between the regulation
OF railways and the regulation Of
artificial monopoly created by de-
liberate combination and agreement,
based not upon efficiency but upon
control OF a particular product and
particular markets.
SPrices. have risen all over the
world, but much faster and very
much higher in high tariff countries.
where monopoly was protected. than
in low tariff countries, where COM
petition excluded monopoly. And
the chief cause of high prices in
America is that the markets are con-
trolled. They can be controlled be-
cause the tariff screens them from
the economic forces which establish
prices in the markets Of the world
at large.
No wonder, therefore, that the
leaders OF the republican and pro-
gressive parties are saying less about
high prices. They dare not, or will
not, go straight at the cause of high
prices in this country in the rem
edies which they propose. Govern
ment regulation will shield monopo-
ly as well as guide it, and regula-
tion is not freedom.
THE net result is that both these
parties have to all intents and pur-
poses abandoned the central issues
of the campaign. The democrats
alone are bold enough and far
sighted enough to see that they must
tackle frankly and directly this
question. Upon what principle shall
tariff duties be laid, and by what
means shall monopoly be prevented?
They understand the interests of
the country quite as we'll as the gen.
tlemen who have played providence
to those interests for their own bene-
fits understand them, but they see
from another point of view, and
they suspect this human providence
and distrust it.
They see as clearly as anyone
else sees that business must in our
day be done upon a great scale, but
they know that there is a size which
is natural and a size which is un-
natural in business. The size which
is unnatural is built up upon GER
tain kinds Of agreements, certain
kinds OF practices, certain under
standings with regard to control
which are seldom economical and
whose object is not efficiency. The
right and wholesome kind Of size
comes from natural growth, from the
development of a business managed
with brains, with the closest study
Of efficiency and economy, with a
sort OF statesmanlike knowledge of
the markets Of the world, and that
kind of size no wise or well-informed
fears or is Jealous of.
Monopoly Is Away in the long
run weak and inefficient, and the
leaders Of the democratic party know
perfectly well that they are serving
the business interests of the country
much better, much more intelligent
ly, than the leaders of either Of the
other parties, because they mean so
to regulate competition and free the
conditions Of business in this
try as to substitute the efficient for
the merely powerful. IT is futile
to stand for the causes of our pres
ent wrongs and weakly propose to
control and moderate the results.
and yet this is all that our opponents
suggest.
They even propose to remedy the
results by the very means by which
they were produced, namely, the
partnership of the government in
the management Of big business. l,
for may part, can never bring N.Y.
self to accept the proposal that the
government by regulation shall act
through the trusts for the people.
The contact between the govern
ment and the people in such a case
is too remote and indirect. This is
way in which to restore the con-
fidence OF the people. 1t is only a
way in which to provide the people
with new guardians, guardians in
terestsd above all things in making
profit out Of their guardianship, a
political profit, be it observed, as
well as an economic profit. won
der what the regulation is to ac-
complish for the working men
through the instrumentality of those
who have been their most successful
For, after all, the attitude of
government towards labor lies at the
heart of almost everything that
us as a nation. A nation
be said to consist Of those who
do its daily labor, and America has
always boosted that she was the
home Of free labor, that all were
welcome to her shores and partake