to make a "pillar of fire by night" from the two-thirds formative substance of the earth, water; and so with the Havemeyer associates and sugar-they seem to think that some of us do not know that they are the refiners of sugar, and that the prices paid for refined sugar has never been so cheap as they were in 1885, and the Sugar trust was first organized in November, 1887, since which time the price of sugar has been steadily maintained, while the price of raw sugar has materially and steadily decreased; so on analyzing all of them, we find that their every effort has been to strike down and kill all competition, so as to gratify their apparent insatiable avarice, so that they really reap unearned profits and injure the public; that the so-called "economic evolution of our industries" injures the public, will be readily seen from a few extracts taken from the testimony of Mr. Havemeyer, given before the Senate investigating committee in 1894.

"The Sugar trust makes it a rule to make political contributions to the Republican party in Republican states, and to the Democratic party in Democratic states."

"We get a good deal of protection from our contribution." "Our company has made considerable money out of the McKinley bill."-(Byron W. Holt in June Review of Reviews.)

Such statements as these drive one to the irresistible conclusion that the sugar trust is an injury to the public. That they reduce the number of positions for active and energetic citizens to fill, is no longer in dispute, since reports from all commercial travelers' associations testify to that fact; that they control the output of articles which they produce and handle is a conceded fact, that they control the price of raw material, assisted by "protection for protection's sake" legislation, is no longer disputed: that they fix and regulate the prices paid by wholesaler, jobber, retailer, and finally by the consumer is an agreed proposition.

It strikes me that a few master minds have successfully managed politics and business from a financial standpoint, until now the industrial trusts propose to make the people pay tribute to them for all the necessities of life, from the soothing syrup age to the shroud.

The manufacturing interests have told and repeated to us, that they wanted protection to give them a home market; they got it and the market, and now they are committing the old common law crimes of forestalling and regrating, until they control that home market from the raw material to the consumed article. Up to the day of the application of the protective tariff by

the industrial trusts, we had a fair competitive system of production and distribution. If it is possible, let us take up again the interstate commercial policy, that materially assisted us in developing the greatest union of states that is known to the history

of man.

My method of regulating and restraining the substance eating and never earning trusts would be to first have the Congress of the United States, as soon as possible, put upon the free list every article that is made, sold or controlled by a trust, and every one of the component parts of all articles manufactured by them. The answer to that would be or is, their magnitude is such that they break over any or all nations' barriers, and become international; but "sufficient for the day is the evil thereof," by the elimination of the protective tariff, we would not necessarily destroy or disintegrate them, but it would in a great measure relieve the people from paying the enhanced prices to them for such necessities of life as coal, salt, petroleum and its products, sugar, matches and the like; and then let the American Congress pass licensing or taxing act, in the exercise of the police power of the government, under the implied general welfare clause of the Constitution, as interpreted by Justice Marshall, the definer and defender of the Constitution, notwithstanding the opinion of Attorney-General Griggs to the contrary.

Are the people to be informed that it does not lie within the power of the general government to protect the government itself from the avarice and greed of some of the members of society? If such is the only power of the government, what is there to prohibit a combination of capital or wealth from buying up all the world's output of coal, or salt or any other necessity, and they saying to the other members of society, you cannot have a pound of either, unless you pay our price?

Ah! Greater than Griggs have been in error. The people will stand by the declarations of John Marshall in preference to Griggsology. Place upon all corporations a graduated tax, the rate of taxation increasing with the capitalization. You tell me. it cannot be done under the Constitution. I tell you that at one time in the interest of organized wealth, the national banks, this government placed a tax upon their competitors, the issue of the state banks, that drove them from the fields of finance. Why can not that same power be exercised in the interest of the people and against aggregated wealth? Here is a way that I believe is safe and sure. One of the great political parties that is now in complete control of all branches of the national government,

will next year in its declaration of principles, declare its opposition to trusts, we are told by leaders of that party. We say, "act your opposition before you declare; you have the opportunity, give the people some performance and not so much in promise, for by their fruits ye shall know them.""

HENRY H. SWAIN.

Montana State Normal School.

There is no thought of entering in this paper into a comprehensive survey of the trust problem. Nor is there any attempt to seek some one simple cause for the growth of trusts. The rise of trusts has resulted from a combination of various influences, and no one cause alone is sufficient to account for all these phenomena. We have heard how an unwisely adjusted tariff has fostered the growth of some trusts, how others have profited unduly by the operation of patent laws, others have thriven because of unfair discriminations in railroad rates. No one of these causes tells the whole story, but all are important, and if the trust question is to receive any truly scientific treatment, all these, as well as many other phases, must be fully taken into account.

The case is very similar when we come to the relation between trusts and the currency. There is no disposition to claim that our currency system is the sole cause of the rise of trusts, nor that currency reform would, all by itself, settle the matter. It is maintained, however, that the relation between the trusts and the currency is so intimate that no consideration of the trust problem which overlooks this view of the matter can be other than partial and inadequate.

If we should ask any plain, intelligent business man what is the one matter of vital importance under our profit system of doing business, he would certainly reply that it was mainly a question of prices. It is utterly impossible for any enterprise to keep on if the prices obtainable on the market fall for any reason whatever below the cost of production. If the fall of prices comes about from causes wholly outside the business itself, the result is quite as disastrous as if it came from internal causes.

During the last quarter-century or so, while we have been trying the experiment of gold monometallism, the usual course of general prices has, as a result of that experiment, with occasional temporary fluctuations, tended steadily downward. There. was once a time when certain persons professed to be unconvinced

of this fact. I think that time is past. I have in recent months read efforts to show that this fall was not without its partial compensations, but I think the fact of the fall is itself no longer seriously disputed.

Now what is the bearing of this upon the trust question? It touches it at two points. In the first place, the fall of prices resulting from an unstable currency has tended to magnify every disadvantage against which a weaker competitor was struggling. Does one enterprise sustain itself with difficulty because of unfair discrimination in railroad rates-then the possibility of success is still further diminished by the burden of falling prices. Is one competitor heavily handicapped because of a rival's possession of exclusive patents-then the additional weight of constantly falling prices breaks down the competitor altogether.

In a superficial view of the case it might seem that such a condition would affect all competitors alike, and so not prejudice the race at all. But while the effect upon all is similar in kind, the weight upon each is not necessarily in equal proportion. Under normal conditions a small advantage in draft of river vessels is only of slight importance, but in a stage of low water the importance of this advantage is greatly enhanced and a very slight difference of draft may make all the difference between complete success and hopeless failure. So, under stable prices, many competitors may remain in the field even in spite of unfair discrimination. But when prices continue downward for a long period, there is less hope for all competitors, and the enjoyment of some exceptional favoritism may prove the absolute sine qua non of survival.

An appreciating currency accelerates the development of trust combinations in the second place, because it greatly increases the stimulus to strive for a complete mastery of the market. Under these circumstances even the possession of unfair advantages may not suffice unless these advantages are such as to create a practical monopoly. Now, if an industry can be so monopolized that, while general prices are falling, the products of this industry can be made actually to increase in price, or even to fall less rapidly than the average of general prices, it may be possible not only to escape from the mire of general business depression, but even to attain exceptional prosperity. All depends, however, on securing practical control of the market. Hence all energies which, under normal conditions, might be given to improving the product and cheapening the process are now bent to combine the strongest competitors and crush out all others by whatever means may appear necessary.

Thus all causes tending to the growth of monopoly combinations have been stimulated by an appreciating currency. Now let us note what occurs when this unstable currency takes a turn in the opposite direction. In the last few years gold-mining has increased so rapidly that the production of gold in 1898 exceeds in value the production of both gold and silver for any year prior to 1891. This increase in gold production which, under an established system of general bimetallism, would scarcely have disturbed the general price level at all, now occasions a decided rise of general prices, giving a bonus at the expense of the public. to producers generally. In so far as industry is controlled by a trust combination, this combination of course also gathers its bonus from this source. While therefore the long-continued appreciation of the currency has been of material benefit to the trust combination in its efforts to crush competitors, the combinations which have survived and have freed themselves from effective competition, now find an unstable currency beginning to depreciate just in season to enable them to reap an extra profit at a time when they are prepared to monopolize it.

Hence, while a currency which will keep prices always at an absolutely unvarying level, is something not yet discovered, still it can be seen that any plan for dealing with the trust problem must be at best but partial and inadequate if it does not contemplate as one of its features such changes in our currency system as will tend as much as possible toward stability of prices. Still worse would it be if, by the retirement of our national paper currency and the substitution therefor of currency of private issue, the power should be given to any private combination not only to control the prices of its own specific products, but even to manipulate the general price level in behalf of special class interests.

T. B. WALKER.

Minneapolis Board of Trade.

J. W. Gaines, of Tennessee, was called to the chair, and introduced T. B. Walker, of Minnesota, who spoke on "Trusts from a Business Man's Standpoint":

To intelligently consider the question of the modern trusts it is necessary first to examine and analyze the principles and practices on which the trust is based. Not a prolonged discussion of the meanings of words, but to know what the object, aim