Up to the present time State interference has had as its principal object the improvement and preservation of competition. The conscientious manufacturer who would not poison consumers for the sake of swelling his profits, the high-minded employer who would not "sweat" women and children merely to reduce the cost of production, the delicately scrupulous shipper who would not undermine a rival by forcing a common carrier to pay him rebates, -all these have suffered as much from the abuses of competition as the general public itself. Industry under the competitive régime is a rough game played for high stakes, and if it is to be played fairly, there must be intelligent rules of the game and an umpire powerful enough to enforce them upon all contestants alike. If the manufacturers of Massachusetts are prohibited from employing children under fourteen years of age while those of South Carolina are encouraged to do so, decency is penalized, and the victory goes to the contestant guilty of the greatest number of fouls. State interference, as we have said, has had as its principal object the maintenance of competition upon a higher and more wholesome basis. But this has not been its sole object. Our recent regulation of public utility companies aims not to bolster up or preserve competition among such companies, but to introduce a substitute for competition; and the strong movement now on foot to modify the Federal Anti-Trust Act is partially based upon a recognition of the possibility that perhaps regulated monopoly may prove on the whole more beneficial than regulated competition. Upon this point we pass no judgment; time alone can tell. Whether it is desirable, whether in the long run it will be possible, to check the monopolistic tendency of the age and thus maintain a competitive as distinguished from a socialistic régime of industrial society, may be said to be the supreme economic problem of the twentieth century. QUESTIONS 1. How do you account for the failure of the early colonial restrictive legislation? 2. What was the effect of English colonial policy and the Navigation Acts upon American manufactures? shipbuilding? American political philosophy? 3. What was the condition of American agriculture in 1776? of manufactures? shipbuilding? transportation? 4. Was the Industrial Revolution as important in this country as in England? Was it attended with as much suffering? Why? 5. What part has been played by war in the tariff and industrial history of the United States? 6. In what respects has the agricultural development of this country differed from that of England? from that of the manufacturing industry? 7. What changes have taken place in the organization of manufacturing industries in the last century? 8. What are the principal causes and effects of industrial concentration? . What is the difference between industrial concentration and integration? between large-scale production and monopoly? 10. What stages are distinguishable in the history of transportation and railways in this country? II. What part did the State play in the development of railways? Is railway consolidation a recent phenomenon? 12. What movement has the development of trades unionism elicited from employers? from the State? 13. How did the doctrine of non-interference secure such a strong foothold in American constitutional law? What has been the principal object of State interference up to the present time? BISHOP, J. L. REFERENCES (See also References for Chapter V) History of American Manufactures. BRYN, E. W. Progress of Invention in the Nineteenth Century. Census Reports. Tenth Census, Agriculture, p. 131. Twelfth Census, Manufactures, Part I, Chap. II, §§ I–VI, XVII, XXXIX. DEWEY, D. R. HADLEY, A. T. JOHNSON, E. R. Financial History of the United States. Railroad Transportation, its History and its Laws. American Railroad Transportation, and Ocean and Inland Water Transportation. RABBENO, UGO. SUMNER, W. G. TAUSSIG, F. W. The American Commercial Policy. History of Banking in the United States. Tariff History of the United States. WEBER, A. F. The Growth of Cities in the Nineteenth Century. Columbia Studies in History, Economics, and Public Law, Vol. II. WELLS, D. A. Recent Economic Changes. |