rich and poor, but more especially the latter. Though in a state of society some must have greater comforts and luxuries than others, yet all should have the necessaries of life; and if the poor cannot exist, in vain may the rich look for happiness and prosperity.

*

*

"The law has not been disputed; for though in an evil hour all the statutes which had been existing above a century were at one blow repealed, yet, thank God, the provisions of the common law were not destroyed.

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"Even amongst the laws of the Saxons are to be found many wise provisions against forestalling and offenses of this kind, and those laws laid the foundation of our common law. That it remains an offense nobody has controverted. * Speculation has said that the fear of such an offense is ridiculous, and a very learned man, a good writer, has said you might as well fear witchcraft. I wish Dr. Adam Smith had lived to hear the evidence of to-day, and then he would have seen whether such an offense exists, and whether it is to be dreaded. If he had been told that cattle and corn were brought to market, and then bought by a man whose purse happened to be longer than his neighbor's, so that the poor man who walks the streets and earns his daily bread by his daily labor could get none but through his hands, and at the price he chose to demand; that it had been raised three pence, six pence, nine pence and more per quarter, on the same day, would he have said there was no danger from such an offense?"

Just think of it. This crime was nothing more than what is now the occupation of every jobber, broker, and wholesaler. He bought 250 bushels of oats, which he afterwards sold at a profit of 6 cents a bushel. This charge was given after the passage of the Act of 12 Geo. III., c. 71, repealing the laws against regrating, ingrossing, forestalling, etc., but Lord Kenyon decided that these acts were common law offenses, and the courts generally of that date, urged thereto by the clamor of the masses, still continued to entertain charges of this character. Men who were engaged in buying grain to sell again, who bought in market to sell again, who bought goods on their way to market to sell again, were prosecuted, and sometimes convicted and punished. It was the same cry, the demand for free competition, the protection of the weak against the strong, the prevention of monopoly, that we now hear. At last Parliament, by 7 & 8 Vict. cap. 29, in response to the demand of a more enlightened public sentiment, struck down at one blow about forty of these so-called regulations, after

reciting that they had proved an injury to trade, and especially to those for whose protection they were designed, thus:

"Whereas, divers statutes have been from time to time made in the Parliaments of England, Scotland, Great Britain and Ireland, respectively, prohibiting certain dealings in wares, victuals, merchandise and various commodities, by the names of badgering, forestalling, regrating and ingrossing, and subjecting to divers punishments, penalties and forfeitures persons so dealing: And whereas, it is expedient that such statutes, as well as certain other statutes made in hindrance and in restraint of trade, be repealed: And whereas, an act of the Parliament of Great Britain was passed in the twelfth year of the reign of King George the Third, entitled an Act for repealing several laws therein mentioned against badgers, ingrossers, forestallers and regrators, and for indemnifying persons against prosecutions for offenses committed against the said acts, whereby, after reciting that it had been found by experience that the restraint laid by several statutes upon the dealing in corn, meal, flour, cattle, and sundry other sorts of victuals, by preventing a free trade in the said commodities, have a tendency to discourage the growth and to enhance the price of the same, which statutes, if put in execution, would bring great distress upon the inhabitants of many parts of this kingdom, and in particular upon those of the cities of London and Westminster," * * *

After this preamble follows the most sweeping repeal of some forty or more statutes and the formal declaration that badgering, ingrossing, forestalling, and regrating were not offenses, and no prosecutions could be had therefor.

This is what Buckle (Vol. I., p. 277) says of the laws repealed by the above statute, and of like amendments:

"Every European Government which has legislated respecting trade has acted as if its main object were to suppress the trade and ruin the traders. Instead of leaving the national industry to take its own course, it has been troubled by an interminable series of regulations, all intended for its good, and all inflicting serious harm. To such a height has this been carried that the commercial reforms which have distinguished England during the last twenty years have solely consisted in undoing this mischievous and intrusive legislation. It is no exaggeration to say that the history of the commercial legislation of Europe presents every possible contrivance for hampering the energies of commerce. In every quarter and at every moment the hand of Government was felt. Bounties to raise up a losing trade and taxes to pull down a remunerative one, this branch of industry forbidden and that

branch of industry encouraged. Laws to regulate wages, laws to regulate prices, laws to regulate profits, interference with markets, interference with manufactories, interference with machinery, interference even with shops."

There were those, and they were in the majority, who looked to these regulations as their only protection, and who thought that society would be overwhelmed if they were removed. As has been shown, learned judges shared these views; yet experience demonstrated that the progress of trade and the good of society were hampered, not helped, by these attempts at regulation. These laws and decisions were made at the time when trade was primitive, when there was no middleman, when the producer sold to the consumer direct. They were intended to prevent the entree of the jobber, the wholesaler and the broker upon the stage of commerce, for whose entree the evolution of trade had given the cue. They were futile. They could not prevent that trade progression which the march of civilization demanded. They could not understand that nature's law of competition would assert its supremacy in the more complex conditions of trade that accompanied the advent of the middleman. This confounding of the prevalent form of competition with the principle itself has been and is at the root of all the reactionary attempts to restrict trade by law from that day to this.

It may with propriety be assumed that at some future date the student of events will clearly see that the attempts of to-day at the restriction of industrial combinations, which are also steps in the evolution of trade, were as unnecessary and as ridiculous as appear to us those laws against regrating, forestalling, and ingrossing, those laws which sought to punish the middleman as a criminal. Macaulay was truly prophetic when, writing of the opposition once made to the introduction of fast stage coaches in England, he said: "We smile at these things. It is not impossible that our descendants when they read the opposition offered by cupidity and prejudice to the improvements of the nineteenth century, may smile in their turn." We have already had our laugh, we are now furnishing means for the amusement of our own descendants.

If consolidation of industrial plants prevented competition and created monopolies, all thinking men would condemn them; but if, as some believe, they only prevent that competition which is injurious and stimulate that competition which is beneficial to the public, then instead of curses they are blessings.

It is never justifiable to appeal to deep-seated prejudices by simply using terms and phrases when the circumstances do not

warrant the application of such terms. Monopoly is offensive to every liberty-loving people. Even the word arouses antagonism from every fiber of a freeman's nature. Why is this so? Monopoly is a relic of tyranny, and was one of the most odious exercises of tyranny. Monopoly was thus defined by Lord Coke:

"An institution or allowance by the King, by his grant, commission or otherwise, to person or persons, bodies political or corporate, of or for the sole buying, selling, making, working or using of anything whereby any person or persons, bodies politic or corporate, are sought to be restrained of any freedom of liberty they had before, or hindered in their lawful trade" (7 Bacon's Abridgement, 22).

The Supreme Court of the United States defines monopoly with reference to present conditions thus:

"The withdrawing of that which is a common right from the community and vesting it in one or more individuals, to the exclusion of all others" (Charles River Bridge Case, 11 Peters, 567).

These definitions and the history of monopolies in England show how the antipathy to monopoly became so deep-seated in the Anglo-Saxon mind; and how and why the mere application of the term creates an aversion to whatsoever it is applied.

Prior to 1601, when they were successfully assailed in the courts, and to 1624, when Parliament declared them void, there were grants of monopoly by letters patent from the Crown, whereby, for favoritism or valuable consideration, certain persons were granted the exclusive right to buy and sell specified articles of trade, or the exclusive right to perform certain classes of labor. As may be inferred, the power to confer these valuable rights was greatly abused, and those who received such grants were not slow to misuse their privilege by extortionate demands. Sir John Culpepper thus refers to the English monopolies: "Like the frogs of Egypt they have gotten possession of our dwellings, and we have scarce a room free from them. They sup in our cup; they dip in our dish; they sit by our fires. We find them in the dye fat, wash bowl and powdering tub. They share with the butler in his box; they will not bait us a pin. We may not buy our clothes without their brokerage. These are the leeches that have sucked the Commonwealth so hard that it is almost hectical."

Monopolies cannot be created by association or agreement. We now have no letters patent giving exclusive right except under our patent laws for new inventions and discoveries. The letters patent of old creating monopolies were of the same character as

those now granted to the discoverer of some new and useful invention. It is therefore wholly unjustifiable to use the term monopoly as applied to the effects of industrial consolidation.

"Competition is the life of trade," is a saw of the counting house which, like many others, contains a minimum of truth with a maximum of error. It would be more truthful to say "Competition, as generally practiced, if the life of trade, is the death of the trader." True competition does not mean the cut-throat methods of overreaching that once prevailed, where rival tradesmen were mortal enemies; nor does it mean that the better equipped and better managed establishment, with its increasing trade and business, must sleep by the roadside of commerce until the slow-going and non-progressive competitor catches up. Competition may be constructive or destructive. The true and only kind of competition that is desirable is the constructive, which wins by decreasing cost or improving product.

It was of the destructive kind of competition that the court spoke in Kellogg vs. Larkin, 3 Pinney, 150:

"If it be true, also, that competition is the life of trade, it may follow such premises that he who relaxes competition commits an act injurious to trade; and not only so, but he commits an overt act of treason against the commonwealth. But I apprehend that it is not true that competition is the life of trade. On the contrary, that maxim is one of the least reliable of the host we may pick up in every market place. It is in fact the shibboleth of mere gambling speculation, and is hardly entitled to take rank as an axiom in the jurisprudence of this country. I believe universal observation will attest that in the last quarter of a century competition in trade has caused more individual distress than the want of competition.

"Indeed, by reducing prices below or raising them above value (as the nature of the trade permitted) competition had done more to monopolize trade, or to secure exclusive advantages in it, than has been done by contract. Rivalry in trade will destroy itself, and rival tradesmen seek to remove each other, rarely resorting to contract unless they find it the cheapest mode of putting an end to the strife."

In the case of Mogul Steamship Co. vs. McGreggor (57 L. R. Ex. Cases, 541), Lord Coleridge, upon August 11, 1888, delivering an opinion, said: "It must be remembered that all trade is, and must be, in a sense, selfish. Trade not being infinite, nay, the trade of a particular place or district being possibly very limited, what one man gains another man loses. In the hand-tohand war of commerce, as in the conflicts of public life, whether