tance in nearly every monopoly of the
present day. In this case, however, unless there is an artificial
monopoly in the shape of government aid or authorization, the strength
of its capital is the only power the monopoly has.

We may reach a clear idea of the essential nature of all the monopolies
considered in this chapter by considering an especial class of
monopolies of communication, namely, mountain passes, bridges, and ship
canals. If a person or a railway corporation could secure sole control
of the only pass through a high mountain range separating two wealthy
and populous districts producing goods of different sorts, they might
exact a princely yearly revenue for its use, equal to the interest on
the capital required to secure an equally favorable passage by
tunnelling, or the annual cost of sending goods over some longer and
more expensive route. But under the law no private person would be
allowed to do this; and if the pass were a very important and necessary
one, probably no one railway company would be allowed to do so. The law
recognizes to some extent, and should recognize much more than it does,
the fact that the benefit of this natural pathway is not the property of
any one man or set of men, but equitably belongs equally to every person
who needs to use it directly or remotely.

A very large and expensive bridge is like an important mountain pass,
differing only in that one is the gift of Nature, while the other is
wholly the work of man. But because the latter is the work of man, it
does not follow that it is not a monopoly. The great bridge across the
Mississippi River at St. Louis is owned by a private company which
levies tolls for the teams and trains passing over it. These are deemed
excessive, as they are sufficient to pay an exorbitant interest on the
cost of the bridge. Yet for many years no one has cared to invest money
in the erection of a new bridge, for they saw that there was no more
traffic than one bridge could readily carry, and they knew that if a new
bridge were erected, in the rivalry in tolls which would ensue, the
old-established company would probably bankrupt its rival. It is thus
plainly seen how an important bridge may become a monopoly, and a most
powerful and onerous one.

We have still one important monopoly of communication to describe, the
telegraph. Viewed from a narrow standpoint it may be thought that there
should be no monopoly in the telegraph. A telegraph line is