roducers; and if
necessity requires, the two can deal directly with each other and leave
him out altogether. But in dealing with the question of monopolies we
must not conclude that the absolute control of supply is at all
necessary to the existence of a monopoly. While there are monopolies, as
we have seen, which have the keys to some of the necessities of
civilized life, there are others which control merely some _easier
means_ for their production, carriage, or distribution; and to this
latter class belong the principal monopolies in trade. To be sure that
this constitutes a monopoly, we have but to turn to the case of the
mountain pass mentioned in a former chapter. The use of that particular
pass for transporting goods is only an _easier means_ of transportation
than the detour to some other pass or by some other route; and the
degree of power of the monopoly depends directly on the amount which is
saved by the use of its facilities. So with the monopolies in trade.
Brokers and jobbers and retail merchants form a channel through which
trade is accustomed to pass, and through which it can pass more readily
than by any new one.

It is to be noted that under modern conditions the power of middle-men
has been greatly reduced from what it was formerly. As we have already
seen, manufacturing was then carried on only in families and small
workshops, and the mines which were worked were principally in the hands
of the king. The merchants were the wealthy men of olden time. They
controlled largely the transportation facilities of that day; and while,
as we have already noted, the commerce which then existed was but a
trifle compared with the present, the principal exchange being in local
communities, yet the trade in all articles which were imported, and all
domestic commerce between points any great distance apart was in the
hands of the merchants.

It is natural, therefore, that we find monopolies in trade to have been
among the first which existed and to have been of importance and power
when manufacturers' trusts were not dreamed of. The guilds which
flourished near the close of the Middle Ages, while not devoted to the
establishment of a monopoly, did nevertheless aim, in some cases at
least, to hinder competition from those outside their guild.

But turning to the present, let us examine the conditions under which
competition in trade is checked to-day. Let us take, first, the case of
retail trade in any of the tho