led their rates for storage. In the
testimony of one of the members of this trust, before the New York
Legislative Committee, he said: "We want to destroy competition all we
can. It is a bad thing." The owners of grain elevators at Buffalo, N.
Y., have long combined to exact higher prices for the transfer of grain
than would have prevailed were free competition the rule. At the session
of 1887 the New York Legislature took the bull by the horns and enacted
a law fixing a maximum rate for elevator charges; a statute which was
based on the popular demand for its enactment, but is hard to accord
with the principles of a free government.

There are a number of lines of business auxiliary to trade in which
competition is more or less restricted by the fact that the amount of
capital controlled and the prestige of the established firms renders it
a difficult and risky matter to start a new and competing firm. The
insurer of property or life, if he be wise, will demand financial
stability as a first requisite for the company in which he takes a
policy. The companies engaged in the business of fire insurance have
long been trying to agree on some uniform standard of rates and the
avoidance of all competition with each other. These combinations,
however, are apt to be broken, as soon as formed, by the weaker
companies, whose financial condition operates to prevent them from
getting their share of the business under uniform rates. Even when this
rate-cutting is stopped, there is still competition to be met from the
various small mutual companies, who are necessarily outside the
combination.

Banks are a necessity to the carrying on of modern commerce, and they
have great power over the financial affairs of the business men of the
community which they serve. As a general rule, however, they are
largely owned by the merchants and others who patronize them, and the
instances of this power being abused are, therefore, not common. It is
to be remembered, in discussing this, as in other monopolies, that the
power of a monopoly depends entirely upon its degree. A bank, trust
company, or real-estate guaranty company which has a great capital, an
established reputation for safety and conservatism, sole control of many
special facilities, and conveniences for obtaining and dispatching
business, has a real monopoly, whose degree varies with the tendency
people have to patronize it instead of some weaker competitor, if one
exists. There is