o it.

The course pursued by the Bell Telephone Company has at least proved
that our whole patent system demands a thorough and radical revision.
The inventor should certainly be protected, but not to the public hurt.

The second class of monopolies which the government establishes or aids
in establishing because it is deemed to be for the public welfare that
they exist, are, first, those private industries which receive aid from
the government, either directly by subsidies or indirectly by the
taxation of the goods of foreign competitors; and second, those branches
of industry which are carried on by the government itself.

The question concerning the granting of subsidies is principally a past
issue. A century ago many new enterprises in all lines of industry
looked to the government for aid. In those days, when capital was scarce
and when investors hesitated at risk, it was perhaps wise to grant the
help of the public treasury to aid the establishment of young
industries; but nowadays, when millions of capital are ready to seize
every opportunity for profitable investment, it is recognized that
subsidies by the general government are no longer needed. The days of
subsidy granting ended none too soon. The people of the United States
gave away millions of acres of their fertile lands and other millions of
hard-earned dollars to aid in the building of the railroad lines of the
West; and a great part of the wealth thus lavished has been gathered
into the coffers of a few dozen men. The monopolies created by these
subsidies have been largely shorn of their power; but while they reigned
supreme, their profits were gathered with no halting hand.

There is only one direction in which we still hear the granting of
subsidies by the general government strongly advocated; that is in the
direction of establishing steamship lines to foreign ports. It would be
apart from the scope of our subject to discuss the wisdom or folly of
such a proceeding farther than to note the fact that it establishes a
monopoly.

Take, let us say, the case of a steamer line between New York and Buenos
Ayres. It is plain in the first place that the government aid will only
be granted if there is not business enough to induce private parties to
take up the enterprise. But as we suppose that there was not business
enough in the first place to support one steamer line unaided, it is
certain that none will undertake to establish a rival line to compete