l
thing in the world that a man who has all his life been used to making
enormous profits in his business should come to think that he had an
inalienable right to make them; and that when competition became so
sharp that he had to lower his prices, it was due to an unnatural
condition of affairs glibly designated as "over-production," for which
the trust was an appropriate and wise remedy.

It is thus plain how, in a secondary way, the tariff is a cause of the
trusts. The fat profits which the former gave have made men covetous
enough to engage in the latter.

We are, perhaps, not yet prepared to discuss the question of the proper
remedies for trusts; but it is too obvious to call for comment that an
easy and most effective remedy is to cut away the protection from
foreign competition, under which they flourish, and let them sink or
swim as they best can. At the least it will be wise to reduce their
protection to a point where any attempt to tax the nation of consumers
and reap exorbitant profits by putting up prices so that profits of
twenty-five per cent. or more can be reaped, will be counteracted by
foreign competition.

It is only fair to point out at the same time that this remedy is far
from being a panacea against all trusts and monopolies. The monopolies
in the peculiar products of this country will be unaffected by it, and
the combinations which embrace the whole globe in their plan of
operations are quite beyond its power. The copper syndicate and the salt
trust, and according to Mr. Carnegie a steel rail trust, are the only
actual examples of international combinations which have ever been
attempted, and it will probably be many years yet before the constant
movement towards Tennyson's "Federation of the World" permits the
general formation of effective industrial combinations which shall
embrace all commercial nations.

We have finally to consider the monopolies carried on directly by the
government. The carriage of the mails is the most important monopoly
carried on by the government, and we may find some facts of interest by
enquiring the reasons why it is for the public welfare that it should be
so conducted rather than by private enterprise. In the first place, if
it were left to private enterprise to furnish us with postal facilities,
the postal service would be much more limited than now; many places of
small importance being left without postal facilities or charged a much
higher rate for servic