ous industries
now subject to monopoly, or to crush them out altogether by enacting
some restrictive measure,--legislation which, by its directness, is apt
to strike the average lawmaker very favorably, but which, it needs
little wisdom to see, is the sure forerunner of abuses. The author
trusts that nothing in this book may be construed as advocating or
defending some of the crude and ill-considered attempts at anti-monopoly
legislation already made, or that may be made in the future.

We have proven in the preceding chapters that, from the character of
modern concentrated industry, a very large number of our manufactures
must either exist as monopolies or else must engage in intense and
wasteful competition. If the monopoly can be so managed that it shall
carry on the industry economically, adopt improvements, keep up the
character of its product, and keep the prices therefor so low as to make
no more than ordinary profits, it would be for the public advantage that
monopolies rather than competition should exist. Can we regulate
monopolies to secure such results? If so, our problem will be solved.

The author has proposed for the first class of monopolies--those
obtaining the benefit of natural agents and public franchises--government
ownership of fixed capital and regulation of prices, with private
operation and general management. But he is far from believing that such
a plan would now be wise for regulating trusts. It may indeed be that,
at some time in the future, many of the great staple manufactures will
be formally established by the government as monopolies, and controlled
in a similar way to that which we have outlined for the railway system;
but it is so far in the future that we need not consider it in detail
now. Under our present political organization it would be practically
impossible for the government to undertake to regulate justly and
equitably such an industry, for instance, as the steel-rail manufacture.
We have set our State, national, and municipal governments a hard enough
task in the preceding pages of this chapter, in bringing under public
control our monopolies of transportation and communication and our
productive mines; and although it is a work possible of accomplishment,
it will need good statesmanship to carry it out. By the time that task
is accomplished, a similar plan, improved as experience will then
suggest, may perhaps be found available for the regulation of the
important manufa