y be carried out,--the world must pay
for its copper whatever these monopolists demand.

Probably the argument against the private ownership and control of the
wealth which nature has stored up for the whole world's use was never
brought home to men's minds so forcibly as it has been by the acts of
these French speculators. Copper is a necessity to the industries of
civilized society; and the mind of every unprejudiced person protests
against the injustice of placing in the hands of any single firm or
combination the power to exact such prices as they choose for the great
staples of human consumption. This increase of price of about 7 cents
per pound is a tax which affects, directly or indirectly, every person
in the civilized world. Let us inquire what becomes of this tax. Perhaps
2 cents per pound will go into the pockets of the Frenchmen who have
engineered the combination, a sum which will give them, if we set the
annual consumption of copper at 400,000,000 pounds, a comfortable net
income of about $8,000,000 per annum. The lion's share of the profits is
taken by the producers, however; who, if 10 cents is the price at which
copper would sell if free competition were in force, are receiving under
the present contract with the _Societe_ about 5 cents per pound as a
reward for their co-operation in its monopolistic scheme.[2]

[2] Since the above was written the collapse of the copper
syndicate has taken place. The causes which brought this about were
the failure to complete the contracts for restriction of
production, and lack of funds to meet the current liabilities. The
reason for both these must be largely ascribed to the fact that it
had come to be generally realized how great and how obnoxious the
monopoly was; and capitalists rightly feared that government
interference would be interposed to check the monopoly's
operations. If the syndicate had made its long-time contracts at
the start, or if it had been bold and shrewd enough to have
inveigled speculators on the bear side of the market into operating
against it, M. Secretan and his associates might have won as many
millions as they could have wished. It is a significant fact that
the downfall of the syndicate was not followed by the
reestablishment of free competition. Instead there was at once talk
of another syndicate being formed to hold the copper stored up by
the _Societ