men with better material conditions.

The tendency of modern business industry to agglutinate into large units
is, as has been said, inevitable; but, what is better worth noting, like
all natural developments from healthy conditions, it is a thing
inherently beneficent. That the larger power is capable of greater abuse
than the smaller is also evident; and against that abuse it is that the
American people is now struggling to safeguard itself. But to assail all
trading on a scale which produces great wealth as "dishonest" is both
impertinent (it is Mr. Wells's own word, applied to himself) and absurd.

The aggregate effect of the great consolidations in America and in
England alike (of the "trusts" in fact) has so far been to cheapen
immensely the price of most of the staples of life to the people; and
that will always be the tendency of all consolidations which stop at any
point short of monopoly. And that an artificial monopoly (not based on
a natural monopoly) can ever be made effective in any staple for more
than the briefest space of time has yet to be demonstrated.

The other consideration, of the destruction of the independence of the
individual, remains; but that lies outside Mr. Wells' range.

FOOTNOTES:

[378:1] Preface to the _Encyclopaedia of Trade between the United States
and France_, prepared by the Societe du Repertoire General du Commerce.

[384:1] I do not know whether the story is true or not that Signor
Caruso was compelled, in default of other means of identification in a
New York bank, to lift up his voice and sing to the satisfaction of the
bank officials. As has been remarked, this is not the first time that
gold has been given in exchange for notes.

CHAPTER XV

THE PEOPLES AT PLAY

American Sport Twenty-five Years Ago--The Power of Golf--A
Look Ahead--Britain, Mother of Sports--Buffalo in New York--And
Pheasants on Clapham Common--Shooting Foxes and the "Sport" of
Wild-fowling--The Amateur in American Sport--At Henley--And at
Large--Teutonic Poppycock.

In "An Error in the Fourth Dimension," Kipling tells how one Wilton
Sargent, an American, came to live in England and earnestly laboured to
make himself more English than the English. He learned diligently to do
many things most un-American:--"Last mystery of all he learned to
golf--well; and when an American knows the innermost meaning of '_Don't
press, slow back and keep your eye on the ball_,' he