ctuations of demand at a reduced price. No one doubts that even the
Standard Oil Company, by means of its savings through consolidation, has
at the same time preserved the general supply of oil from waste and
brought it to every man's door, with a great improvement in quality,
comparative safety in use, and an almost constantly diminishing price.

The record of facts shows that with all the tendency to great
aggregations, and so to concentration of power, masses of wage-earners
have had their hours of labor shortened, have gained facilities for
culture in libraries, lectures and voluntary associations, have gained
habits more systematic, and regular methods of life with greater constancy
of employment, have better protection of civil rights, better provision
for education of children, a larger insurance against accident, and a
better provision for hospital care when disabled. The same system has
provided methods for economical use of savings in joint stock companies,
and cultivated a general unity of purpose and appreciation of others'
welfare. Withal it has given to the mothers of families an immense
increase of leisure for home-making, and at the same time has opened
ranges of employment for women without homes. Even the rate of wages has
not been diminished, but rather increased, as is shown also by actual
records. That the great establishments cannot pay less than average rates
is evident from the multitudes seeking to enter their employment.
Moreover, they must pay their workmen regularly or appear bankrupt.
Employers on a small scale can easily postpone upon all sorts of
pretences, and failures are frequent. Suppose the distribution of milk in
New York city were under a single management. A systematic division of
territory would at once reduce the number of milk wagons by at least
one-half. The certainty of responsibility would insure uniform purity, and
means of transportation could be brought to perfection, so that the amount
now delivered would actually cost perhaps not more than two-thirds the
present price. While at present prices the profit would be large, the
necessity for investing those profits would at once call for extension of
the trade by reducing the price, and at the same time increasing the
proceeds to farmers somewhere who furnish the larger supply. The better
quality and larger quantity for the same money would certainly increase
the demand, and probably with direct benefit to the milk-raisers. The