Principles of western civilisation

TOWARDS THE FUTURE 421

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other; so that monopoly, in the result, has become “natural, normal, and obligatory, and nothing is efficient against it.” * The many drastic legislative measures that have been directed against trusts in the United States are considered to have all failed of their purpose. But in this result, as Mr. J. D. Forrest in a recent examination of the subject* points out, the noteworthy fact which confronts the observer is that

1 The conditions under which the development took place in the United States of America are thus described :—‘‘ Monopoly constituted in opposition to the will of cities or states is a purely American phenomenon. The administration of continental Europe offers no examples of it. It results from the peculiar conception which obtained in the United States in the first half of this century concerning the functions of the State, of local government, and of city administration. These functions were reduced to a minimum. Material conditions then permitted it; agriculture was the ruling occupation, and there were few great fortunes. Besides, Anglo-Saxon spirit tended to organise strongly private life, and to defend it from all intervention of public powers, rather than to assure the development of these latter. But the habit of treating public affairs as if they were private produced a veritable confusion. Concessions were granted to companies in every case where they could be made. But in place of imposing guarantees upon these companies in ceding to them all or part of their monopoly, the public authorities exercised their ingenuity to put them in competition with one another, thinking that competition would assure cheapness here as in ordinary affairs. Since the public put all its hope in the efficiency of competition, it was very disagreeably surprised to see that here competition did not long persist. The situation was all the more serious because the public found itself disarmed. Monopoly was organised against it and without compensation. The means which people had imagined would prevent it proved an illusion. The companies, often provided with perpetual charters, shut themselves up in their rights. The only resource which remained was to attack them in the name of the common law, or by means of laws against trusts, which declared null all combinations which aimed at monopoly. Neither of these means, however, has been very efficacious. While in private industry a conjunction of exceptional circumstances is necessary to create monopoly, in the organisation of public services it is the nature of the business which creates the monopoly. Instead of being exceptional, as in ordinary affairs, monopoly is here natural, normal, obligatory, and nothing is efficent against it. The abandonment of a public service without sufficient guarantee is here what has produced the abuse” (Paul de Rousiers, ‘‘ Les services publics et la question des monopoles aux Etats-Unis,’ Revue politique et parlementatre, October 1898; American Journal of Soctology, vol. iv. 5).

2 Am. Jour. Soctology, vol. v. 2, ‘‘ Vhe Control of Trusts.”