A EUROPEAN VIEW OF TRUSTS.

BY PRINCE ORAZIO DI CASSANO-ZUNICA.

WE, on this side of the Atlantic, witness with great curiosity and a certain amazement the bitter campaign which is going on against Trusts, and the steps that both legislative and judicial powers are taking in order to check the industrial combinations in the United States. Of course, we may be wrong in supposing that there is some exaggeration in the criticisms against this modern form of undertaking, and that other remedies might be more efficacious and more widely beneficent for people at large than the winding up of many active concerns, which can always be reconstructed on new lines or can open up business operations in other countries.

Monopolies have always existed; since and even before the time when Henry of Valois delivered letters patent to a Florentine gentleman, giving him the sole right to make lace in France, down to the actual era of bund, kartel, or syndicat, the effects of privileged industries have been universally felt.

Railway, tramway, gas and water companies supply the needs of the majority of states and towns in Europe, as well as in America, and in the former are absolutely free from competition. When states or municipal corporations carry on such works they do it with little advantage to the public and with great burden to the ratepayers.

Large stores, great manufactories, news agencies, and numberless amalgamated industries flourish under the protection of socalled liberal constitutions, while the clamor against the high cost of living, which has reached a climax in France and Austria, and which would be equally justified in England, Germany, Italy, and elsewhere, shows that the pressure of prices upon the people is an evil with which all nations are nowadays confronted.

In America the methods adopted by the founders of industrial combines have proved probably more violent and have left a great deal of ill feeling and a desire for revenge, of which there exists no counterpart in Europe. The extravagances of certain multi-millionaires have attracted much more notice than the less sensational ways of employing money in the Old World.

At any rate, whatever influence Trusts may exert on the general welfare of the American people, whatever action should be taken by legislatures and courts on the matter, I venture to express an opinion from a psychological rather more than from an economic or legal standpoint, and to call the attention of students of present-day conditions to an aspect of the question which, so far as I know, has not as yet been examined.

In Europe money is regarded from the old-fashioned viewpoint of its buying power, for the securing of necessaries or luxuries. We have, therefore, no other ambition in becoming rich than to satisfy our needs, reducing these as much as we can, and to avoid the trouble and risk of speculation. In America, on the contrary, nobody seems content with the actual wealth possessed, but strives for more acquisition, money being viewed as an instrument of conquest much more than one of exchange.

For Europeans to realize what motives impel an American struggling to accumulate a fortune, one must go back to mediæval times when knights and lords fought for the conquest of territory and for supremacy over their neighbors and countrymen.

Having disputed virgin forests with wild beasts, and pampas with the Indian, subjugated nature, attracted, first from Africa and then from Europe, colored and white labor, drained the soil and disemboweled the earth-always struggling and conquering all-how would it be possible for the sons of such conquerors of old to accept the monotonous and sleepy life of the European bourgeoisie? How difficult it would be after the adventures of the ranch, the emotions of the trapper, the pride of the pioneer, to be satisfied with the ownership of a house on Fifth avenue or a villa at Newport; with no other excitement than Caruso's singing or Sarah Bernhardt's stage death, or a trip to Europe to collect antiques or works of art!

The struggle, therefore, has been pursued; factories and industries have sprung up and developed on such a big scale that even now old-time Europe fails to realize it. How, indeed, could it grasp the immensity of packing houses, the length of

petroleum pipe-lines, the height of skyscrapers, and the numberless array of conveyances? Has not even Niagara Falls been applied as a lever? And is it not a short time ago only that the idea of building a railway for transoceanic liners was abandoned? It is quite natural that, in the hands of people with such viewpoints, commerce and industry should also have assumed giant proportions, and that German kartellen, English amalgamations and French syndicats should have developed into the American Trusts, whose aim is "concentration" rather than "combination."

Besides commercial gain it is probable that another reason for such organizations may be found in the satisfaction of personal vanity. In a country where titles and distinctions are not allowed, except for women who marry foreigners, the prospect of being called a "king" may well become the dream of many a business This should explain the folly of certain attempts that have been made to monopolize goods which are not susceptible of being "cornered," and to amalgamate industries which are subject to competition. And compared with successful Trusts, how many hundred failures can be registered?

man.

Taken on the whole, however, Trusts are not so harmful as their antagonists contend, and can indeed be of great use when properly organized and administered. The benefit of a great concern with an efficient staff, abundance of capital, opportunity to acquire experience, and facility to get information on the fluctuations both of buying and selling markets may result in such profits as to render any pressure on labor or consumers quite unnecessary. But if any wrong was to be feared for the general interest or freedom, there is a remedy which will prove a success in at least eight cases out of ten, namely, the reduction or abolition of import duties on any particular article artificially inflated in value. By this means no undue rise in prices could be maintained, and workmen who are now protectionists under the delusion that any fall of tariff would close the factories, would be the best controllers of prices for fear of loss of employment.

Any bona fide executive having and using such power would restrain the abuses of Trusts much better and more quickly than by legislative enactments or court actions.

As a matter of fact, although the anti-Trust policy has become the leit motif of all Democratic candidates for the past

fifteen years, and although Republican Presidents have promised to oppose such organizations, very little has been obtained against them, and in some cases, as that of the Standard Oil Company or of the Steel Trust, the law has consolidated their power even more than in the past.

After all, humanity has reached a point at which it is not likely to retrograde, and Trusts, with all their supposed or real sins, have pushed forward industry and introduced therein to the highest degree the scientific element. Trusts should undoubtedly be controlled, either by the Executive or, which would prove better, by the newly-formed "buyer leagues," thus opposing to each other the ancient terms of offer and demand, not in the anarchist way of olden times, but under more conscientious and reciprocal conditions.

lassaug

Editorial

USEFULNESS OF CORPORATIONS.
(New York Commercial.)

IN the indiscriminate abuse of large corporations which has been going on for several years the average citizen, as a potential small investor, is apt to lose sight of the fact that it is only through the formation of joint stock companies that he can participate in industrial investments. In order to compete successfully in the markets, a new manufacturing plant has to be built and equipped on such a scale that only a multi-millionaire or a thousand small investors can handle the project. In every way the introduction of joint stock corporations into the field of modern business has helped the man of limited means and the man who works with his hands.

Much of the development of the industries of this country would never have been even attempted had it not been possible for a number of men to combine together to share the risks of a venture in a new field. This is specially true of the development of mines and oil fields. Money has been lost in many cases, but the vast gain to the community at large from the opening up of new fields of industry by coöperative effort can hardly be overestimated.

Whether for better or for worse, the days when great industries could be developed by individual effort have passed. Take the telephone, for instance. That great invention would have been deprived of nearly all its usefulness had Bell been unable to secure the help of an army of small investors. Some of the small investors who backed the enterprise in its early stages with their modest contributions became wealthy, and deservedly so. No single capitalist would take the financial risk, and this gave the little man a chance. The same is true of the linotype and many other important inventions of recent years. This is also better for the inventor. Some of those who made the greatest