HENRY W. PEABODY.

Merchant, Boston.

Combinations bear most heavily upon the individual producer, or the middleman, who before constituted the machinery of business. Large numbers of heretofore active and successful producers, tradesmen and agents are being frozen out of business by the combinations, and opportunities to build up anew with small capital are very hard to find in any department.

I regard very seriously the advancing strides of combinations, especially the joining of already colossal capital with other multimillions, and in one interest producing the raw material, and its manufacturers and also utilizing it in structural work. Such monopolies by the already rich tend to make the very rich richer, and those before well off, poorer, as their opportunities are shattered.

A monopoly which appropriates to itself all the benefits of its economies and capital, and establishes high prices unduly, will make no friends in the community.

So far only as combination can produce, and so can sell more cheaply than an individual manufacturer, it may be able to better compete with other countries for the world's trade, but the competition would be more national, and in accord with trade customs, in the hands of the larger number of producers, bidding against each other.

There is a tendency in foreign as well as domestic trade for combination to dispense with the middlemen, the jobber, the merchant.

Labor organizations can only be regarded as the counterpart of the combinations of capital, when their power is violently applied in strikes to compelling or demanding better wages, when they are a menace to society. At other times they are useful to protect the rights of wage earners who as individuals are not influential. Labor organizations will naturally be opposed to trusts, as employers having increased power, and including the element of large capital. The labor organizations are often useful to all employers, in so far as they establish uniformity of wages and hours of labor.

There is a tendency of the rapid growth of trusts and combinations to create new allies to the organized labor, in the thousands of men of business who are being thrown out of all business by the absorption of their establishment or inability to profitably continue or to apply moderate capital in a new enterprise. The large numbers of these joined classes will constitute a power

ful agency in opposition to the trusts, for the shaping of legislation, or in the exercise of the franchise.

The contention of labor and the unemployed with great wealth and combined production ought not to be a political issue, but there is danger that it will assume that form.

EMERSON MCMILLIN.

Banker, New York.

Emerson McMillin said in part:

Combination will decrease cost of production. It will benefit society in this, that it will tend to do away with spasmodic and extreme advances in prices, followed by long periods of depression and the discontent of the masses incident thereto.

The consumer and the laborer should be the chief beneficiaries. By combination a solidity is given to investments that makes the investor content with smaller net returns.

In many instances the share capital issued is ridiculously large. The excess of engraved sheets of paper can profit no one, and it may be a source of danger to uninformed investors, and in times of depression the collapse of these excessively capitalized companies will tend to create alarm and distrust in the financial system of the country.

Wages ought to be higher, owing to absence of ruinous competition and consequent disposition of employer to reduce expenses. The condition of the wage-earner should be improved. Regular employment at fair wages is what the wage-earner desires, and is essential to his contentment.

I am not clear in my own mind as to result with middlemen. But even if disastrous, that fact should not condemn combinations if the general result is "the greatest good to the greatest number." The change must come slowly, if at all, and middlemen will adjust their affairs to changed conditions. This has always occurred, and will continue to occur so long as civilization progresses.

I do not regard the tendency to combination with any apprehension on the ground that it does or may create monopolies contrary to the general welfare. But to quiet any apprehension in that direction there ought to be national legislation. If the general government can assume control of a bankrupt's affairs and discharge his debts, it can protect him from being driven to bankruptcy by the strong.

Patents are monopolies; much of the prosperity of our country is due to our patent laws. Gas, electric light and street railways are practically monopolies in most cities. The public would profit by making them absolute monopolies as they are in a large measure in England. The strongest argument in favor of "municipal ownership" is the fact that all possible competition is destroyed and duplication of capital prevented.

Combination will benefit this country in competition with other nations for the world's trade. Goods can be produced cheaper and excess unloaded on foreign markets at cost, if necessary, to prevent shutting down works in America.

Ways in which combinations may and will injure the public will doubtless develop during the next few years. None occur to me now.

It will be a serious mistake to recognize "class" in any form. Labor organizations or combinations should be, in the eyes of the law, the same as combinations of capitalists. Labor organizations are right and absolutely essential to the preservation of the rights of labor. This, of course, in general and not applying to particular cases. These unions should have the same lawful protection as is given to incorporated capital. Their efficiency would be greatly augmented if they were managed in about the same

way.

Quite positive legislation must be had by Congress. Utter confusion will result if states are depended on for protective legislation. Again, state legislatures are governed by local prejudices. In one state, at least, it is now lawful for the farmer and the stock raiser to form combinations, but illegal for the merchant, the miner or the manufacturer to do so.

JAMES W. ELLSWORTH.

Merchant, New York.

The combining of producing agencies will decrease cost of production and therefore be beneficial.

The amount of decrease in cost of production should increase as progression is made under the proposed changed conditions, the combining of producing agencies resulting in lessening the cost, the same as labor-saving machinery has accomplished.

Regarding combinations as employers of labor, and what should be the effect on wages or the condition of the wage earner, I think the result should be beneficial. The proposition is similar to the question that was raised when labor-saving machinery was first introduced, and the protest of labor still comes to the

surface as advancement in this direction is made that labor will be crowded out of employment. The opposite has been the result. On account of labor-saving machinery the cost of production has been reduced, thereby multiplying the demand, and in place of lessening the demand for labor, the effect is to increase.

Combination of similar interests will cheapen the cost of the commodity, and, as in all cases where radical change is made, the individual must give way to the principle. Many employees will be thrown out of work, but it will be for the reason that their labor is not required and therefore wasted, or a tax on the public.. New fields will be created, on account of the changed conditions, which will give adequate employment at remunerative wages; believing as I do that on account of the changes that are now working out in this connection, products will be so cheapened that it will open up new markets at home and abroad, resulting in a prosperity to this country that has never been equaled before in the world.

In individual cases monopoly may result, but it will be at the expense of success to the interest so managed, and which will be readily demonstrated, as the greatest gain accruing to both employer and employee comes by cheapening the cost of production, thereby multiplying the output.

I do not regard labor organizations as being in the same category with other forms of combination. Labor, as at present organized, destroys, while capital is creative. When labor organizes with the same idea that actuates capital-for the purpose of obtaining solely better results, discarding all thought of coercion and taking into consideration simply supply and demand, both labor and the product created by capital and labor (when production is oversupplied curtail in every way possible, husbanding the resources, and when changed conditions come, expand), then the laborer will own his own home and peace and happiness will surround his fireside.

Legislative action is desirable for the purpose of preventing extortion and coercion. Rightful combination of interests will cheapen production to that extent that there should be no fear of non-competition, and such laws should be enacted as will protect any individual or combination of individuals from persecution; it being my belief that if the latter protection is given there will be no danger of extortion, except in rare cases where there is an absolute monopoly, and then legislative protection should also be given.

CHARLES J. BONAPARTE.

Attorney, Baltimore, Md.

I regard the tendency of combination as an inevitable feature of modern civilization from which no free and enlightened country can escape, and which has force in proportion to each country's freedom and enlightenment. It does not follow from this that I regard it as a good thing, for I consider it a complete fallacy that all the changes brought about by modern civilization have been for the better; not a few of them are, to my mind, distinctly harmful. I am not, however, prepared to say that this tendency is harmful; it has a good side and a bad side, and there is the less reason to make up our minds as to its merits, because, whatever we may think, we cannot prevent it, except at the price of liberty and civilization. There is an antidote to its excess in the fact that, as a business enterprise may be on too small, so this may be on too large a scale to be profitable; the difficulty and consequent cost of effective supervision become, when a certain stage of growth has been reached, too great for the attendant profits, and, usually, although not, perhaps, always, this point will be reached before a seriously injurious monopoly can be created. As the tendency is in no wise confined or peculiar to this country, but exists in all the more advanced foreign nations, it does not seem to me likely to injuriously affect our comparative commercial standing, although it can hardly benefit this. In this connection it must be remembered that there are already international combinations of capitalists, as well as of laborers, and that the former, at all events, seem likely to greatly increase in number. There are, however, two points at which the formation of combinations affects the public interest injuriously, in my opinion. As a matter of convenience, although not of necessity, it often involves the aid of the legislative power, national, state or municipal, and thus debauches our public men and introduces a deplorable element of venality and corruption into our politics. Moreover, through the natural jealousy with which such "combinations" are regarded by the laborers whose interests they affect, their formation furnishes a theme for declamation and consequent profit to a class of insincere, unscrupulous and generally ignorant demagogues, inflames class prejudices and favors the spread of socialistic and other false and mischievous doctrines.

Labor organizations resemble what are commonly known as trusts (a very inaccurate and misleading name, by the way)