stores have not destroyed competition; that they do control prices and thereby benefit the entire list of purchases, whether made at the great or the small stores, and that all of the people are more prosperous, buy more now than they did in 1870.

AN ECONOMIC CRIME.

One point on which all economists agree is that duplication of works for rendering public service is wrong, because its inevitable result must be increased cost for users, therefore a loss to them, or the wiping out of a part of the capital, therefore a loss to investors. It is in recognition of this fact that the law of Massachusetts requires municipalities desiring to own and operate gas or electric lighting works to acquire the existing plants instead of constructing duplicate works. The same rule is applied in Pennsylvania to waterworks. It should be applied to all public service works in all states.

It is announced that the commissioners of the city of Watervliet, N. Y., have decided to construct an entirely new and independent system of waterworks for the city, including the latest improved system of filtration. It is stated that no part of the plant of the existing company will be bought. This will result in two plants being in operation for the purpose of supplying a service which one plant can supply to better advantage at cheaper rates if both plants charge enough for service to cover the entire cost of opera

tion. If they do not charge sufficient for this purpose then taxpayers on the one hand and investors on the other will be compelled to make up deficits, which simply means they will be required to pay a part of the cost of water served to users. This is an economic crime. It is really taking property without just compensation. In this case, as in all similar cases, the municipality should contract with the private company or buy its works.

PUBLICITY INCOMPATIBLE WITH COMPETITION.

Governor Roosevelt, in a speech before the Marquette Club, Chicago, April, 1900, is reported to have said:

"Under publicity there can be no abuse of power, no extortion and no inflation. Protection is afforded to consumers as well as investors, and the economic and useful combinations reap the reward of public confidence and favor to which they are entitled."

Mr. Lawson Purdy, in an address before the American Association for the Advancement of Science, New York, June, 1900, stated that "publicity of accounting is incompatible with competition." Commenting upon this statement, the New York Journal says, editorially, June 30, 1900:

"Mr. Purdy's argument will not hold water. In the first place, all industrial trusts are engaged in business 'naturally competitive,' but in which competition is unnaturally killed.

"If it were possible for Mr. Purdy to buy up all the flour mills in the United States and refuse to sell bread for less than $100 a loaf, his 'rights' as a business man would not last longer than a feather in Vesuvius. He would be overridden and trampled down by the larger question of human rights. The government would have the right to investigate.

"Restriction and monopoly of production should be sufficient warrant for the government to institute inquiries and conduct examinations for the benefit of the people."

This is rhetoric, but not reason. It betrays much of the "blood to the bridle" style of oratory, but no accurate knowledge of the power that moves industrial forces.

Competition cannot be killed unless it is killed naturally. Water power is not developed by attempts to cause water to run up-hill. Competition is not killed by raising, but by lowering, prices. How long does the Journal suppose it would take Mr. Purdy to acquire control of the production and distribution of bread if he were to proceed on the basis of raising the price every time he bought a flouring mill or a bakery? For every competitor bought out a dozen new ones would enter the business to cut to a reasonable limit the high price he had established. His high prices would have no more stability than figures written in the sand of an ocean beach where every incoming wave would wash them out. Publicity of the price would

be the only thing required to induce this competition. It would not be necessary for the government to institute inquiries and conduct examinations for this.

Competition can be killed only by reducing prices. If Mr. Purdy, through superior skill, the use of more efficient mechanical means, or the command of larger capital, could create advantages not possessed by his competitors, and thus reduce prices to a point that would leave him a profit, but none for his competitors, and did it, he could kill every one of them. If he had the ability to-day to deliver a loaf of bread to every consumer in the United States at a less price than anyone else and did it, he would have an absolute monopoly of the bread-producing business. His "rights" would be defended by every bread eater because to destroy his rights would be to raise the price of bread. No one would want that done. He would be revered as a benefactor of his race, having actually caused two blades of grass to grow where but one grew before, and divided the benefit with the people. There would be no demand "for the government to institute inquiries and conduct examinations for the benefit of the people." Mr. Purdy, not the government, would have the power to and would be benefiting the people.

Competition is war. The most important factor in warfare is the ability to keep the enemy in ignorance of one's strength, equipment and plans. There could be no real war if each opponent were compelled, through a false use of the power of publicity, to dis

close all of these facts. Under such conditions the generals would simply arrange terms of surrender, the weaker to the stronger. There will be no competitors when there are no business secrets. Guided by the information gained by such publicity, all competitors will combine. This will be the death of competition. Competition and publicity are incompatible. DETROIT HELD BY THE THROAT AGAIN.

We should think the city of Detroit would have a very sore throat by this time. According to the representations of some of its newspapers and reform agitators, one corporation after another has had "the city by the throat" for ten or fifteen years. The gas company, the electric lighting companies, the street railroad companies and the telephone company have all had a turn at that throat.

Although this has been going on so long, the people of the city seem never to learn how to protect the city's throat from the grasping corporations. By looking over the files of the local papers a few years back, it will be seen how sure the political leaders of the people were that competition was a true remedy for monopoly. Instead of protecting the investment that had been made in good faith in an electric lighting plant and offering the company an exclusive contract on the basis of cost of service plus a reasonable profit, the wise politicians granted a competing franchise and made a contract for public.