532 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



room for the development of a new country pure and simple, unhamp- 

 ered by the traditions and customs of bygone days, except in so far as 

 their wisdom was confirmed in present experience. Hence, on the 

 other side of the Atlantic the practical economic problems as to the 

 development of a large and wide territory are presented in their sim- 

 plest form. It is there that we can note most clearly the lines on which 

 modern industry and commerce develop with the full employment of 

 modern appliances and the minimum of control from traditional habits 

 and institutions. 



There is one economic conception which is deeply ingrained in Eng- 

 lish habits, and which seems to me to have no corresponding hold in 

 America — that of the markets. Its former importance as the center 

 of trade in many towns is sufficiently vouched for by the space that 

 it occupies, and its legal history takes us back to the very beginning 

 of urban life in England. In medieval opinion a sale in open market, 

 where buyers and sellers met together publicly, had all the guarantees 

 of an honest transaction ; it was important both as evidence of the sale 

 and as an indication that the bargain was above board and fair, since 

 there was one price for all alike. Private transactions which did not 

 come into the market — forestalling and such like — were viewed with 

 suspicion ; they were supposed to be methods by which some wily person 

 drove an extortionate bargain or gained at the expense of others. And, 

 in modern times, organized markets, where there are facilities for 

 public information, are common, not only in every locality, but in a 

 great variety of trades. Commercial transactions in the United States 

 seem to have sprung up and developed on rather different lines ; markets 

 are frequented in the country towns of Lower Canada, but there is little 

 sign of them in the cities of the states. It almost seems as if com- 

 mercial practise there were based on the habit of ' having a deal ' 

 privately, and took its character from transactions outside a market 

 rather than from the higgling which occurs where many buyers and 

 sellers meet. There can, at least, be little doubt that the methods of 

 bargaining which are current in the states have been favorable to the 

 building up of great organizations — both the industrial organizations 

 which control all parts of some industrial process, and the trusts which 

 monopolize some line of business. The lack of public markets, either 

 for produce or for goods, at various stages of the process of manu- 

 facture, has apparently rendered it easier to form great monopolies in 

 America than it would have been in Great Britain. Indeed, it may 

 almost be said that the struggle for existence among business rivals 

 takes a different form in the two countries. As Professor Jenks points 

 out, the whole terminology which is habitually employed to analyze 

 the movements of prices in England is inapplicable to the United 

 States. ' The normal price of economists has been based upon cost of 



