COMPETITION AND THE TRUSTS. 619 



COMPETITION- AND THE TRUSTS. 



By GEOEGE ILES. 



LAST aiitiimn I happened to spend a few days in the heart 

 of the Adirondacks, in a small village some fourteen miles 

 from the nearest railroad-station. During the stage-coach jour- 

 ney I found that two of my fellow-passengers were commercial 

 travelers. It was somewhat surprising to find them invading so 

 remote an outpost of civilization, a hamlet at best, both expensive 

 and troublesome of access. During my stay there, scarcely a day 

 passed that did not bring the shop-keepers a traveling salesman 

 from Albany, Boston, or New York. About a month before my 

 visit, the principal merchant in the one straggling street of the 

 place had been called upon one morning by no fewer than four 

 solicitors of his trade. Could there be any better illustration of 

 modern commercial competition than this penetration of the wil- 

 derness of northern New York by men who brought to the tents 

 and cottages of a minor health-resort the latest fashions in dry- 

 goods and millinery, the most recent products of mill, refinery, 

 and cannery, romances fresh from the press ? And, conjoined 

 with the very palpable benefits of competitive enterprise, were not 

 its wastes and burdens as clearly exemplified ? While that far- 

 away village was much advantaged by the keen rivalry to supply 

 its wants, the efforts to secure its business were certainly not ade- 

 quately repaid. 



Fifty years ago so small a village, instead of several stores, 

 would have had but one or two ; their stocks chiefly bought from 

 local makers of cloth, plows, stoves, and wooden-ware. Near by 

 we would have had a shoemaker's shop, and perhaps, if the place 

 were not too small, a tailor's as well. Twice a year the country 

 store-keeper would go to the nearest large trade-center, New 

 York, St. Louis, or New Orleans, and buy goods enough for the 

 entire business of six months. Railroads and the development of 

 steam manufacturing have changed all this. Small local cloth- 

 weavers, stove-founders, and so on, have disappeared, for produc- 

 tion is no longer profitable unless conducted on a vast scale. A 

 cotton-mill now employs a thousand operatives instead of a hun- 

 dred, while to build, equip, and launch a modern foundry demands 

 the capital of a millionaire. The price of a staple article such as 

 paper is now quoted to hundredths of a cent, and so slender have 

 profit-margins become that in certain gigantic industries they 

 consist solely in what a generation ago were deemed waste prod- 

 ucts. Many Northwestern flour-mills now find their dividend in 

 the bran which used to be thrown away. From cotton-seed, until 



