630 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



levy of a just tax will make the people sharers in the advantages 

 of " trust " organizations. Their affairs published, their mana- 

 gers will have a better chance to cultivate a sense of public 

 responsibility than at present, when, without status, their security 

 threatened by attacks of all sorts, they seem intent on making 

 the most of an opportunity which they expect to be brief. Be- 

 cause less in direct legislation than in residual competition lies 

 the curb of extortion, this must be insured by strict enforcement 

 of adequate laws against conspiracy. Were " trusts " legalized, it 

 is said— did publicity attend their transactions — it would be both 

 wise and profitable for them to make the public willing parties to 

 their existence by employing their systematization of business to 

 serve the public better than unorganized competition in the past 

 has ever been able to do. 



To this proffered solution of the " trust " question is opposed 

 the objection that it involves an extension of governmental pow- 

 ers much in advance of existing evidences of governmental effi- 

 ciency. Yet public control or restraint in some form is impera- 

 tive. Whatever truth the self -regulating theory of private enter- 

 prise may have had in the days before combination, vanishes at 

 a time when individual monopoly can levy a national tax in the 

 shape of extortionate profit. However reluctantly we may admit 

 it, more and more does exigency tend to enlarge the scope 'of 

 State authority. Hence greater need than ever that public-spirit- 

 ed effort should purify politics, and endeavor to lift it to states- 

 manship. When the nation has been threatened by foes without 

 or within, her citizens have ever given prompt response to the 

 call for defence. To-day she seeks protection, not from armed 

 invaders, but from economic oppressors. It is war again, but 

 war demanding in its generalship not only courage in an unpict- 

 uresque field, but business sagacity of the highest order. 



Knowledge of geography is important, says General R. Strachey, to the states- 

 man, because upon it depend largely the right determination and definition of 

 boundaries, the lack of which has been the cause of some of the greatest dilFer- 

 ences between states; to the soldier, for the intelligent planning of his campaigns, 

 marches, and minor movements ; to the engineer, who must have exact repre- 

 sentations of the horizontal and vertical features with which he will have to deal, 

 and knowledge of the climate, rainfall, and natural productions of the country ; to 

 the physician, who prescribes "change" to his patients; to the merchant, for the 

 judicious dispatch of his wares ; and to the emigrant, for a wise selection of his 

 new home. Geography furnishes the key to the interpretation of many events of 

 the past, and materials and aids in scientific research. Meteorology is largely in- 

 debted to it for the advance it has recently made. Without the aid which explora- 

 tion has fumisbed, the generalizations of Darwin and Wallace concerning tlie origin 

 and distribution of species and the influence of geographical conditions could not 

 have been obtained. 



