INTERNATIONAL CONSOLIDATION 221 



international agreements of their producers. As international 

 surplus of each agricultural product, composed of separate 

 national surpluses of the same,' exported by different pro- 

 ducing countries, in its grand total is a paramount, if not only, 

 factor in establishing prices for the product, these international 

 agreements of agricultural producers of the world shall have 

 relation just to prices and outputs of export agricultural 

 products. They will be sufficient to bring the agricultural 

 industry of all the civilized world out of the present state of 

 self-destructive competition and economic anarchy to the 

 harmony of socialized and intelligently organized cooperative 

 production and distribution, securing to the farmers of all 

 civilized countries a fair and profitable price for their pro- 

 ducts. If these international agreements of agricultural pro- 

 ducers would be international agricultural trusts, then let us 

 have international agricultural trusts. It must be pointed out 

 right here that the evolution from anarchy of competition 

 to trust stage in any industry represents a social and economic 

 advance of tremendous importance and far-reaching results. 

 It is an universal and immutable biological law, running 

 through all forms of life, economic realm not excepted, that 

 that form of it becomes the fittest for existence and destined 

 to survive, which first succeeds in eliminating waste. Ac- 

 cordingly, in the economic field, as soon as a certain form of 

 waste has been abolished and a new method of accomplish- 

 ing the same result with less energy substituted, the old 

 wasteful method is thereby abolished and never can be re- 

 vived. The most remarkable growth of trusts in the United 

 States since the panic of 1894- 1895 is but a decisive step in 

 the direction of elimination of waste and improvement of pro- 

 duction. In the modern state of industrial anarchy, known 

 under the name of "free competition," plants, machinery and 

 processes are quadrupled, and production is entirely unregu- 

 lated so that natural resources, mechanical power and human 

 facilities are destroyed in the most reckless manner, in efforts 

 of different firms to undersell each other and drive all the 

 competitors out of existence. The trust brings order into 

 this industrial and economic chaos, and in this respect it is 

 undoubtedly and undeniably a factor of great economic and 



