The Fur Traders. 9 



as early as 1796, established rival trading posts on the 

 American side of the frontier to secure the trade of the 

 Indians within its own territory. The experiment was not 

 successful. Then, as has proved to be the case so many times 

 since, "the keen activity of private enterprise was more 

 than a match for lethargic government patronage." The 

 Government could not resort to the methods pursued by its 

 competitors. Its representatives could not meet misrepresen- 

 tation with misrepresentation, or secure the favor of the 

 Indians by supplying them with liquor; the importance 

 'of this last fact will be realized by those who know how 

 violent is the attachment of the Indian for liquor, and that 

 / he who gave the most of it was almost sure to obtain the 

 furs. The Government was also bound to patronize only 

 home industries, and this made it impossible for its agents 

 always to give the natives the best article of its kind in 

 exchange for their peltries; a fact upon which the private 

 trader always enlarged to his advantage. Then, too, the 

 Government was not permitted to extend credit to the In- 

 dians, while the private trader advanced the incompetent 

 natives outfits on credit, and made sure of his payment by 

 accompanying them on their hunting expeditions. 



The "factory system" of 1796, was right in theory; but, 

 it failed in practice, because, as Captain Hiram Martin Chit- 

 tenden says, in The American Fur Trade of the Far 

 West, "the Government lacked the courage of its con- 

 victions. It should have taken the field to itself, just as it 

 does in the carrying of mails, coining of money, and the 

 making of war. Instead of doing this it granted trading 

 licenses to private parties, and thus degraded itself to the 

 level of a competing trader among a herd of irresponsible 

 and frequently lawless rivals." 



We may rail against "monopoly," protest against the 

 "centralization of power" and talk wildly of the "rights of 

 the individual," but the exercise of judicious authority in 

 restraint of trade is often a benefit to the consumer as 

 well as the producer — the buyer as well as the seller. When 

 liberty degenerates into license it always becomes the worst 

 kind of slavery. It certainly would have been better 

 for the Indian to have taken his furs to the "factories" 

 where he could get his goods at prices that would 



