484 
Annual Report of the 
rate, which piece of roguery laborers and workmen are sometimes 
guilty of.” 
It is apparent from these authorities—and more might be quoted 
to the same effect—that monopolies have existed in almost every 
possible form, from a very early day, among organized people 
everywhere, and everywhere the very name has been odious. In 
England monopolies were the gift of the Crown as well as Parlia¬ 
ment, and it was here, perhaps, more than in any other country 
with whose history we are familiar, that monopoly privileges were 
most extensively granted. Here monopolies were granted to pri¬ 
vate persons and to corporations who enjoyed the exclusive right of 
trade in particular articles, and the exclusive right of the whole 
commerce of particular countries, until at one time nearly the 
whole trade of that commonwealth, both foreign and domestic, was 
exclusively enjoyed by private and public monopolies. 
As early as the accession of James the First to the throne of 
England (1602,) the evil of monopolies was so great that it become 
the subject of Parliamentary investigation, and of very decided 
public condemnation. On this subject Lord Bacon said, in his ad¬ 
vice to George Yilliers, afterwards Duke of Buckingham, and Prime 
Minister to King James, “But especially, care must be taken that 
monopolies, which are the cankers of all trading, be not admitted 
under specious colors of public good.” This advice, and this warn¬ 
ing, however, from the greatest of mankind, did not rescue or pro¬ 
tect England from the evil of monopolies; indeed, so great was 
their power and influence that it scarcely checked their onward 
progress. The evil continued to increase, and so strong was the 
monopoly spirit there, long afterwards, that it became one of the 
most potent causes of separation between that country and this. 
It was insisted, you will remember, by English statesmen, and by 
the government, that the American colonies could only sell their 
products to that country, and worse still, that the colonies were 
obliged to take in return whatever England had to sell, whether 
they wanted it or not, and so they undertook to establish the tea 
monopoly, when our forefathers protested—rebelled, and “fought it 
out on that line,” until success and independence crowned their ef¬ 
forts, and thus America became a power among the nations of the 
earth. 
We have not, however, altogether avoided the establishment of 
