Rural Health and Welfare Part 9

No sufficient data are at hand for showing exactly how great has been the expenditure in unproductive enterprises, but a reference to Chart No. IV, p. 83, giving the development of railroad building in this country, will show how this form of enterprise in every case outran the increase in population immediately preceding the hard times.

It is evident to any student of the question that extra large consumption of floating capital has immediately preceded every period of supposed over-production. The chief over-production has always been in the machinery of production and trade, including the costly settlement of new land. The immediate dismissal of labor employed in such enterprises brings greatest suffering, because such laborers are always least forehanded and are in large numbers homeless. Such laborers also most readily become compet.i.tors for any kind of a job, and so affect current wages of those still retaining their places. This emphasizes the unequal distribution of wealth, and leads mult.i.tudes to call for a redistribution, by fair means or foul. This increases the distrust of community and the disposition to h.o.a.rd wealth in the form of money, while checking every desire to build for the future.

_Remedies for hard times._-The means of recovery from such a disaster are less easy to see than the causes. We know, in fact, that the world does recover confidence among enterprising men and confidence in the future, sometimes surprisingly soon. We can see some of the steps by which the burden of debt is diminished and hopes are revived. In the first place, some method of settlement out of the usual course is adopted. Most obvious is an agreement among banks to carry on the usual machinery of exchanges through checks, drafts and a clearing house without the use of currency.

This is called suspension of payment. It holds the deposits steady while the transfer of owners.h.i.+p is easy. It saves the sacrifice of large credit to meet the panicky condition of small trade, and it checks the disposition to h.o.a.rd money in out-of-the-way places. The actual failures are thus confined to those actually engaged in the wasted production or directly involved as creditors of such persons. The failures in 1873 were said to have been nine in each thousand business houses; those of 1893 were thirteen in a thousand. The actual failures among farmers are confined almost entirely to those who have been caught in the speculative spirit of investment in more land for the sake of increasing prices or have borrowed capital to be used in other speculation. A few only have wasted their substance in expensive homes and luxuries.

If all forms of indebtedness could circulate freely, the final result in balancing debts with debts would be quite readily reached, and the actual losses would be found less than is generally supposed. An equal loss without distrust, if that were possible, would be met with new enterprise and extra energy instead of despondency.

The various remedies offered in proposed legislation frequently add to the delays in the recovery of confidence. The issue of paper currency, while universally welcomed by the most wasteful of investors, makes those who still have property more doubtful as to the future. The proposition to increase demand for labor by great public improvements comes at a time when revenues are diminished and almost surely is coupled with a proposal of government scrip. To increase the burden of taxation at once, when the ma.s.s of the people are already burdened and distressed, is impossible. The issue of scrip, though actually a costly method of taxation, seems to the unthinking a way of making something out of nothing. The certain effect is to extend the period of doubt. Laws affecting the coinage and character of legal tender, since they disturb the relation of borrower and lender indefinitely, postpone readjustment of confidence. Changes in the tariff laws are liable to have the same effect because of uncertainty as to where the influence will be most felt. Special legislation with reference to contracts for labor, however well intended, are sure to hinder adjustment, and all agitation in favor of new experiments in government enterprises or in legislation as to property makes less available the capital and ingenuity of the people.

_Cure for hard times._-The only genuine cure involves a restoration of faith in enterprise. It is almost as hard to establish after a commercial panic as after a panic in an army. The remedies best worth study are really preventives, in the form of checks upon undue expansion of credits and distinct limits as to extension of time. Some have gone so far as to wish there were no laws for collection of debts, since this would actually prevent the great bulk of indebtedness; but it would also destroy the essential foundation of daily credit, one of the most productive machines of exchange. The best that can be done is to make more explicit the laws against frauds, and to limit easily transferred forms of credit to those whose foundation can be carefully inspected. It is very desirable that all corporations dealing in credit should be subject to the strictest examination by a public officer.

_Short credits vs. hard times._-More important than legal enactments are the business habits of a community, and these can be cultivated by business men. Farmers, of all cla.s.ses of people, can foster such customs of careful inspection of business standing and frequent settlement of accounts and careful loaning as will make a panic less possible. They need, however, a wider acquaintance with the machinery of business and a firmer faith in the advantage to all concerned of cash payments and absolute promptness in all settlements. The moral power of such a body, amounting to one-half the population, most of whom are solid owners of property, would, if well informed and united in principle, check most of the extravagances in expenditure and investment which waste the capital of the country.

_Bankruptcy._-In closing the discussion of hard times, it is proper to mention a device for removing in part the discouragement of debts where ability to pay is entirely wanting. Of course, a settlement between debtor and creditors, in which the property of the debtor is divided among his creditors, is always available, leaving both at liberty to begin business anew with a knowledge of the worst that can happen. It seems possible to contrive bankruptcy laws in such shape as to secure a fair settlement of insolvent business whenever the business is evidently failing. If discovery of fraud or misrepresentation could cause immediate intervention in a bankruptcy court, the surest possible check would be brought to bear upon improper credits. It is certainly to the interest of all honest creditors and debtors that a fair settlement should be reached as early after insolvency as possible. Such bankrupt laws should be as wide reaching in their uniformity as government permits. If a national bankrupt law is not sufficient, the states should combine to establish in each the same general system.

Chapter XIII. Technical Division Of Labor.

_Economy of minute division._-The advantages, limits and disadvantages of minute division of labor are worthy of a more careful discussion, since they bear upon every kind of enterprise and all cla.s.ses of labor. A large part of the century's progress in manufacture, and especially the development of machinery in production, has grown out of the extension of this principle of division. An a.n.a.lysis of the particulars by which great saving is made in the cost of production will help us not only to understand the facts better, but to extend the principle in various directions. In the outset it implies the united effort of several workmen in succession and in close combination upon a single product. It is said that a pocket knife, which we buy for fifty cents, has involved in its manufacture the services of seventy-two different persons, doing different things. The perfection of its finish depends upon the perfection of each of these persons in his single act. The cheapness depends upon the readiness with which each act is performed, and the utility of every kind of power employed.

A good ill.u.s.tration of division of labor may be found in the process of butchering hogs in a large packing house. The live hogs enter the building in the upper story, while able to carry themselves on their own feet.

Their weight then moves them easily on through all the stages of the process. Two men catch the hogs by hooking a short chain about the hind leg and slipping it into the notch of an endless chain power, which hoists them to the carrier, a continuous track upon which a roller attached to the chain may easily move. A single man wields the knife which sticks the hogs. Two men are sufficient to manage the scalding trough. One directs the machine through which the body of each hog is jerked to remove by brushes the ma.s.s of hair. Four, perhaps, may handle sc.r.a.pers as the hogs are dropped upon a platform, and six more may use the shaving knives by which every particle of hair is removed. Two are needed with different tools for beheading; and one makes place for the gambrel. Two remove the feet at opposite ends, three with different implements are needed in removing entrails, two are required to halve the body, while another gives it the final was.h.i.+ng. The result is that each hog has pa.s.sed from the pen to the cooling room in less than ten minutes, and the hogs pa.s.s under the hands of these several men at the rate of eight a minute. Each man uses but one tool in one particular spot, and repeats that single act constantly. By a similar division of labor eighteen men are employed in skinning a single beef, a different knife being used for each particular part of the body, and all pa.s.s in regular routine over the ten or twelve beeves undergoing the operation. The rapidity of this motion can scarcely be conceived by one who has witnessed simply the butchering upon a farm.

All this is due to a minute division of labor into as many tasks as there are different operations, each man having, if possible, but one distinct kind of motion. The saving is not only shown in the increased quant.i.ty of work, but in the uniform quality as well. All the workmans.h.i.+p is essentially perfect. These advantages appear more strikingly in the manufacturing arts, where the so-called factory system has brought division of labor to perfection.

A brief a.n.a.lysis of the advantages, limitations and disadvantages is worth our study, because of their possible application to farm industry. So far they have been felt chiefly in contributory manufactures of farm machinery, facilities for transportation, with all attending manufacture, and the factories consuming raw materials furnished from the farms. They apply equally well where division of labor is profitable in farm operations.

_Extra efficiency of labor._-Most obvious advantage is seen in the saving of the time of a laborer, both in learning the essential parts of his work, so that apprentices.h.i.+p is shortened to one-tenth or one-twentieth of the time required for a full trade, and in the far greater dexterity with which he works without change of tools or change of location or distraction of attention. Thus a raw hand in the course of a few months performs his single task more rapidly and more perfectly than an expert workman who must know and practice all the parts of the business. While such a hand can scarcely be called skilled in a technical sense, in the narrow application of skill to one action he may be more perfect than any skilled workman. The fact that each man's work pa.s.ses immediately under the inspection of another, whose motion must exactly correspond in time and adjustment, makes any costly oversight in the shape of executive labor very much less, since every step in the process tests every other step. It is also found that minute attention to a single detail tends toward the highest improvement by invention of every tool and machine employed.

While this system is not likely to foster the inventive spirit which brings out entirely new principles in machinery, because the work grows easy by familiarity, it does make the workmen quick to invent the little devices that perfect such machines. A broader culture and more general training discovers the difficulties and devises the entirely new method: the worker hits upon improvements. Watt invented the steam engine, but a lazy boy employed to move the valve hit upon the automatic movement.

_Increased efficiency of capital._-The efficiency of capital in production is greatly increased by minute division of labor. The shop room required for each man is reduced to the minimum s.p.a.ce for himself and his material.

His tools, while the most perfect possible, are the fewest possible.

The machinery and motive power are used to their utmost capacity constantly, and the economy of larger engines and machines is well known.

Possibly one-fifth of the power required to move all the machines used by ten men working as independent tradesmen would provide better motion, more constant and cheaper, for the ten working together under division of labor. The waste in starting and stopping of machinery is almost entirely avoided, and the condition of the machine for doing its work well is kept up to the best. A most important saving is in diminution of waste. The shortened apprentices.h.i.+p and the superior dexterity make waste from blunders almost nothing. Still more noticeable is the saving from any waste of superior abilities, either strength or judgment, upon actions requiring little ability.

Under minute division of labor a strong man is kept where he is needed and the child may serve where his powers are sufficient. The efficiency of women is recognized wherever applicable, and all the workers have their full abilities made constantly useful. Moreover, the circulating capital represented in the raw materials is kept in use much less time than under the less effective system. Since any article of manufacture pa.s.ses through all the operations upon it in very much less time, the interest upon capital employed in holding the material and in supporting the labor during its changes is indefinitely less. The quicker returns from this more rapid manufacture are everywhere recognized.

_Limits of division._-With all its advantages, division of labor is limited by circ.u.mstances. It can never be applied where, because of poor roads or peculiarities of temper or habit of life, the workers are naturally separated. The necessary isolation of the farmers for the sake of s.p.a.ce makes any combination for the sake of economy in dividing their tasks almost impracticable. Even where farms are small, few advantages from division of labor by different kinds of work can be adopted. The farmers are too far apart to work directly into each other's hands. It is limited, too, by the natural demand for the products of labor. If the labor of one man can supply all need of iron work in his community, there is no possibility of employing ten, even with a hundred times the effectiveness. This is well ill.u.s.trated in the country store, which sells everything over the same counter. Not even the grocery department can be separated until the demand is sufficient to support two store-keepers in two stores.

But even in places where division of labor is stimulated by demand, it can go no further than the number of distinct motions required in carrying through the manufacture of the article made. Indeed, economy requires that each motion should make a complete round, so that the work begins and ends for each worker with everything in the same position. The exception is when a motion with great exertion requires an interval of rest before a second. Two men with a cross-cut saw, although their motions are alike, do more than twice as much as one man, because of the relief in pus.h.i.+ng back the saw.

A most important limit, however, is made by the inconstancy of natural forces employed in any industry. This is notable in all the processes of agriculture. No matter how many workers combine in raising field crops, they can gain but few advantages from dividing their tasks minutely. Each laborer must be employed through the year, and the change of seasons requires that he be ready for all the operations of the different seasons in planting and tilling and gathering through all the succession. Ordinary changes of weather, cold or hot, wet or dry, windy or calm, make necessary changes in his labor. The uncertainties of each year as to moisture and heat require a variety of ventures, so that no farmer dares confine himself to raising but a single crop. Even under the most favorable conditions the different stages of growth are so intimately related that the watchfulness of the same interested manager is required at every stage. A delicate plant must be carried delicately, even in transplanting.

More important still are the conditions of fertility, which make a rotation of crops and even mixed farming essential to highest productiveness. If each field must have its definite series of cropping and tillage, together with the application of animal manures, the advantage of these combined operations under the oversight and labor of a single farmer outweighs the advantage of more perfect division of labor.

The result of all these limitations, so obvious in agriculture, is that farm work is but slightly more effective or more continuous than it was hundreds of years since. While improved machinery has immensely reduced the cost of certain processes, a year's labor involves innumerable changes of employment, so that no farmer inquires, in hiring his help, for an expert in any direction, but wants a man of all work whose skill is largely ingenuity in adjusting himself to the constantly changing duties.

_Suggestions of fuller division of farm labor._-It seems possible, with the improved condition of agriculture and the nearness of ready markets, to attempt a larger use of division of labor in several directions. A group of farmers, well acquainted with the possible advantages, may cla.s.sify their farms as grain farms, dairy farms, breeding farms, feeding farms and market-gardens. Such a community of interests would find not only the advantages of exchange between each other, as well as the rest of the world, but would soon build up bodies of expert young men in the several specialties, whose work would be at a premium everywhere.

With these interests recognized, still greater division of labor is possible. An expert in the care of trees and prevention of diseases to fruits and vegetables can quickly find employment, and may perfect himself in all the requirements of successive seasons. A dairy expert may find use for his superior knowledge and skill on successive tours among the dairy farms. Every farm large enough to employ several men gains some of the advantages of division by making each man responsible for a definite part of the farm work. The less the workmen are handled in gangs, the better each one's abilities can be trained to meet his responsibilities. These possibilities are greatly increased by every device for diminis.h.i.+ng the effect of weather changes. Under-drainage gives large advantages in this direction from lengthening the time during which the same operation can go forward. Means of protecting crops in the field serve a similar end.

Perhaps the easiest application to be made in any neighborhood is a system of marketing, through keeping an expert collector and distributor of produce busy in a limited region. All the waste of articles too few to be carried to market is practically saved, and constant a.s.sociation with the markets of the world is made possible. Especially is this applicable to small fruits, milk, b.u.t.ter and eggs. If this market wagon can also serve to carry the daily mail for all the neighborhood, the problem of rural delivery would be almost solved with a trifling expense. Even where such a measure is not possible, neighboring farmers may approach such results by combining for market and mail days in a circle, each taking a different day of the week when he will do his neighbor's errands.

With increased confidence in mutual interests, it seems possible that specialists in various directions might grow up among a united circle of farmers. The use of machinery and blooded stock can certainly be greatly increased by careful adjustment of interests. Great improvements in seed and in methods of culture may be discovered by agreement among a body of farmers that certain individuals shall make a specialty of those improvements. It is even conceivable that a rotation of crops might be carried on upon a dozen farms, while each farmer gives his attention to his specialty. It would require, of course, a much closer combination in credit with each other than has yet been found among farmers. At the very best, however, farming must still remain the most prominent ill.u.s.tration of limitation in the application of the great labor saving and capital saving by minute division of labor.

_Disadvantages of extreme division._-The great addition to wealth so distinctly traced to division of labor is not gained without some disadvantages to the community. Almost certainly the inactivity of body compelled by confinement to a simple portion of a trade induces physical weakness. The health of workers in factories is often uncertain, and the average of life is known to be reduced. While steadiness of employment contributes to steady habits, the reduced activity contributes to weakness. Perhaps even more perceptible is the tendency toward narrowness of mind. Ingenuity is developed in the "Jack of all trades," although his information in regard to each one may be limited. The man who knows all about a very small part of one trade has little to stimulate his mind to exertion. Indeed, habit is liable to make his very action and judgment purely automatic. The fact that the raw hand can be quickly made effective makes the stimulation to self-education even less than in ordinary circ.u.mstances. The constant dependence of each laborer upon the routine of his work and his absolute dependence upon authority for his employment lead naturally to lack of self-control. A man may grow almost like the machine he handles, responding only to the demand of his overseer. These tendencies foster also a growth of cla.s.s distinctions. Such workmen are thought of as operatives, held in a cla.s.s by themselves. They may be expected to know little of the interests of community outside their own circle, and are often distrusted in matters of common welfare. They themselves distrust the leaders.h.i.+p of those upon whose management they depend for employment.

All these disadvantages may be overcome by more community of interest among workers of all cla.s.ses for their comfort and improvement outside their tasks. It is a fact that a.s.sociations for the advancement of workers in social and political freedom and mutual self-support have grown most rapidly in the neighborhood of factories, where division of labor is extreme. A truly philanthropic spirit may be in entire agreement with the ma.s.sing of labor for greatest accomplishment. The places of least development are always found where crowds of laborers work in mere gangs or wholly unorganized. The wholesome influences surrounding rural life are everywhere granted so far as physical development goes. They may also be granted in communities of general enterprise with reference to ready ingenuity and judgment. The farmer's boys moving to the cities carry not only physical strength and endurance but a mental capacity for ready adaptation to emergencies which develops into wisdom. The majority of leaders in great enterprises are still expected to grow up on the farm.

This is undoubtedly in part due to the impossibility of cramping by extreme division of labor. At the same time a partial application of its principles is needed to bring leisure for some general culture and larger acquaintance with the progress of the world. As the evils of factory life can be cured by attention, so the weaknesses of rural life can be removed by a careful study of its needs. True education in both quarters is essential as a means of mutual understanding and adjustment of interests.

Chapter XIV. Aggregation Of Industry.

_Great combinations._-The tendency toward improvement by combination of laborers through the possibilities of division of labor leads to still larger combinations in so-called factory systems, and even to a combination of factories in large corporations. This tendency has been especially marked since the multiplication of labor-saving machines and more perfect systems of transportation. Indeed, the possibility of extensive machine using, as well as extended division of labor, rests upon a combination of many forces under one general management. Beyond these advantages, saving is found in the necessary care for waste products, which often may be turned into profit, greater freedom of action from closer community of interests, greatly enlarged facilities for marketing, and the best possible devices for handling and transporting products.

All these advantages in great establishments are readily perceived, yet some have doubted whether the gains are so distributed as actually to increase the general welfare. Farmers, perhaps, as readily as any persons, distrust the power of great corporations. Wage earners, generally, in the expression, "corporations have no souls," express their distrust of results. Yet so far as they actually introduce improvement in production so that variety of products is increased and the cost of production reduced, the whole community gains in large measure the total saving. Any one can realize the advantage by study of a single article of every-day use. In the middle ages the cloth in a garment was worth eight times the wool from which it was made. Now the value is chiefly in the raw product.

The price of iron affects every farmer through the cost of his tools and implements or the quality of either. Compare the modern steel hoe, first in quality and then in cost, with the hoe of fifty years since. Then measure that cost in its relation to a day's work, as compared with the same measure in 1850. All are in this way benefited by reducing the exertion needed to procure any one article of use, since more exertion may be left for meeting other wants. If machinery and improved methods have entered less into the farmer's home life, he can find his own advantage from the range of such improvements in other directions by thinking what a pound of b.u.t.ter will buy for him today as compared with what it would buy before the period of machinery. (Chart No. XIV, p. 106.)

The introduction of labor-saving machines is a direct addition to human power and economy of time, and a means of converting useless material to meet human wants. That a new machine throws out of employment workers in that particular field brings a hards.h.i.+p which ought to be shared by the mult.i.tude who are benefited; but the probabilities are great that the improved method of manufacture will so increase the uses for the product as to bring into employment a far larger number of laborers. The spinning jenny threw out of employment several thousand spinners in the old way, but in twenty-five years the cloth-makers in England had increased from less than eight thousand to three hundred and twenty thousand. The machines which in 1760 were thought to have ruined some eight thousand cloth-makers, in 1833 employed two million persons. This is only a striking ill.u.s.tration of what has happened in every direction. It is perfectly evident that communities using the most machinery pay larger wages and far larger welfare to every laborer. It is not too much to say that the actual comforts within the reach of every laborer have been more than doubled within the last hundred years.

A few ill.u.s.trations of the actual saving in cost of production and distribution may be interesting. Complicated machinery can never be used in producing upon a small scale, just as a small farmer can never afford the use of a harvester. All the benefits of invention applied to machinery have come through its use on a large scale. A factory making a thousand pairs of shoes each year cannot use such machinery as the one making a million pairs will need. Each one of the million pairs, therefore, costs the world less than each one of the thousand pairs. Again the large establishment, like an immense saw mill, being obliged to care for its sawdust, may devise a way of making this waste product of use in pressed blocks for kindling, or possibly in b.u.t.tons or wood ornaments. The waste of the shoe shop is only a nuisance, but the waste of a great shoe factory is ground and pressed into all sorts of useful forms. All such saving of waste is so much added to the world's store of wealth.

That the large establishment saves unnecessary friction is shown in the order of any great mercantile establishment. It is still more noticeable in immense iron works separated from every other form of industry for the sake of freedom of motion. In these ways, princ.i.p.ally, there is a saving of labor in the huge department stores, although the facilities for advertising, advantages for transportation in large bulk and the employment of expert salesmen in every department contribute to the same result. The general expenses of an ordinary store are estimated at nearly 40 per cent of the difference between wholesale and retail prices. The same expenses in the great cooperative store at Paris, the Bon Marche, are only 14 per cent. While the controllers of capital in the large enterprises have the first advantage of such saving, the very necessities of their business compel a sharing with their employes and with the public.

Even the so-called trusts, supposed to be contrivances for controlling the market, have really served in many instances the welfare of the whole community. A biscuit trust, in handling the most of the crackers in the market, saves great expense of advertising, a still greater expense in sales by traveling salesmen, or drummers, and immense waste of stock on hand through condensation into fewer warehouses, reduces its insurance to actual cost, and has brought to the public by means of all these savings a greater variety of crackers of almost uniform quality suited to the fluctuations of demand at a reduced price. No one doubts that even the Standard Oil Company, by means of its savings through consolidation, has at the same time preserved the general supply of oil from waste and brought it to every man's door, with a great improvement in quality, comparative safety in use, and an almost constantly diminis.h.i.+ng price.

The record of facts shows that with all the tendency to great aggregations, and so to concentration of power, ma.s.ses of wage-earners have had their hours of labor shortened, have gained facilities for culture in libraries, lectures and voluntary a.s.sociations, have gained habits more systematic, and regular methods of life with greater constancy of employment, have better protection of civil rights, better provision for education of children, a larger insurance against accident, and a better provision for hospital care when disabled. The same system has provided methods for economical use of savings in joint stock companies, and cultivated a general unity of purpose and appreciation of others'

welfare. Withal it has given to the mothers of families an immense increase of leisure for home-making, and at the same time has opened ranges of employment for women without homes. Even the rate of wages has not been diminished, but rather increased, as is shown also by actual records. That the great establishments cannot pay less than average rates is evident from the mult.i.tudes seeking to enter their employment.

Moreover, they must pay their workmen regularly or appear bankrupt.

Employers on a small scale can easily postpone upon all sorts of pretences, and failures are frequent. Suppose the distribution of milk in New York city were under a single management. A systematic division of territory would at once reduce the number of milk wagons by at least one-half. The certainty of responsibility would insure uniform purity, and means of transportation could be brought to perfection, so that the amount now delivered would actually cost perhaps not more than two-thirds the present price. While at present prices the profit would be large, the necessity for investing those profits would at once call for extension of the trade by reducing the price, and at the same time increasing the proceeds to farmers somewhere who furnish the larger supply. The better quality and larger quant.i.ty for the same money would certainly increase the demand, and probably with direct benefit to the milk-raisers. The essential element of distrust of individual management in large enterprises as to fair distribution of the profits stands in the way of such a combination.

_Limits to aggregation._-It is easy to see that the advantages of great establishments cannot always be gained. The limits of demand restrict the possibility of profit in supply. The element of s.p.a.ce in connection with the market and in relation to the buyers makes an important limit. Special advantages of location on a small scale may outweigh the advantages of aggregation. Utilization of forces in nature, like pure water or water power, or special qualities of raw materials, may outweigh all other considerations. In general the requirement of interested oversight in a single superintendent has checked such growth. The more perfect, however, the system of management, the less effective is such a limitation. It is possible with extreme division of labor to make distinct rules take the place of personal direction, and oversight is reduced to a minimum. All these limitations serve to check the too rapid growth of this factory system and to hold in check the tendency to misuse of power in possible monopolies. Any raising of prices which diminishes the demand destroys the advantage of a great combination. It makes its profits by the quant.i.ty of its products sold. A reduction of the quant.i.ty much more certainly than a reduction in price destroys the advantage. Hence a monopoly gained in the ordinary progress of trade can seldom operate for any long time to advance prices, though it may destroy the compet.i.tion of smaller establishments completely.

_Disadvantages of aggregation._-It is impossible to overlook a considerable number of disadvantages to the welfare of a community in a too rapid aggregation of its industrial enterprises. It changes large numbers of laborers from independent workers to wage earners, and thus makes them a part of the great machine, with an immense momentum in production which does not so readily yield to the fluctuations of demand.

An independent worker is not worried if he has a leisure day. The great establishment cannot adjust its machinery to a lessened demand without a uniformity of reduction in wages or time of employment, or else the discharge of numbers of employes. This is one of the causes of over-production so evident in certain directions upon the coming of financial crises. Another great disadvantage is seen in the breakdown of any such enterprise. Then its employes, trained for its particular uses, find themselves not only without employment, but unfitted to drop into other niches of usefulness. The absolute routine of the great establishment so fixes habits as to make very difficult a change of work except in line of promotion in a similar organization. The dissatisfaction and distress from such absence of employment is more apparent than in ordinary poverty.

The strongest objections, however, to the great aggregations are found in the possibility of oppression through a monopoly of business, and therefore almost absolute control by a few persons of the interests not only of a large body of employes, but of every compet.i.tor upon a smaller scale. A large combination practically compels all to yield to its methods. The certain economy of methods has led to the statement, "Where combination is possible, compet.i.tion ceases." The common saying, "Compet.i.tion is the life of trade," becomes untrue whenever that compet.i.tion implies a costly service. Compet.i.tion is supposed to reduce cost by stimulating energy and ingenuity. But when that ingenuity can be better applied in combination, the result is the destruction of compet.i.tion. Compet.i.tion may drive the milk wagon faster, but combination will deliver more quarts of milk in the same time. The natural opposition to combination rests upon the same ground as the opposition to improved machinery. It certainly throws out of their ordinary employment a considerable number of independent workers.

This power of the combination is a constant temptation to unscrupulous and grasping managers to increase their advantage by vicious discrimination and false compet.i.tion, expecting the destruction of others' business to increase their own. The largeness of the operation makes more plain the injustice of the maxim, "All is fair in trade." The final dangers of combination are thus likely to be overestimated. It is not true that any larger proportion of false methods of business enters into the large establishment than into the small, and the possibility of profit in a great combination is quite as truly dependent upon the universal welfare as anywhere. The same extremes of prices mark the range for these establishments as for any others. The price cannot continue higher than buyers will pay with an increasing disposition to buy more. It cannot remain lower, of course, than will enable sellers to continue living as well as in any other business. Checks upon increased price come as certainly from subst.i.tutes as from rival production, and the ability of the people will always gauge the amount of sales. The expression "What the trade will bear," means a price such as not to diminish consumption.

Indeed, the business principles of a great trust are essentially the same as those in any single manufactory. A trust which stops the work of certain factories in a combination for the sake of diminis.h.i.+ng the output, because of danger to prices from too rapid production, follows the same principle as a farmer who stops raising wheat from the probability of too much wheat in the market. The farmer would better lose the use of his land for a time than lose the advantage of both land and labor by over-production of wheat. In the same way a trust may wisely hold its fixed capital unproductive till the consumption of the community reaches the full extent of its power to produce. The power of one combination to interfere with the workings of another by indirect methods, like investment in the other's stock, is an evil to be treated like any fraud.

Laws and courts are in the power of the people, and should preserve the rights of all.