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made with the cheerfulness characteristic of those who have a foregone conclusion to support. It is more significant to find non-socialists so far in agreement with the socialists as to affirm plainly that the trusts will drive society to collectivization of all industry unless "we can draw the fangs of the monster and tame him to good uses," in the words of Professor John B. Clark. In his essay on The Control of Trusts, Professor Clark says :
Momentous beyond the power of language to measure is the question whether centralization may be allowed to go to the utmost lengths without fastening on the people the intolerable burden of monopoly. Answer this question in one way, and you will probably be a socialist; and certainly you ought to be one. [ Italics mine.] Answer it in another way, and you will be an " individualist," though that is an inexact term for indicating the develop- ment for which you hope. In the latter case, you will believe in freedom of individual action, in competition, in the right of contract in short, in the things that have made our civilization what it is.
Professor Clark, it is true, answers the question in the way which permits him to remain an individualist. He believes it to be possible to "blend efficiency in production with equity in distribution," insuring the utilization of the trust's power for good while curbing its power for evil, but his solution of the problem is not convincing. He holds that the ability of the trusts to suppress competition and oppress the public is depend- ent upon three kinds of unfair dealing discriminations in prices between different localities, discriminations between different grades of goods, and discriminations between persons. He believes that the law can suppress these practices, and that, too, without violating the principle of industrial freedom.
But the consistent individualist will demur to this. No doubt certain discriminations are wrong and immoral, and there would be no violence to the principle of laissez-faire in making them illegal. But to prohibit local cutting of prices is to sup- press competition. It is not wrong, if we accept the principle of industrial freedom, for a corporation to invade the special territory of a rival company and drive it out of existence by underbidding. The law cannot assume that the object of the successful corporation is monopoly in the offensive sense of the term. A monopolist may or may not abuse his power. If he
