lished fairly precisely: it is the beginning of the twentieth century. In one of the most recent publications on the formation of monopolies, we read "Until 1860 a few isolated examples of capitalist monopoly could be cited: in these could be discovered the beginnings of conditions that have now become customary: but they all undoubtedly represent the prehistoric age of cartels. The real beginning of the monopoly system of the present day goes back at the earliest to 1860. The first important period of development of monopoly commenced with the international decline of industry from 1870 and lasted until just after 1890." "If we examine the question from a European point of view, the end of the development of free competition occurred in the decade 1860-1870. Then it was that England completed the construction of its capitalist edifice in the old style. In Germany, this organisation had entered on a decisive struggle with craftsmanship and with domestic industry, and had commenced to make for itself its own forms of existence."
"The great change commenced with the financial crash of 1873, or more exactly, with the ensuing depression, which—after an interruption scarcely noticeable, in 1880 and the following years, and with a re-awakening, remarkably vigorous, but short-lived about 1889—filled twenty-two years of the economic history of Europe. During the short period of boom from 1880-1890, the system of cartels was widely used to take advantage of the favourable conditions. But this short-sighted policy raised prices even quicker and higher than if there had been no cartels, and nearly all these cartels perished ingloriously in the financial
