smash. Five years of bad trade and low prices followed, but a new spirit reigned in industry: the depression was not considered as something to be taken for granted: in it was seen no more than a phase before a new era of prosperity.
"The movement of 'cartels' entered into its second phase: they have no longer transitory appearances. Cartels have become one of the basic principles of economic activity. One after another they win the realms of production, and first and foremost the working up of raw materials. At the beginning of 1890, the system of cartels had already acquired in the constitution of the coke syndicate—on the pattern of which was created the coal syndicate—a technique which it never surpassed. The remarkable development of industry at the close of the nineteenth century and the crisis of 1900-1903, followed each other—in the mining and iron industries at least—entirely under the ægis of cartels. And if then it appeared something novel, it has now become evident to the social consciousness that important parts of economic activity are, as a general rule, no longer in the domain of free competition."6
Thus, the principal stages in the history of monopolies are the following:
1. 1860-1870, the highest, final stage of development of free competition: the beginnings of monopoly may just be discerned.
2. After the crisis of 1873, a period of wide development of cartels, still unusual and transitory: they constitute a transient phenomenon.
3. The boom at the end of the nineteenth century and the crisis of 1900-1903. Cartels become
