Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 20, Number 104, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 September 1899 — TRUSTS IN ENGLAND. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

TRUSTS IN ENGLAND.

HOW COMBINES THRIVE UNDER FREE TRADE. They Flourish Mora Luxuriantly la British than in American Boil, and All the Better Because of the Absence of Protection. Writing to the New York Press from London, Mr. H. Curtis Brown, a staff correspondent of that paper, presents with much force and distinctness the subject of trusts in England. Such a presentment is moat timely. It comes at a moment when facts are Important in order to accurately determine the extent to which trusts abound in a country where protection is unknown. From Mr. Brown’s article, which appeal’s in the current issue of the American Economist, it is learned, among other things, that in free trade England the modern trust had its origin and has attained to its most complete development. To-day, says this wellinformed writer, “there are more trade combinations to the square inch in England than in the United States, and it will not be long at the present rate before every trade in the tight little Island will be in a position to regulate competition.” In spite of the fact that the tendency toward monopoly hi England in the last year has been significant and almost startling, the average Englishman will tell you, “We have no trusts in England. Mr. HavenJeyer evidently had that idea when he declared that “the customs tariff is the mother of trusts.” How mistaken is this belief, and how firmly the trust movement, under another name, has taken hold upon English commercial life, may be convincingly learned from the facts set forth in detail by the Press correspondent. According to this well-in-formed writer, organizations which In trusts now control in England the fine cotton spinning, the dyeing, screw manufacture, salt manufacture, newspaper manufacture, cotton thread, chemicals, the crushing of oil seed, bedstead making, glass bottle making, manufacture of electrical fittings and the cased tube trade. There is no open market in petroleum, nickel, mercury, antimony, lead pipe and fish. The National Telephone Ooippany now has a monopoly, and the number of trades in which the leading producers have combined and have begun to squeeze the smaller producers to the inevitable end of establishing what is tantamount to a trust is almost Infinite.” In one respect the trust idea has been carried in England to an extent thus far unknown in the United States. The combinations operating separately in different lines are engaged in combining themeslves into still larger and more comprehensive trusts. At last accounts the dyers were thinking of going into the chemical manufacturing business, making their own drugs and dye stuffs, and establishing what would amount to a practical monopoly in that direction. Likewise the retail chemists, themselves combined Into associations which regulated prices In many districts, froze out. the manufacturer of mineral waters by building a factory themselves, and practically controlling the market. One of the latest combinations is that of the oil-seed crushers, whose chairman Ls Hugh Cullen Smith, late governor of the Bank of England, and the manufacturers of the paper used in making newspapers are said to have formed a monopoly. Twenty-four leading firms in the engineering trade have consolidated with a capital of $70,000,000. Vickers & Co., armor plate manufacturers, have been buying up competing firms until they control the trade. The Belfast linen yarn spinners were lately reported to be organizing and also the Scottish floor cloth manufacturers, also the bleachers, who are reported to have a capital of $30,000,000. All this in free-trade England, where, lf N Mr. Havemeyer and his Demo-Pop admirers are correct In their contention, trusts do not and can not exist. It appears , however, that they can and do exist, and that they thrive wonderfully well in that non-protected country—thrive all the better, it would seem, because of the absence of protection and the active and always increasing competition which protection promotes and Insures. Such, it wiU be found, is the truth concerning trusts. They flourish with or without a protective tariff—rather better without than with it

Where Jobailer Now? We have heard from Bryan, from Groker, from Altgeld, from Jo Blackburn, from Henry Watterson and from othens. It is plain that, apart from certain retraction and fine, hearty croweating, all these leaders are in favor of the Chicago platform for 1900, and for the regular machine, however, sadly it may have dislocated. Harmony, long time moulting on a withered perch, has apparently resdmed its ancient roost. The renegades and traitors of 1806all at least who have not been provided for against the chilling blasts of adversity and neglect—are slipping back again by various tortuous and shabby ways. Tammany looks solid. The Bynums and the Buckners have become palpably as they always were really, insignificant There seems to be a love feast whereat tbe prodigals have been welcomed with mnch veal and wassail. Bnt far away (n southwest spit where everybody worth mentioning chews tobacco, we discern a lone but chicken-breasted form—the form of our gifted and our only Jobailey—from* ien«. as me uesen ne moraines ana

we do not know and cannot guess. The constitution is his pillow by night and his inspiration by day. The winds pass by unheeded. His shirt front breasts the elements undismayed. The thrilling note of Bryan, the flutelike music of Blackburn, the resounding bray of Watterson, the shrill pipe of Altgeld—all these noises, borne upon the boeom of the wind, float past him unregarded and unknown. He stays there, planted in the Texas sands, his trousers flapping to the breese, his eagle eye turned in upon himself. He doesn’t say a word. What tragic consequences hinge upon this boundless situation? No one, so far, seems to have measured its tremendous portent But we tell the Democratic leaders that when they venture to erect a platform upon the summit of which the Hon. Jobailey does not stand, with the constitution In one band and the other plnnged in the deep Charybdls of his respectable frock coat they take & chance before which our Cowboy Roosevelt would have fainted in dismay.—Washington Post. When the Devil Wu Sick. Mr. Havemeyer Illustrates in a new way the old rhyme that “When the devil was sick, the devil a monk would be; but when he got well, the devil a monk was he.” In the days of tbs Cleveland administration Mr. Havemeyer moved heaven and earth to secure protection for Ms sugar, but having failed to get as much as he desired he now denounces the tariff as “the mother of trusts.”—Burlington HawkEye. Prosperity Points. , Corn in Kansas this year will win over calamity by the largest majority ever known.—Topeka Capital. It is gratifying to observe the steadily increasing volume of our transactions with all of our Latln-American neighbors.—Troy Times. Even the numerous strikes are indices of the country’s prosperity* Workmen know better than to strike when the times are hard.—Buffalo Express. The Kansas com crop is estimated at 300,000,000 bushels, and the most ardent of Populists concede a Republican victory in the State for at least two years. Good times and Republicanism go hand in hand in Kansas.—New York Press. Prosperity is evidenced in the earnings of the railroad, which for Jnne and the first half of July increased from 14 to 16 per cent, over the corresponding period of last year. There ls no better gauge of the improved business conditions.—Syracuse Herald. Pennsylvania papers announce that marriages in the State have Increased decidedly during the last two years, and one editor remarks that “there is an intimate relationship between marriages and the markets.” Another pleasing result may be credited to'prosperity.—St. Louis Globe-Democrat Political Poiata. Every time Mr. Bryan declares for free silver he makes it more certain that a million Democrats will not vote for him.—Kansas City Journal. The greatest mistake of Agulnaldo’s life is in placing reliance upon what the Democratic, party In the United States will do—Milwaukee Sentinel. It isn’t to be wondered at that the Democracy ls inclined to have such a pessimistic view of everything, with so many troubles of its own. —Council Bluffs Nonpareil. “Graphter says he will run his office in the Interest of neither the rich nor the poor.” “Well, you know Graphter ls neither rich nor poor.”—Kansas City Star. At least two Republican papers of Denver are printing caricatures of Bryan on the front page. Nothing could better illustrate the change that has taken place in Colorado toward silver. —lndianapolis News. A rich man has a right to buy as many useless things as he pleases, but no man is justified in such wanton extravagance as the purchase of the Democratic nomination for Governor of Ohio.—St. Louis Globe-Democrat. There is little danger that the mugwumps will flock together by themselves this year. They are not anxious to expose their weakness, which has thns far been hidden by working with one or the other of the old parties.— Cleveland Leader. “Can’t the Democrats of this town get together V inquired the political exhorter in Kentucky. “Get together!” answered the man with court plaster on his ear. “Why, it takes eleven deputy sheriffs to keep ’em apart!”—'Washington Star. The fact that more than three times as much gold will be mined this year as in 1886, and nearly twice as much as in 1896, convinces most intelligent men that there is enough gold for the standard money of the world at the present time, and that three or four years hence there may be too much. The Republicans have kept progress with the years; the Bryanites have marked time with their faces toward the past—lndianapolis Journal. The Astonished “Rubberneck.” I »>