geably. If we
carefully consider the real status of the capitalist, however, we find
that of the three requisites of production--labor, capital, and natural
agents--capital is the requisite which is most perfectly secured from
the control of monopoly. The rate of interest for the use of capital is
regulated so perfectly by the law of supply and demand, that all the
anti-usury laws which have ever been enacted have been able to
accomplish but little in enabling the borrower to secure loans at a less
rate than that prescribed by competition. The reason for this is plain
on consideration. The total supply of accumulated wealth of the whole
civilized world is engaged in this competition, and the millions of
wealth which are added every day are new contestants in the market.
Competition in other products is held in local bounds by the cost of
shipment over long distances; but wealth in the form of value can be
transferred quickly and easily to any part of the civilized world where
a market awaits it. Every person who earns money or owns property is a
potential competitor, in that he can be made to lend his capital for
great enough inducements. Under the pressure of this competition, the
price for the use of capital--the rate of interest--has steadily fallen;
and the enormous production of wealth of which our industrial resources
are now capable is such that the fall is certain to continue, and a very
few years will see loans at 2 per cent. as common as those at 4 per
cent. are to-day. Combination to restrict competition among those who
loan capital for investment is an utter impossibility. The number of
people with money to loan, or with property on which they can raise
money for that purpose, if they wish, is too large a proportion of the
population to be ever brought into a combination to restrict
competition. The stringency which sometimes occurs in the money market
need not be cited as a contradiction of this statement. That is a matter
which has only to do with the currency. The broad fact, and it is a most
important one, is that capital, a necessary agent of production, can
never be monopolized.

X.

THE THEORY OF UNIVERSAL COMPETITION.

We have now examined all the important occupations in which men engage
for the purpose of gain; and we have found that while certain large
classes of men still have the returns for their industry fixed by the
laws of competition, other large and important classes have been a