we have added only _one_ competitor to the number
in the field. And with only _two_ competitors in the field, competition
is sure to be so _intense_ and _wasteful_ that the formation of a new
monopoly is a matter of but a short time.

This is the conclusion to which the theory brings us; and the more one
studies the history of actual attempts to create competition in this
way, the more thoroughly convinced he must be that the inevitable result
will be the same,--the tacit or formal combination between the old
monopoly and the new competitor, resulting in the re-establishment of
the absolute reign of monopoly. The author has thoroughly studied the
actual working of hundreds of schemes, in every part of the United
States, whose object was to create competition in railroad
transportation. It is a most astonishing fact to see the eagerness with
which thousands of municipalities, all over the country, which have
taken great loads of debt upon their shoulders to secure "competing
lines," and have seen these lines swallowed up by their rivals, are
still anxious to repeat the folly and assume new burdens to aid in
building new lines, which will inevitably be absorbed like those which
they preceded. If the people as a whole learn wisdom by experience, they
seem to learn with painful slowness. The first great lesson for the
people who are groaning under the burden of monopoly to learn, then, is
that when we try to defeat monopoly by creating new competing units, the
remedy is worse for the community at large than the disease, and effects
at best but a temporary relief.

Another class of remedies against monopoly seek to accomplish their
purpose by opposing the tendency to a reduction in the number of
competing units. There are not wanting people who, having gained a dim
perception that monopolies are an inevitable result of the modern
concentration of industry, conclude that, after all, "the former days
_were_ better than these," and that our wisest course is a retrograde
one. Fortunately, however, these people are comparatively few. It is a
fact so plain that even the dullest can hardly fail to perceive it, that
the consolidation and concentration of industry which have gone on
everywhere have wonderfully cheapened the cost of production,--made it
possible for us to make better goods with a less expenditure of labor
and material. The revolution in our industries could not be undone
without a more radical action toward vested p