e workable deposits of copper are so scarce and the number
of competitors in its production is so much smaller, that it has become
the subject of the greatest monopoly the world has ever seen.

With these examples--and any number of others might be cited--is it not
plain enough that the laws of competition are exactly applicable to aid
in solving the problem? The smaller the number of competing units, the
stronger the tendency to monopoly. Certain gifts of Nature are given to
us in profusion. The people transfer the title to private owners, and
of these there must of necessity be so many that they will compete
steadily with each other. The consequence is that the people receive the
benefit from the country's natural resources, while the private owner
gets only enough to compensate him reasonably well for the labor he
employs and the capital which he invests. Certain other gifts of Nature
are, as we have found, very scarce; the number of men who can own and
use them and compete with each other in offering their advantages to the
public is necessarily small. The inevitable result of this condition is,
first, intense competition and then monopoly.

It is thus evident that there is no necessity for the State to interfere
with the private ownership of those gifts of Nature which are so widely
distributed that competition can act for the protection of the public.
As regards those other gifts which are so limited in their extent that
their control has become a matter of monopoly, the right of the public
to exercise its control is already proven. Whether in any given case the
exigency is so great as to call for the assertion of this power, is a
question which must be decided in each case separately.

It may be objected, with truth, that nothing short of the actual
ownership of all Nature's gifts by the public is in accord with
absolutely perfect justice; but as a matter of fact every human work
carried out by human hands and brains is only an approach to perfection.
It will never be possible by any human agency to distribute the wealth
production of the world with absolute equity. A careful writer says:
"The view that the right of every human being to his share in the gifts
of Nature should be recognized is not an unreasonable one." But by no
system possible of putting into practical execution can these gifts be
equitably divided among all men. What can be done is to cause the
benefit of these gifts to be widely distributed, a