evel and is using its power to
crush all rivalry at home. The good effect and the evil effect of an
excessive duty are quite distinct in principle, and the task that is
before us is to make them so in practice. It is to abolish the
monopoly-building part of the protective system.

The whole question of the relation of the tariff to monopoly presents
debatable points, some of which cannot here be discussed. It is by no
means claimed that an unnaturally high tariff is the sole means of
sustaining monopolies, or that the reduction of it would leave nothing
more to be done. A great corporation, as has already been said,
possesses special means of waging a predatory war against local
rivals, and its monopolistic power depends on these as well as on the
tariff. With the foreigner forced off the field the trust can use with
terrible effect these means of attack on local rivals. It is true, as
we have seen, that its monopolistic power might be greatly reduced,
without touching the tariff, by taking from it its command of freight
rates and thus destroying its power to undersell rivals by means of
the special rebates which it now receives; and its power for evil
might be reduced still more by taking from it its privilege of cutting
prices on its own goods in one locality while charging elsewhere the
high prices which the exclusion of the foreigner enables it to get.
Regulating trusts by these means only and without any change in the
protective system would require, on the part of the people, a long and
hard struggle. It would require heroic persistence in a course of
difficult administration. Success will come more quickly and easily
if, while keeping a normal amount of protection, we abolish the
abnormal part of it. The other measures for controlling trusts
harmonize with this one and will work more effectively if they are
used in combination with it. Together with this one they remove a
barrier against progress and set in action a force that promotes it.

Without going into any intricacies one can see that, with the tariff
at a normal level, the success of the trust in making money will
depend on its efficiency as a producer; and the same will be true of
its independent rivals. Again and again it will then happen that new
rivals will appear, whose mills are far more efficient than many which
the trust operates. They may even be more efficient than the best of
the mills of the great combination. American producers and foreigner