part played by the State in the exploitation of the weak by the strong.
Here, too, the power of accumulated capital has increased tenfold and a
hundredfold by means of State help. So that, when we see syndicates of
railway companies (a product of free agreement) succeeding in protecting
their small companies against big ones, we are astonished at the
intrinsic force of free agreement that can hold its own against
all-powerful Capital favoured by the State.

It is a fact that little companies exist, in spite of the State's
partiality. If in France, land of centralization, we only see five or
six large companies, there are more than a hundred and ten in Great
Britain who agree remarkably well, and who are certainly better
organized for the rapid transit of travellers and goods than the French
and German companies.

Moreover, that is not the question. Large Capital, favoured by the
State, can always, _if it be to its advantage_, crush the lesser one.
What is of importance to us is this: The agreement between hundreds of
capitalist companies to whom the railways of Europe belong, _was
established without intervention of a central government_ to lay down
the law to the divers societies; it has subsisted by means of congresses
composed of delegates, who discuss among themselves, and submit
_proposals_, not _laws_, to their constituents. It is a new principle
that differs completely from all governmental principle, monarchical or
republican, absolute or parliamentarian. It is an innovation that has
been timidly introduced into the customs of Europe, but has come to
stay.

III

How often have we not read in the writings of State-loving Socialists:
"Who, then, will undertake the regulation of canal traffic in the
future society? Should it enter the mind of one of your Anarchist
'comrades' to put his barge across a canal and obstruct thousands of
boats, who will force him to reason?"

Let us confess the supposition to be somewhat fanciful. Still, it might
be said, for instance: "Should a certain commune, or a group of
communes, want to make their barges pass before others, they might
perhaps block the canal in order to carry stones, while wheat, needed in
another commune, would have to stand by. Who, then, would regulate the
traffic if not the Government?"

But real life has again demonstrated that Government can be very well
dispensed with here as elsewhere. Free agreement, free organization,
replace that noxious and