Principles of western civilisation

418 WESTERN CIVILISATION CHAP.

assertion of the sufficiency of the economic process, not only to right itself, but to serve the best interests of society in obedience to its own inherent tendencies in a state of uncontrolled competition. Here also, as in the history of these relations, we see being deveioped for a time a large body of authoritative economic doctrine defending and inculcating the prevailing conception of free competition. As the tendency in industry and commerce towards the combination and concentration of the concerns engaged develops, we see the failure of the first ambitious attempts of large combinations of capital, that have aimed in the direction of monopoly, complacently emphasised as proof of the assertion that the difficulties in the way of reaching the stage of monopoly were to be considered insurmountable. But we see the attempts themselves continuing to be made ; growing the while bolder, more far-reaching, and more successful, and gradually bringing into clear relief the inherent natural principle which they involve. The growing tendency of such organisations to cross international boundaries, and to draw together with the avowed aim of attaining to monopoly, and of extracting from the resulting conditions profits altogether exceeding the remuneration of social service or of efficiency, becomes gradually more marked. As we approach the time in which we are living, the tendency becomes visible, not only in the large cities, but in the smallest towns, for all the great avenues through which the general wants of the world are supplied to be controlled by a_ limited number of large organisations tending to further concentration of their growing powers and resources.

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