The Trust Has Some Good Points.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 4979, 11 April 1889, Page 3

The Trust Has Some Good Points.

The Dunedin Star's .American correspondent writes: — . Congress and nearly all the State Legistures are considering and maturing Bills for the suppression of trusts, syndicates, combines, pools, etc., the growth of which indicates that those taking partin them want to escape from competition and its results. For a hundred years the political economists have relied upon competition as a cure for all ills of the business world. They have felt so sure of competition audits validity that they have spoken of it with confidence, and call it the great natural law. If the present movement toward trusts and combines _is more than a temporary incident, it _ would, according to the political economists, be an attempt to set aside the law of Nature. There are some practical and good reasons for the existence of the trust that seem to justify them wore it not that back of them are concealed the bad, and worse still further back. For instance, when the Standard Oil Company took hold of the oil business, it was so inefficiently and wastefully carried on under competition that a gallon of oil cost ton and fifteen cents that now costs but two cents. Oil that was then wasted and lost is by the improved methods of the trust, saved for the use of mankind. The oil supply is limited, and it will bo exhausted one of these days. It is a cheap and useful light, and a blessing to multitudes of people. Now, if by the improved methods of the Standard Oil Combine, it can and does furnish a cheaper and bettor product than under competition, then to that extent mankind is hatter off by reason of the monopoly, fo, under the wasteful system of private ownership, the pine forests that should supply the American people for five hundred years are now being cut, slashed, and wasted, and will be utterly destroyed in fifty years. If there could be some system of careful supervision and production by which pine forests could be husbanded and preserved for future needs it would be wiser and better for everybody. The same is true of salt. The salt production of the country is hold by a close and strong that is strengthened and fostered by a tariff on imported salt. Yet salt never was so cheap nor so good as it is now.