IX. MONOPOLIES AND COMPETITION IN OTHER INDUSTRIES.

money or owns property is a potential competitor, in that he can be made to lend his capital for great enough inducements. Under the pressure of this competition, the price for the use of capital—the rate of interest—has steadily fallen; and the enormous production of wealth of which our industrial resources are now capable is such that the fall is certain to continue, and a very few years will see loans at 2 per cent. as common as those at 4 per cent. are to-day. Combination to restrict competition among those who loan capital for investment is an utter impossibility. The number of people with money to loan, or with property on which they can raise money for that purpose, if they wish, is too large a proportion of the population to be ever brought into a combination to restrict competition. The stringency which sometimes occurs in the money market need not be cited as a contradiction of this statement. That is a matter which has only to do with the currency. The broad fact, and it is a most important one, is that capital, a necessary agent of production, can never be monopolized.