held for investment simply, it is when it is locked in the safe of some modern Crœsus.
We have shown now the extent to which the congestion of wealth has gone. We have shown that other men are poorer that these men may be richer. We have explained that these great fortunes have been made, not by legitimate enterprise, but largely by "lucky gambling." And finally we have seen how the transfer of each enterprise to the control of stock speculators adds it eventually to some already overgrown fortune. The connection with the subject of the present volume is obvious. The cotton-seed oil mills of the South, once held by private owners, are now in the hands of a trust whose certificates are quoted on the stock-exchanges, and are held only by men of large capital, or by stock gamblers. This is a typical example of the change which is everywhere occurring. Private enterprise gives way to the stock company, and that in turn gives way to the trust. The salient fact, then, we may express in similar terms to those of our first law of competition, as follows: The congestion of wealth tends to increase inversely with the number of competing units.