The facts we have stated make it impossible for the greater monopolies to defend themselves, on the ground that their profits inure to the benefit of any great number of people. But this is not an innocuous state of affairs. It is one of serious injustice and evil. The workman who struggles hard to save a hundred dollars a year can receive only a paltry three dollars and a half of interest or less, if he deposits it in a saving-bank. But the capitalist who is clearing a hundred thousand a year may make twice or thrice that interest from his investments. In short, the charge is: That monopoly and intense competition, with the variation in price which they cause, have shut out the small capitalists of the country from the ownership of the most profitable sorts of property; and by confining them to other lines, have decreased their possible income from their investments.
A further evil resulting from the congestion of wealth is what is commonly spoken of as over-production. We are confronted of late years with the strange spectacle of factories and mills shut down for months at a time, of markets which, at various times, are glutted with every sort of commodity. All sorts of causes are given; all sorts of remedies are suggested and tried. Where is the true one? With the exception of a few special cases, the fault is not that there are no people who want the goods. Probably ninety-nine families out of every hundred would buy more if they had the money to buy with. In many cases the lack of money to buy with is due to the fact that the bread-winners are out of employment because of the glutted markets and idle mills. In this way the evil tends to perpetuate itself and grow worse. Now combine this fact with the fact that the holders of monopolies are in the receipt of incomes so great that, in many cases, they are quite unable to spend them. Also, that this income is largely locked up to wait the chance of profitable investment, or is used in speculation. Is it not obvious, now, that the