by the use of its facilities. So with the monopolies in trade. Brokers and jobbers and retail merchants form a channel through which trade is accustomed to pass, and through which it can pass more readily than by any new one.
It is to be noted that under modern conditions the power of middle-men has been greatly reduced from what it was formerly. As we have already seen, manufacturing was then carried on only in families and small workshops, and the mines which were worked were principally in the hands of the king. The merchants were the wealthy men of olden time. They controlled largely the transportation facilities of that day; and while, as we have already noted, the commerce which then existed was but a trifle compared with the present, the principal exchange being in local communities, yet the trade in all articles which were imported, and all domestic commerce between points any great distance apart was in the hands of the merchants.
It is natural, therefore, that we find monopolies in trade to have been among the first which existed and to have been of importance and power when manufacturers' trusts were not dreamed of. The guilds which flourished near the close of the Middle Ages, while not devoted to the establishment of a monopoly, did nevertheless aim, in some cases at least, to hinder competition from those outside their guild.
But turning to the present, let us examine the conditions under which competition in trade is checked to-day. Let us take, first, the case of retail trade in any of the thousands of country villages and petty trade centres in the land. The history of the life of the country store-keeper is a constant succession of combinations and agreements with his rivals, interleaved with periods of "running," when, in a fit of spite, he sells kerosene and sugar below cost, and, to make future prices seem consistent, marks down new calico as "shop-worn—for half price." It is true the sum involved in each case is a petty one, but when we consider