the sea fell in the scale of the rich class, especially as the time came when foreign shipping largely supplanted the trade hitherto carried in American cutters. Other shippers who applied their surplus capital to investments in other forms of trade and ownership advanced rapidly in wealth.
CITY LAND THE SUPREME FACTOR.
Between land ownership and other forms, however, there was a great difference. Trade was then extremely individualistic; the artificial controlling power called the corporation was in its earliest infantile condition. The heirs of the owner of sixty line of sail might not possess the same astuteness, the same knowledge, adroitness, and cunning—or let us say, unscrupulousness—the same severe application as the founder. Consequently the business would decay or fall into the hands of others shrewder or more fortunate. As to factories the condition was somewhat the same; and, after the organization of labor unions the possibility of strikes was an ever-present danger to the constant flow of profits. Banks were by no means fixed, unchangeable establishments. Like other media of profit-making, the extent of their power and profits depended upon prevailing conditions and very largely upon the favoritism or policy of Government. At any time the party controlling government functions might change and a radically different policy in banking, tariff or other laws be put in force.
These changing laws did not, it is true, vitally benefit the masses of the people, for one set or other of the propertied interests almost invariably benefited. The laws enacted were usually in response to a demand made by contending propertied interests. The trade and political struggles carried on by the commercial interests were a series of incessant wars, in which every individual owner, firm or combination was fiercely resisting competitors or striving for their overthrow.