The day of individual competition in large affairs is past and gone--you might just as well argue that we should go back to hand labour and throw away our efficient machines--and the sober good sense of the people will accept this fact when they have studied and tried it out.

Just see how the list of stockholders in the great corporations is increasing by leaps and bounds.

This means that all these people are becoming partners in great businesses.

It is a good thing--it will bring a feeling of increased responsibility to the managers of the corporations and will make the people who have their interests involved study the facts impartially before condemning or attacking them.
On this subject of industrial combinations I have often expressed my opinions; and, as I have not changed my mind, I am not averse to repeating them now, especially as the subject seems again to be so much in the public eye.
The chief advantages from industrial combinations are those which can be derived from a cooeperation of persons and aggregation of capital.
Much that one man cannot do alone two can do together, and once admit the fact that cooeperation, or, what is the same thing, combination, is necessary on a small scale, the limit depends solely upon the necessities of business.

Two persons in partnership may be a sufficiently large combination for a small business, but if the business grows or can be made to grow, more persons and more capital must be taken in.