much the interests of the mercantile classes and other classes are affected by fluctuations in value. Fortunes are made or lost by the rise or fall in price of a commodity of which a merchant may have a large supply. But the merchant is affected not only by the price of articles in his possession, but by the price of articles in the possession of others. He owes a large number of people and a large number of people owe him. His ability to pay depends upon the prices which his customers receive for the produce or goods they have in their possession. Hence there is hardly a fluctuation in the price of any article whatsoever that does not influence to some extent the prosperity of the mercantile classes at large, in addition to the particular influence it may exert upon the fortunes of a particular individual.

"In society as we see it today, not only each man is dependent upon other men, but each class of men upon all other classes, and whatever injures one class of the community effects upon all other classes a like injury. The interests of each are bound up in the interests of all, and the interest of all is bound up in the interest of each."

2. There are two qualities which principally fit any commodity for speculation: First, frequency in the change of its price, and secondly, the extent of that charge; it being obvious that alternation-a fall as well as a riseis necessary to the purpose of the speculator, and the extreme of prices is that which he will chiefly look to or in which he will seek his gain.

3. The price of a commodity depends upon supply and demand. When the demand is greater than the supply the price of the commodity rises, and when the supply is greater than the demand the price falls. Speculation, therefore, is in fact merely an exception in business arising out of the derangement of trade or impossibility of adjusting the supply to the demand, yet so far useful to, or coming in aid of trade, as it has a tendency to produce readjustment; to prevent extremes in price, as well that which is ruinously low as that which is excessive; and to prevent dearth or famine. For if a person buys when prices are low, this has a tendency to raise the price;

as when he brings out a store, and sells when prices are high, it has to lower it.

4. Nerve Is Necessary to Success.-To be a good merchant or speculator, as to be a good general, nerve is necessary, and the one as well as the other must often act in the face of appearances. He must believe that the sun will always rise again after it sets and always act contrary to what the generality of men believe to be good judgment. He must buy when no other person will buy and sell when no other person will sell.

"Trade is steady and uniform," and can be carried on at all times; speculation, on the other hand, only occa sionally, or when opportunity offers. There is, therefore, a peculiar certainty which belongs to the former which does not belong to the latter, and this certainly is the certainty of employment or the scope for it. The time also required to make a speculation is not to be forgotten, during which it may be conceived money will often be made in the regular course of trade. Yet, without doubt, occasionally very large sums are made by opportunities which it requires but a very ordinary share of sagacity to take advantage of.

If a person be inclined to make speculation a business, it would be best to invest only part of his capital in any one commodity, so to have many speculations afloat at the same time, different in their stages-some, if possible, always commencing, and others falling in or terminating. By these means it may be brought more nearly to the nature of a regular trade, in which not only is a person's whole capital with some certainty engaged, but an average established, rendering it more uniform and safe. And so considered, it matters not to a speculator whether prices fall or rise. When they fall he is to buy, when they rise, he is to sell. His only difficulty, when they stand still. Nor is this to be confounded with wholesale trade strictly understood, which is a different thing, and consists in supplying set customers for a regular profit.”

5. Successful Speculators and Merchants Must Be Students of Social Science.-"Without knowing it," says the

eminent scientist, Herbert Spencer, "men who look at the state of the money-market, glance over prices current, discuss the probable crops of corn, cotton, sugar, wool, silk, with the chances of war, and from all these data decide on their mercantile operations, are students of social science; empirical and blundering students, it may be, but still students, who gain the prizes or are plucked of their profits, according as they do or do not reach the right conclusion. Not only the manufacturer and the merchant must guide their transactions by calculations of supply and demand, based on numerous facts, and tacitly recognizing sundry general principles of social action; but even the retailer must do the like; his prosperity very greatly depending upon the correctness of his judgments respecting the future rates of consumption. Manifestly, all who take part in the entangled commercial activities of a community are virtually interested in understanding the laws according to which those activities vary."

The correctness of Mr. Spencer's position is forcibly illustrated in the following extract from The Science of Business: "These truths drawn from a wide class of business facts, are of value to each business man. The wholesale dealer, who has on hand a large stock of goods bought at constantly increasing prices, must see to it that, at the turn of affairs, he is not left with a supply on his hands for which there is no call, and on which he will be obliged to sacrifice. The retail dealer who invests his savings in a store, and stocks it with such articles as the laborers need, must, if he lives in a town whose principal industry is the iron trade, time his affairs to the fluctuations of the business. The speculator who, in the assurance born of ignorance, endeavors to bull the stock market during the years of depression, will see his profits melt slowly away; and even a rising market, the wise must remember, will not last forever. The manufacturer must intelligently foresee the trend of future events, or suffer the consequences of his ignorance. The clerk, the lawyer, the doctor and even the clergyman, are affected, both in their salaries and their fees, by the course of the business world."

TRUSTS AND MONOPOLIES

THE SHERMAN ANTI-TRUST LAW

Sections 1 and 2 of the anti-trust law approved July 2, 1890, and commonly called the "Sherman law," forbid combinations and monopolies in undue restraint of interstate or foreign trade and prescribes punishment by fine or imprisonment or both for any violation thereof. What constitutes an undue restraint of trade is a mooted question.

Illegal Combination in Restraint of Trade Defined.—In the case of the United States vs. The International Harvester Co., decided in favor of the Government by the U. S. District Court in Minnesota, August 12, 1914, it was held that "there is no limit under the American law to which a business may not independently grow, and even a combination of two or more businesses if it does not unreasonably restrain trade, is not illegal; but it is the combination which unreasonably restrains trade that is illegal.”

The Trusts which dominate the business world of to-day are the legitimate descendants of the old English monopolies.

Definition.-The old time monopolies were grants by the crown securing to one or more persons an exclusive right to carry on some particular branch of trade or manufacture, while the modern trusts are organizations formed by the combination of competing firms, which, independently of any grant of a sovereign or State, exert the right and power of controlling the entire business of the particular branch of trade or manufacture in which they are engaged.

History. In the sixteenth century the people of England complained of the extortions of the monopolies which had been