Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 7.djvu/750

 718 Internal trade. Organisation of capital. [i890- than that of any other country of a similar degree of civilisation. This fact is also seen by reference to the statistics of traffic. The amount of grain consumed where it is grown is so great that the grain tonnage hauled, even by some of the so-called " Granger " railroads, is less than the tonnage of manufactures. There are more tons of manufactured goods hauled to the West than there are tons of grain hauled back. Of the total traffic of the railroads of the country the products of agriculture (exclusive of animal products) contributed in 1901 only 10*76 per cent., while manufactures contributed 13*75 per cent. A further illustration of the immensity of the home trade is seen in the fact that the tonnage of vessels passing through the Sault St Marie, between Lake Superior and Lake Michigan, in 1901, was as great as the total tonnage entered at United States ports from all foreign countries. The navigation of the great Lakes has increased with marvellous rapidity in the last few years ; and they now constitute the greatest inland waterway of the world. The industrial expansion which has been described above has been accompanied by, and is in some degree the result of, a widespread reorganisation of business control, which has brought to the fore the entirely new problem of capitalistic centralisation. The development in its present form has been so recent that the most careful investigators find themselves unprepared to speak with any confidence regarding its results. The movement seems to have had its inception during the reaction which followed the period of excessive speculative investment after the Civil War ; and the first of the new combinations, the Standard Oil Company, still remains the greatest in its power and solidity. Other combinations were formed at a comparatively early date, notably in the sugar and whiskey industries ; but the earlier "Trusts," though important, were few in number. With the upward movement of industry, however, which followed the depression of 1893-6, the movement toward com- bination went on with such startling rapidity that the public seemed likely to find every one of its articles of consumption under the control of a single organisation. In the financial centres there seemed to be an absolute mania for the reorganisation of competing companies on the new lines. In the single year 1899 the nominal capital of newly formed combinations reached a total of $3,500,000,000,000, of which, however, more than three-quarters represented the capital of the reorganised companies. In the following year the United States Steel Company was organised with a capital of $1,100,000,000, besides a bonded indebt- edness of $300,000,000. If a single corporation to control the vast iron and steel business of the country could be successfully established, there seemed indeed no limit to the process of consolidation. The fact that consolidation has followed periods of depression suggests the cause frequently assigned for it, namely, the necessity of escaping from a cut-throat competition which results from speculative and unguided investment. This was unquestionably an important