5. But the most striking feature of recent economic history is the continuation of the movement which began with the industrial revolution. Through this process the small producer was superseded by the capitalist, the smaller capitalist by the larger. And now the single capitalist is being absorbed by the company, an increasing proportion of the world’s business being so vast that only a great company can provide the requisite capital and organisation; whilst in the large companies, in case they cannot drive each other out of the field, there is a marked tendency to bring about a fusion of interests. In all this we see a great constructive process going on as the result of the inherent laws of industrial development. The movement is active in our own country; but it is far surpassed in magnitude and activity by similar phenomena in the United States of America, where it is favoured by special circumstances. Under the protective system the economic development of America has proceeded without being disturbed by the industrial power of England. It is a self-contained and self-sufficing continent with a vast area and enormous natural resources. The people have not such a wide variety of political, social, literary, and artistic interests as have the ruling classes of England, and have therefore been all the more keenly engaged in the exploitation of the new world that lay open to them. Capitalism in America has shown an energy, acuteness, and fertility of resource which even in England are unparalleled. But in the various departments of industry the chiefs have found that competition may be suicidal and mutually destructive, and have therefore seen it expedient to arrange with each other for the regulation of production, of prices and wages. Hence the trusts, or great combinations of capitalists, which now confront American society and the American Republic, and which, as the latest development of capitalism, are well calculated to excite scientific curiosity in every country. The trust system is, however, by no means confined to America. A like organisation under the name of cartels or syndicates is, in proportion to the size of the country, almost equally strong in Germany. In forms more or less open and undisguised it is spreading in England, Austria, and other lands. It may be regarded as an inevitable stage in the natural history of capitalism.