“That on the first day of May next, and until otherwise ordered, the market price of milk produced from meadow hay and sound cereals be 2¹⁄₂ cents per quart, and that produced from brewers’ grains and glucose and corn starch refuse be 2 cents per quart.”[64] A representative of the Sheep and Lamb Butchers’ Mutual Benefit Association testified that the members of that body agreed that they would only buy sheep and calves from the Sheep Brokers’ Association, a penalty for violation of this rule being imposed at the rate of 15 cents a head per sheep or calf. The absolute despotism, and the system of espionage involved in such regulation is obvious. Here is a copy of a document issued by this body: “New York, January 9, 1888. Permission has been granted by the board of trustees of this association to Simon Strauss to buy sheep and lambs in New York markets, providing he buys no sheep and lambs from outsiders, under penalty of 15 cents per head fine. Richard S. Tobin, Secretary.”[65] Occasionally the Association relaxed. On November 5th, 1887, according to its minutes, “The application of John Healey, No. 2, to be granted the privilege of buying a few sheep and lambs without the 15 cents being charged to the brokers, was favorably acted upon.” This is not a record of Bagdad under the caliphs, but of the Republican State of New York! The threatened despotism of Socialism has been often eloquently dwelt on; but what of the actual despotism of to-day? Now what does this examination of trusts show? That, granted private property in the raw material out of which wealth is created on a huge scale by the new inventions which science has placed in our hands, the ultimate effect must be the destruction of that very freedom which the modern democratic State posits as its first principle. Liberty to trade, liberty to exchange products, liberty to buy where one pleases, liberty to transport one’s goods at the same rate and on the same terms enjoyed by others, subjection to no _imperium in imperio_: these surely are all fundamental democratic principles. Yet by monopolies every one of them is either limited or denied. Thus capitalism is apparently inconsistent with democracy as hitherto understood. The development of capitalism and that of democracy cannot proceed without check on parallel lines. Rather are they comparable to two trains approaching each other from different directions on the same line. Collision between the opposing forces seems inevitable.