As regards the great combinations of capital, State action may take one of three courses. It may prohibit and dissolve them; it may tax and control them; or it may absorb and administer them. In either case the Socialist theory is _ipso facto_ admitted, for each is a confession that it is well to exercise a collective control over industrial capital. If the first of these courses is taken a distinctly retrogressive policy is definitely adopted, a policy of alarm at what Mr. Cleveland called the “communism of capital,” a policy of reversion to the chaos of “free competition,” and of cession of the undoubted benefits which combination has secured. Such a policy would signify the forcible prevention of acquisition of property, the very thing dearest to the Individualist. If the powers of acquisition, now evidently dependent on combination, are to be restricted, what becomes of the “incentive to industry,” the “reward of abstinence,” and all the rest of the worn out phrases which have so often done duty in the place of argument? If the syndicate or the trust represents the legitimate outcome of capitalism--if it is necessary to give order to trade and to prevent the ruinous waste of unrestricted competition, how absurd it is for the State to say to the capitalist: “You shall carry your privileges of acquisition just up to the point where competition is likely to ruin you; but there you shall stop. Immediately you and your friends combine to prevent waste, to regulate production and distribution, to apply new methods of manufacture, we shall absolutely prevent you or restrain you by vexatious regulations.” To which the capitalist may be supposed to reply: “I cannot fulfil my function in society at this serious risk. I shall never know security--never be even moderately sure of reaping that reward to which I am admittedly entitled. If you intend to fetter my action in this way after having proclaimed me free to own the raw material out of which wealth is made--if you compel me to stop at a purely arbitrary line, I must inform you that I am not going to undertake business on such terms.” Would not the capitalist say something like this; and from his point of view would he not be right?