The author has proposed for the first class of monopolies--those obtaining the benefit of natural agents and public franchises--government ownership of fixed capital and regulation of prices, with private operation and general management. But he is far from believing that such a plan would now be wise for regulating trusts. It may indeed be that, at some time in the future, many of the great staple manufactures will be formally established by the government as monopolies, and controlled in a similar way to that which we have outlined for the railway system; but it is so far in the future that we need not consider it in detail now. Under our present political organization it would be practically impossible for the government to undertake to regulate justly and equitably such an industry, for instance, as the steel-rail manufacture. We have set our State, national, and municipal governments a hard enough task in the preceding pages of this chapter, in bringing under public control our monopolies of transportation and communication and our productive mines; and although it is a work possible of accomplishment, it will need good statesmanship to carry it out. By the time that task is accomplished, a similar plan, improved as experience will then suggest, may perhaps be found available for the regulation of the important manufacturing industries. We decide, then, that it is for the public advantage at present that both the ownership and operation of manufacturing industries and of trade must remain in private hands. The next question is, will the greatest advantage to the public be secured by starting a crusade to re-establish competition and break up all existing monopolies in manufacturing and trade; or by taking the opposite course, legalizing monopolies and so regulating them by law that they shall be prevented from making undue profits by laying an exorbitant tax upon the public? Practically all the efforts made or proposed thus far for remedying the evils of monopolies in manufacturing and trade have had for their purpose the re-establishment of competition. The investigation to which the first part of this book was devoted shows the wide extent of the movement to restrict competition. Is it possible to wholly counteract this? All our study of the laws of competition seems to show that the tendency of modern competition is to destroy itself by its own intensity. Certainly all the strenuous efforts to keep it alive by the force of legal enactment and public opinion have thus far proved unavailing. There are now, probably, at least a million persons in the United States who are directly or indirectly interested in unlawful contracts in restraint of competition; and among them are included many of the best financiers and most enterprising business men of the country. Certainly those who propose to drive these men into a renewal of competitive strife contrary to their will have set themselves a very difficult task.