The present century has seen three great economic wonders accomplished: the invention of labor-saving machinery, greatly multiplying the efficiency of labor in every art and trade; the application of steam power to the propulsion of that machinery; and the extension over all civilized lands of a network of railway lines, furnishing a rapid, safe, and miraculously cheap means of transportation to every part of the civilized world. In order to realize the greatest benefit from these devices, it has become necessary to concentrate our manufacturing operations in enormous factories; to collect under one roof a thousand workmen, increase their efficiency tenfold by the use of modern machinery, and distribute the products of their labor to the markets of the civilized world. The agency which has acted to bring about this result is competition. The large workshops were able to make goods so much cheaper than the small workshops that the latter disappeared. Then one by one the large workshops were built up into factories, or were shut up because the factories could make goods at less cost. So the growth has gone on, and each advance in carrying on production on a larger scale has resulted in lessening the cost of the finished goods. Competition, too, which at first was merely an unseen force among the scattered workshops, is now a fierce rivalry; each great firm strives for the lion's share of the market. Under these conditions it is quite natural that attempts should be made to check the reduction of profits by some form of agreement to limit competition. Many plans have been tried which attempted to effect this by mere agreements and contracts, methods which left each property to the control of its special owners; but none have been permanently successful. By the trust plan of combination, the properties are practically consolidated; and the failure of the combination through withdrawal of its members is avoided. It offers to manufacturers, close crowded by competition, a means of swelling their profits and ensuring against loss; and encouraged by the phenomenal success of the Standard Oil combination, they have not been slow to accept it.