The machinery of modern business is so vast and complicated that great caution must be exercised in introducing radical changes for fear the unforeseen effects may take the shape of widespread disaster. Moreover, much that is complained about is not really the abuse so much as the inevitable development of our modern industrial life. We have moved far away from the old simple days when each community transacted almost all its work for itself and relied upon outsiders for but a fraction of the necessaries, and for not a very large portion even of the luxuries, of life. Very many of the anti-trust laws which have made their appearance on the statute books of recent years have been almost or absolutely ineffective because they have blinked the all-important fact that much of what they thought to do away with was incidental to modern industrial conditions, and could not be eliminated unless we were willing to turn back the wheels of modern progress by also eliminating the forces which had brought about these industrial conditions. Not only trusts, but the immense importance of machinery, the congestion of city life, the capacity to make large fortunes by speculative enterprises, and many other features of modern existence could be thoroughly changed by doing away with steam and electricity; but the most ardent denouncer of trusts would hesitate to advocate so drastic a remedy. What remains for us to do, as practical men, is to look the conditions squarely in the face and not to permit the emotional side of the question, which has its proper place, to blind us to the fact that there are other sides. We must set about finding out what the real abuses are, with their causes, and to what extent remedies can be applied.