The files of the _Northwich Guardian_ at this period chronicle the development of a state of affairs which must be almost without parallel in any other trade. During 1883 the violent competition continued, resulting in heavy loss, the closing of many works, and a large increase in bankruptcies. In 1884, the _Guardian_ declared that “the battle is fast becoming a war of giants.... Capital is showing itself, almost everywhere, a remorseless Juggernaut, crushing thousands of victims beneath its ponderous wheels.” In that year a proposal to form the trade into one huge company was frustrated by the bitterness of internal jealousies. Further attempts to bring all the salt proprietors into a combination for mutual protection and profit were made and abandoned from the same cause. “It is easy to make laws and regulations and to carry them out successfully when men are governed by the ordinary laws of business and common sense,” commented the _Guardian_ in 1886, “but when sentiment or passion is allowed to interfere, it is impossible either to make sensible laws or carry them out successfully when made.” In March, 1888, we read that “the great struggle for mastery still goes on”; in April, “the process of exhaustion is not yet complete,” and the deplorable state of the salt trade was attributed to “a few men who seem to have made more money than they know what to do with, and are spending it in seeing what amount of injury they can do to each other, and as a necessary consequence to numbers of others who are innocent of offence.” In May, a correspondent of the same journal deplored the material damage the trade was suffering through the perversity and selfishness of the salt proprietors, and he came to the conclusion that their object was “not really to do business but to kill one another out.” “Is there more morality,” he asked, “in the man of means starving out the man without means by selling, below cost of make, than there would be in stopping him on the highway and picking his pocket?... When the intention in the two cases is the same--the plunder or ruin of the opponent--how can the morality differ? It does seem a most grievous thing that when the greater number in the trade are anxious to do business at a profit to themselves ... they should be prevented because a few--a very few--should think only of themselves, and care nothing for the sufferings of others, and carry on the fight to the bitter end, causing enormous suffering and distress....” “We can see very clearly,” he concluded, “that if something is not done shortly to bring about a better state of affairs, some defensive action must be taken by those firms outside the present strife which will result in no good to the parties now responsible for the mischief.”