While, as The Times has it, “the natural trend of modern industry” is towards monopoly, and “individualism in economic life has been driven to the wall” that is not to say that the process is, or will ever be, complete, or that the capitalists themselves are all in favour of it. The small firms will fight hard to save themselves from being crushed out of existence. Their efforts are backed by certain influential groups and from time to time, here and in other countries, they succeed in getting governments to limit and control the process. Lord Beaverbrook’s Daily Express, for example, carries on a campaign both against the co-operatives societies and the combines :–

“Make the small trader secure, clip the claws of the Co-ops and the combines . . . Dig up cartels by the roots. Now is the time to end the international cartels . . . There can be no healthy growth where cartels flourish”. (Daily Express, 18 March, 1944).

It may be noticed in passing that the Daily Express does not accept the logical course of refusing to accept advertisements from the combines, justifying its attitude on the plea that it “does not allow any advertiser, big or little, to influence the news in the news columns.” (Daily Express, 12 May, 1944).

Moreover it is absurd for this newspaper with its 3,000,000 circulation and its control of other newspapers to talk of making the small trader secure. One consequence of the growth of the handful of mammoth newspaper groups was that between 1910 and 1928 the number of newspapers in the United Kingdom declined by 181, quite apart from the fact that many are now controlled by one or other of the big concerns. London now has three evening papers : it formerly had nine. (The British Press, Europa Publications, 1929. Pages 26 and 27).

In the United States at the moment international cartels to eliminate competition are in disfavour. The Assistant Attorney-General made the following declaration :–

“After the war America will join in foreign trade on a scale never before imagined, but she will have no business with any foreign cartels.” (Daily Express, 17 May, 1944).

It can however be foretold with certainty that when capitalism produces its inevitable next crisis and trade depression, if not before that happens, the urge to enter international cartels will arise once more. Of course there will be no smooth passage for cartels in the future any more than in the past. Rival groups backed by their governments will continue to fight against each other and even within the cartels the struggle will go on over the share of the world market that is to be allotted to each national group. It is, however, undeniable that the old defence of capitalism that it is a system which lives by and encourages competition no longer harmonises with the facts of the situation. In the words of The Times “private enterprise is now a misnomer.”