Large combinations seem to us to be inevitable if we
are to have greater production and the efficiency which comes from standardization and the planning out of markets. A really important question, therefore, is whether inter-, national industrial Trusts would be used for a new kind of Protection, and to the disadvantage of consumers through the maintenance of prices at an artificial level— with possibly a simultaneous deterioration in quality— or whether there is some alternative beneficial use of great combinations which, as we have said, are inevitable in themselves. Readers of the Spectator may remember an article which we published several months ago pointing out the curious and steady movement towards Free Trade in Germany. Our hope is that the proposed combinations may be linked with this movement, and Mr. W. T. Layton, who wrote in the Daily Ncws of Wednesday, gives us reason to hope that this line of development is not only possible but probable.
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