Mr. Wickson stated that another feature of the influence of the trade upon the manufacture is seen in the enormous increase in the amounts produced, and it is fortunate that the trade affords indications also that the profitable demand will be continued. According to a common theory of political economy the supply had been constantly endeavoring to meet the demand, and still the supply is unfilled. While cheese has continued to gain profitable prices, other specialties in agriculture have fallen and risen again several times, and there is every reason to expect a maintenance of profitable prices. Professor Cairnes draws from his study of market prices the conclusion that agricultural products of vegetable origin are subject to sudden and considerable fluctuations, while the commodities of animal origin rarely rise rapidly, but when an advance is established it is commonly held for a long time. He illustrates by instancing butchers' meat in England, which has shown the most marked advance in price, and states that there seems not the slightest probability it will ever return to the price at which it was sold twenty years ago. So long as butchers' meat is beyond the reach of the English laborer, as it is now, American cheese will meet with profitable sale in England. The lesson which the trades reflect upon the manufacture is that the signs are for an endurance of the prosperity of the dairy industry, and this is an important consideration in view of the fact that the industry finds its productive power increasing each succeeding year.

The speaker next treated at some length the improved methods of marketing which have been devised by the dairymen, tracing the steps from the old-fashioned sale in the fall at the factory, to the recent Board of Trade plan, and claiming that the development in the trade has been as marked as in the manufacture. The Board of Trade plan was discussed at length, and it was shown to be the natural outgrowth of culminating conditions and worthy of wide support by producers.

The speaker urged the improvement of the county boards of trade by the adoption of more approved methods of sale.

Mr. Wickson passed then to another branch of his subject, the probable commercial effects of the tendency toward novelties in manufacture. The production of creamery butter has proved exceptionally remunerative, and the demand for this delicious material grows faster than the supply. The improvement which has been

attained in the handling of skim milk, until the cheese made from it gains a price just below the very finest full cream, bids fair to exert a marked influence upon the manufacture. It is profitable to make creamery butter and the best grades of skimmed cheese, and there is now a wide disposition to try the experiment. If skillfully handled it will pay better than full milk cheese, except in the case of the few fancy factories which can return to patrons a large average price per pound for milk during the season. The speaker illustrated by reference to the results gained by the Freeman method, and by the old style of creameries. In reviewing the whole field, the speaker closed with the opinion that the dairy future is full of promise, but that its progress and development call for similar advance in the general understanding of the commercial influences which bear upon it.

The attention of our northwestern farmers is called to these valuable items of information gleaned upon the dairy business, with the hope that many who have felt the hardships of raising grain under the present expensive system of transportation, will be encouraged to follow the example of the thrify farmers of New England and New York who are enjoying the benefits of steady and remunerative markets for the production of their dairies.

Western farmers ought not to rest under the standing imputation of inferiority. Boston and New York quotations for butter and cheese during the present month of February, while the butter market is unusually depressed, are in excess of Wisconsin and Minnesota prices to an amount equivalent to ten times the cost of freight on butter, and five times the cost of freight on cheese. Butter sales in Boston on the 16th inst. are reported at 35 to 40 cents for choice New York and Vermont dairies, which prices are also paid by buyers at the farmer's door for choice lots; and 25 to 35 cents for common to good; and, then, with the usual slur on western slovenliness and carelessness, the quotations wind up with these words: "Western butter at 20 to 31 cents." Factory-cheese sales in New York on the 16th inst., ranged from 16 to 17 cents. It costs less to make a large quantity of good butter that will sell for 40 cents than a small quantity of miserable grease that brings only 21 cents. And with the improved stock used by first-class dairymen come other benefits than those of good prices for cheese; as the beef commands $7 to $8.50 for second quality; $8.50 to $9.50 for

first quality; and $9.50 to $10.75 for extra and choice, in Boston, according to quotations of 16th inst.; while on the same day in Boston the third quality of beef, which probably costs more per pound than the better qualities, sold for only $5 to $6.

MISCELLANEOUS ADDRESSES.

MONOPOLIES IN THEIR RELATION TO THE INDUSTRIAL INTERESTS OF THE COUNTRY.

BY HON. GEO. B. SMITH, MADISON.

[An address delivered at Janesville, Wis., October 2, 1874, before the Southern Wisconsin Agricultural Society.]

Mr. President and Fellow-Citizens:

In accepting the invitation of your committee to deliver an address on this occasion, I named as my subject, " Monopolies in their relation to the industrial interests of the country." That subject I will now discuss as well as I can within the narrow limits to which I am circumscribed on an occasion like this. I did not choose this subject because I felt fully competent to master it, nor did I seek this time of public excitement in relation to some of its phases, in order to pronounce what might be regarded as a popular address. In what I have to say, therefore, I shall give you the result of the best reflection I have been able to give the subject, without any reference to popular prejudice.

Civil government is to be considered "in no other light than as an association of men for the protection and preservation of good order; a good order which is to be purchased by yielding up in some degree the liberty of self-control, but which yields or should yield in return the advantages of secured liberty and property, and of the tranquil discharge of all acts and purposes essential or convenient to human happiness. Viewed in this light, civil government is an institution established for the happiness and advancement of the governed, and not in any degree for the advantage and aggrandize

ment of those who govern." It will be necessary to keep this idea in constant remembrance as we proceed in what we have to say, because monopolies are not unfrequently the creation of government. The very word signifies special and peculiar privileges, whether granted by government or assumed or usurped by individuals. When monopoly rights are granted to individuals or corporations, it is not alone for the benefit and advantage of those to whom the grant is made, but all such special privileges or monopoly rights are, or should be granted for the happiness and advantage of the public and not solely or mainly for the advantage and aggrandizement of those to whom the monopoly is granted.

The word monopoly has various significations.

(1.) "It is defined as the abuse of free commerce by which one or more individuals have procured the advantage of selling alone all of a particular kind of merchandise to the detriment of the public." (2.) "All combinations among merchants to raise the price of merchandise to the injury of the public,"

(3.) "A monopoly is also an institution or allowance by a grant from the sovereign power of a state, by commission, letters patent, or otherwise, to any person or corporation by which the exclusive right, of buying, selling, making, working, or using of anything is given."

The last definition more nearly describes monopolies as they exist in this country by legislation or as the result of legislation, and especially what is called the monopoly of the carrying trade, although in this state no person or corporation can be invested with the exclusive right of buying, selling, making or raising anything. And under our amended constitution and the laws passed in pursuance of it, every body is free to organize a corporation to carry on any legitimate business whatever, and if organized to build a railroad, the state has invested such corporation with the power of eminent domain which enables the company to take and use private property, because it is in such case declared to be for the public This is one instance where for the purpose of establishing a civil government it is necessary that individuals should in some degree give up their private, and we may add, their natural right of absolute control over their own property, for the public good and in part compensation for the protection which Government extends to the individual. Although everybody may have a right to build

use.