of private war to the State, with the result that as States grow stronger and better organized, the war between them becomes fiercer and more destructive, so is it with the concentration of capital.  The small capitalist, seeking to avoid the strain of personal competition, amalgamates with others, and the competition between these masses of capital waxes every day fiercer.  We have no accurate data for measuring the diminution of the number of separate competitors which has attended the growing concentration of capital, but we know that the average magnitude of a successful business is continually increasing.  The following figures illustrate the meaning of this movement from the American cotton trade, which is not one of the industries most susceptible to the concentrative pressure.  “It will be seen that in 756 large establishments in 1880, in which the aggregate capital invested was five times as great as that in the 801 establishments in 1830, the capital invested per spindle was one-third less, the number of spindles operated by each labourer nearly three times as large, the product per spindle one-fourth greater, the product per dollar invested twice as large, the price of the cotton cloth nearly sixty per cent, less, the consumption per capita of the population over one hundred per cent greater, and the wages more than double.  What is true of this industry is true of all industries where the concentration of capital has taken place."[38]

It is needless to add that these large works are conducted, not by single owners, but in nearly all cases by the managers of associated capitals.  Regarded from the large standpoint of industrial development, all these phenomena denote a change in the sphere of competition.  From the competition of private capitals owned by individuals we have passed to the competition of associated capitals.  The question now arises, “Will not the same forces, which, in order to avoid the waste and destruction of ever keener competition, compelled the private capitalists to suspension of hostility and to combination, act upon the larger masses of associated capital?” The answer is already working itself clearly out in industrial history.  The concentrative adhesive forces are everywhere driving the competing masses of capital to seek safety, and escape waste and destruction, by welding themselves into still larger masses, renouncing the competition with one another in order to compete more successfully with other large bodies.  Thus, wherever these forces are in free operation, the number of competing firms is continually growing less; the surviving competitors have crushed or absorbed their weaker rivals, and have grown big by feeding on their carcases.