Monopoly Is Insolent

The threat of the Carnegie Armor Plate trust to shut down its vorks unless the government shall come to its terrus promises to be productive of good in several ways, says the New York Journal. The trust rcfuses to make armor plato at the máximum price fixed by congress, $300 a ton, at which a large profit can be earned. lts deniand for armoring the Illinois, Alabama and Wisconsin, now under construction, if granted, would put about $2,000,000 more into the trust's pocket than the congressional maximum would yield. The Carnegie combine has, it is afflrmed, supplied foreign governments vith armor at $150 a ton. It has drawn immense sums from the United States treasury for its products, iucluding plates honeycombed with blowholes, the location of which is known to the European powers with whose navies it is always possiblewe mayhave fighting to do. The trust is standing off, and by its threat of closing the milis in effect asks the government, What aro you going to do about it? The answer of Secretary of tho Navy Long is the recoinmendation to congress that it raise the maximum to $400 a ton. He argües that tho cost of keeping the unfmished warships in the stocks would aruount to more than the cost of surrendering to the trust. Senator Chandler of New Hampshire, former secretary of the navy, displays a different spirit. It is aunounced from Washington that he will introduce a bilí providing that tho government shall immediately take possession of the Carnegie and Bethlehem steel plante, run them until enough armor for the three incomplete battleships is supplied and then turn the works back to their rapacioüs owiiers, leaving the tiust to go into the court of claims for its damages. It is mortifying that the government of the United States should be made wholly dependent upon a manufacturing monopoly for armor for its warships - a monopoly which has derived from that government the wealth which gives it the courage to be insolent It would serve the trust right, of course, were Senator Chandler's bilí to become a law; it would serve the trust right were its works to be conflscated without compensation. Were war threatened and the unfinished ships needed for national defense and the companies maintained their present attitude, it would serve the managers of the trust right should they be dealt with as traitors. But business is business, after alL The government having created a monopoly, it is not surprising that the monopoly should act after its kind. Were there extreme need for the irnniediate armoring of the Illinois, Alabama and Wisconsin, all other considerations would give way to national need and the seizure of the works be politie as well as just. However, desirable as it is to strengtben our uavy without needless delay, there is no urgent necessity for the bold course proposed by Senator Chandler. The lesson of the situation is that the government should cease as soon as practicable to be dependent upon private persons for armor. The government should build and annor all its own ships.. It is rich enough to do it, and thero is no good reason why it should not. However impudent and greedy the Carnegie trust may be, it appears to us that it keeps within its legal rights when it agrees to supply armor or refuses to sapply armor at its pleasure if it is bouud by no contrary contract. The trusts which control the necessaries and comforts of life contiuually and on system hold up the people as the Carnegie trust is now holding up the government. The experience will do the goveriiment no bami, uud it is gratifying to reflect that in the end it will do the trusts uo good. Every exposure of their uiothoda hastcus the day of their suppressiou.