Complete statistics of corporate organizations and investments in this country are not attainable. The following, from official sources, may give some imperfect idea of them:

The number of national banks reported by the Comptroller of the Currency as doing business in 1886 was 2,852; their total capital stock was something over $548,000,000; their total circulation, $228,800,000; their deposits, $1,191,700,000; total surplus fund, $157,300,000; their other liabilities, $387,800,000.

Poor's Railroad Manual for 1886 gives detailed statistics of American railroads, showing aggregates as follows:

Total number of railroad companies

in the United States,

Tonnage moved in 1885,

1,827 437,040,099 $3,817,697,832

3,765,727,066

269,493,931

189,426,035

77,762,105

The following official figures, from the Secretary of State's office, of Illinois, exemplify the rate at which new corporations were formed in that State during the year 1886,—or, to speak more accurately, they show the number, classification and proposed capital stock of the new corporations, authority for organizing which was applied for and granted under the general law during that year. It by no means follows that the amount of capital stock stated in the certificate and authorized by the license issued by the Secretary of State, was in the case of each corporation, or perhaps any of them, actually paid up, or even that all of it had been subscribed. But for our present purpose these figures are interesting and significant :

Total number of companies incorpo

rated in 1886,

Companies not for profit,

Companies for profit,

Total capital stock (authorized),

In the latest official report of the Insurance Department of the State of Missouri, the following summary is given of the insurance business done by corporations in that State during the year 1886:

Life Companies (home and foreign),
Total assets of same,

Premiums taken in Missouri in 1886,
Claims paid in Missouri in 1886,

All Companies other than Life (home
and foreign),

26

$493,157,366

1,772,160

851,011

192

Total income during 1886,

68,184,013

Total losses paid during 1886,

Premiums received in Missouri in

1886, .

$4,522,136

Losses paid in Missouri in 1886,

2,460,476

Total assets, December 31, 1886, . $211,422,190

Such figures tend to confirm an estimate recently made by a writer of authority, from whom I quote (The Growth of Corporations, by Dr. R. T. Ely; Harper's Monthly, June, 1887):

"It may be safely said that when we add [to figures already given for national banks and railroads] the capital of manufacturing corporations, mines, insurance, telegraph, telephone and gas-light companies, canals, street-car corporations, steamship companies, land-owning corporations and syndicates, and the various other classes of corporations, it will be found that it is within the bounds of moderation to estimate the wealth of corporations as one-fourth of the total value of all property in the United States. The most significant fact, however, is the rapidly increasing proportion of all the resources of the country which belongs to corporations. *** Another authority has estimated that the wealth of corporations of the United States is increasing three or four times as rapidly as those of private concerns.'

In the light of such statements, it is of peculiar interest to recall the views expressed more than a century ago by Adam Smith, in his celebrated essay on "The Wealth of Nations," in reference to joint stock companies, by which he meant business corporations such as we are considering; for when that author speaks of corporations (Oxford ed. 1869, vol. I, pp. 125-36; II, p. 44), as he does in terms of severe denunciation, he refers to the ancient incorporated trades, which possessed exclusive privileges, and enforced stringent regulations in favor of their own members, jealously limiting the number of apprentices and workmen in their respective trades.

As to joint stock companies, he maintained (Ib., vol. II, pp. 325-43; book V, ch. I, art. I) that since the directors of such companies are managers rather of other people's money than their own, it cannot be expected that they should watch over it with the same anxious vigilance which usually characterizes private copartners; that it seems contrary to all experience that a joint stock company should successfully compete for foreign trade against private adventurers; that manufacturing corporations scarce ever fail to do more harm than good; that the only trades which it seemed possible for a joint stock company to carry on successfully were those. whose operations could all be reduced to a uniform method:

which, he thought, were limited to four, namely, banking, insurance, navigable canals, and supplying water to a great city; and that (vol. II, p. 342)—

"To render the establishment of a joint stock company perfectly reasonable, with the circumstance of being reducible to strict rule and method, two other circumstances ought to concur. First, it ought to appear with the clearest evidence, that the undertaking is of greater and more general utility than the greater part of common trades; and secondly, that it requires a greater capital than can easily be collected into a private copartnery. If a moderate capital was sufficient, the mere utility of the undertaking would not be a sufficient reason for establishing a joint stock company, because in this case the demand for what it would produce would be readily and easily supplied by private adventurers. In the four trades above mentioned, both those circumstances concur."

It should be remembered that these views related to the question of the general utility of such organizations to the community; how far they contribute to or secure the permanent welfare of the many, rather than the enrichment of the few,—which, I take it, is the test of all wholesome legislation. It may also be observed, that banking and insurance, the two principal trades for carrying on which Adam Smith thought joint stock companies expedient, because their operations are "reducible to strict rule and method," are precisely those the prosecution of which, unless restricted by stringent laws and precautions against fraud, dishonesty and recklessness, has produced the greatest commercial disasters, notably in our own country. It does not follow that the general maxims or principles of business and legislation which Adam Smith announced were unsound because he may have erred in their application. Indeed, since the Wealth of Nations was published, in 1776, the progress of science and the triumphs of invention have completely revolutionized the conditions and methods, not only of commerce, but of almost all, and especially of manufacturing, industries. As Dr.

Ely remarks, "The word 'manufacturer,' in Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, did not mean a great proprietor, but a man who worked with his own hands,-an humble artisan." His three requisites of a joint stock company,-that the business to be carried on shall be of great and general utility, its operations reducible to strict rule and method, and requiring capital beyond that of ordinary partnerships,-are they not as completely fulfilled by the railway, the ocean steamer, the telegraph line, the cotton mill, the Bessemer rail mill, not one of which was dreamed of when he wrote, as by a bank or a canal company? Except the telegraph, these industrial Titans of our day are the progeny of Steam, of whose future triumphs the well-known lines in Erasmus Darwin's Botanical Garden, published in 1791, a year after Adam Smith died, were still but a bold prediction:

"Soon shall thine arm, unconquered Steam, afar
Drag the slow barge, or drive the rapid car."

Bold as it was, how far beyond the utmost vision of the poet, or the imagination of the scientist, is its fulfilment! Years were yet to elapse before the labors of Watt, supplemented by those of Fulton, of Robert Stephenson, of Eli Whitney, of Arkwright, and of a host of later inventors, should transmute that glowing vision into sober reality. Today, on land and sea, we behold the mighty forces of Nature harnessed for the service of mankind, under the guidance of ever progressing Science, until the dreams of medieval magic, even the fables of the Arabian Nights, are less marvelous, save that it has become so familiar, than the work daily performed by those instruments of modern civilization for the welfare and comfort of the humblest citizen.

But the successful use of such instruments, on a great scale, requiring the constant and disciplined service of many thousands of operatives, large numbers of them skilled in their callings, implies not only enormous aggregate capital, but also complete organization, strict method, and permanent