Such are the effects which Mr Webb fears from the process which has already put the control of the greater part of the banking facilities of England into the hands of five huge banks.  He thinks that these things may happen long before it is a question of an absolute monopoly in one hand.  A monopoly, he says, may be more or less complete, and the economic effects of monopoly may be produced to a greater or less degree at a point far below a complete monopolisation in a single hand.  There is much truth in this contention of his.  Amalgamation has now come to such a point that every new one not only brings absolute monopoly more closely in sight, but increases the ease with which agreements among the huge banks might suffice to produce the effects of monopoly without further amalgamations.  Mr Webb goes on to argue that it is impossible to stop by legislative prohibition or restriction the progress towards economic monopoly where such progress is financially advantageous to those concerned, and that the only remedy ultimately by which the community can be protected from the dangers which he sees threatening it is for the community to take the monopoly into its own hands, and so to get rid, not of the monopoly, which, from the standpoint of national organisation, he thinks is advantageous, but of the motives leading to extortion.  If, he says, “no shareholders are in control with their perpetual and insatiable desire for profit, there is no inducement to take advantage of the needs or helplessness of the customers by restricting service or raising prices.”  In this sentence, of course, he begs the whole question between the advantage of private enterprise and of Socialistic organisation.  Private enterprise works for profit, and therefore makes as much profit as it can out of its customers.  It is, therefore, according to Mr Webb’s argument, probable that if private enterprise in banking is able to establish monopoly it will squeeze the public to the point of restricting banking facilities and making them dearer.  No one can deny that there is some truth in this contention, but, on the other hand, it may very fairly be argued that modern business has perceived the great advantages of a big turnover and small profits on each transaction.  The experience of the great insurance companies, and of great catering companies, and of enormous private organisations such as the Imperial Tobacco Company, has shown the enormous advantage of providing cheap facilities to the largest possible number of customers; so that fears of natural restriction of banking facilities, through monopoly, if they cannot be set altogether aside, are not by any means a certain consequence even of the establishment of monopoly in private enterprise.