THE LAW'S DELAY.

Press, Volume LXVII, Issue 13936, 9 January 1911, Page 7

THE LAW'S DELAY.

SUIT AGAINST AMERICAN TOBACCO TRTJFT.

Unite*! Pres* Associ-Uon—By Electrio Telegraph—Copyright. (Received January Bth, 5.6 p.m.) NEW YORK, January 7. The Supreme Court of tho United States has commenced the hearing ot the appeal in the Government's suit for the dissolution of the Tobacco Trust, with its subsidiary companies. The proceedings began in 190", the nllegation being that tho Trust Was guilty of unlaw Jul combination.

lor a dozen years past (wrot© .ha New Wk correspondent of tho "Sydney Morning Herald" in April la*_t) much of the time of the Supremo Court has been spent in considering collateral questions involved in. tit© format-on and conduct of those great combinations of capital known as trusts, and many of the decisions harts been by a hare majority rot© of 5 to ). these, of course, settled nothing positively, and, indeed, merely heightened the interest m what the verdict would bj when at Inst the main question— what, kind of combination, if any restricting competition, either by -iV sipii or of necessity, could be permitted to exist P—was reached. Aro the. recent Federal statutes forbidding such merges and combines constitutional 9 A. what point docs tho domination of a manufacture by mere weight of oapi» tal employed become n criminal offence? Even Mr Roosevelt and Mr Taft both speak of "good" trusts, which should be encouraged, and of had trusts, which should bo utterly destroyed. "Perhaps a hair divides thfr false and true," and yet the fat* of investments forming probably a fifth of the national wealth hangs now in *,ho balance until the Supreme Court by a decisive majority announces tho haw© [principles that must govern the oro_- ; tion. operation, and regulation of such ! ventures. And, having selected m tha very worst sinner of the kind, . tha Tobacco Trust (which has already felt in England the restraining grasp of tho law) and as a second worst, Mr Rockefeller's Standard Oil. tho AttormiyGenernl argued final cases apainst them last winter, and month after month sine* this year opened, when tho day fixed for announcing decisions drew near, the stock market took a widar ranee,, reaching no or down as rumour favoured one decision or the other. Bi»t Supreme Court decisions tak«t * loiiff t'me in the makintr. for both tht» mniorityand the minority must giv* "tl full tb» reasons for their vote,'.and the crystallisation of these into just th© exnot words suitablo is n difficult t»*k> The cace hi"s had to be re-heaWl hv the Supremo Court owing to the death* of on© of the judges.