TRUSTS IN AMERICA.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1044, 6 February 1911, Page 8

TRUSTS IN AMERICA.

ADDRESS BY MR. C. E. RUSSELL. In tho cotirss of an address delivered at the Socialist Hall in Manners Street last evening, i\lr. C. E. Russell, an American journalist, now on a visit to Wellington, spoke of trusts and their operations in the United States. -'Each trust, Mr. llus-sell explained, wasl enor-. mously overcapitalised. Tho Railroad Trust had a total capitalisation •of eighteen billion five hundred million dollars. Its capital had increased by six billion dollars in .the last seven years, and it was increasing at the rate' of about one.billion dollars a year. These ; amounts were represented by stocks and j bonds bearing interest and dividends. In order to provide interest and dividends tho Railroad Trust had to keep on increasing tho charges it levied unon tho public, and, in fact, freight .charges, in* tho United States had increased eighteen ner cent, in the last ton years. The' Steel Trust, which controlled the entire iron and stsel industry in tho United States, was four* times over-capitalised in relaticn to its property. Its declared capital amounted to one billion two hundred million dollars. To secure interest and dividends upon this amount : it was compelled. to charge high prices for its products. The fact that it had large dealings with the over-capitalised Railroad Trust, and had to'pay it heavy freights, supplied the Steel Trust with another good reason, for. charging high prices for its products. •The* Harvester Trust, also over-capital-issd, had big dealings with both the Steel Trust and the Railroad TrustT Thus it had three giod reasons for increasing tho price of its products. This process of over-capitalisation, which was tho very heart and soul of . capitalisation, had reached its limit in the United States. Tho load had become too great for tho people to bear. It was this condition iu .the United States that, above everything else, made the prospects of Socialism, so bright. They had come at last to the ftage where all men could realise that this sort of thing could not go on much longer. .V