TRUSTS AND THE LAW.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1273, 31 October 1911, Page 5

TRUSTS AND THE LAW.

o THE AMERICAN CAMPAIGN. By Tclceraph-Press Association-Copyright New York, October 29. President Taft, speaking at Milwaukee, emphasised tho intention of the Government to enforce tho law against trusts. He made particular reference to the Steel Trust. "The Labour unions," added Mr. Taft, "ought also to bo compelled to observe the laws." RESTORING COMPETITION. Since tho recent judgments against them, tlie American trusts have been much concerned to know what processes o| reorganisation their businesses must go tillougti in order to meet the requirements ot tho law. It was recently aimounee<l in the American press that the position of the united States Atioi'uev-(j>T?neral, as frequently stated by him, "j s that since the decisions of the Supreme Court in the oil and tobacco cases, to quote tho language employed by him in his speech at battle Creek, jM ich.: "The area of uncertainty in the Jaw" has been greatly reduced, and tho meaning of tho statute in its application to great monopolistic corporations made clear, and this makes it necessary for those combinations to resolve themselves into a number of distinct, separate entities, no one of which shall be in itself a combination in restraint of trado or threaten monopoly. "How this shall be* done is, of course, a separate problem in each case, a problem which in tho first instance those in control of the combinations and their counsel must work out. . . . iu the case of the Harvester Company, that corporation voluntarily submitted to the Government's plan of reorganisation before suit was brought, and, while not going so far as the officials of tho Department of Justice considered it should go, the representatives of the Harvester Company evinced a willingness to conform, if possible, to the views of the Department, and to mako such changes as it should deem necessary to comply with tho law. . . . "If other combinations should lake like action, and submit to the Department of Justice plans of reorganisation which should in good faith bring about a competitive condition, and terminate monopolistic conditions and also all agreements unduly restraining inter-Stato trade and commerce, the Department of Justico would doubtless give them careful consideration, and, if found to be adequate, would submit them to the courts on an appropriate petition, the decree of tho court to be so framed as to make the provisions of the plan binding upon the defendants, and to enjoin them from further monopolistic effort.