The Dominion. THURSDAY FEBRUARY 12, 1920. BREAKING UP THE MEAT TRUST

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 118, 12 February 1920, Page 4

The Dominion. THURSDAY FEBRUARY 12, 1920. BREAKING UP THE MEAT TRUST

The estimation in which tho combination commonly known as the Meat Trust is held in its own conntry is plainly indicated in measures lately taken against it by the United States Government. The nature of these measures is set out in American files for December, which give the details of an agreement between the American Attorney-General (Mr. Mitchell Palmer) and five great corporations, with their headquarters in Chicago, which dominate the meat industry in America and over a considerable part of the world. Tlitfse corporations arc Armour and C 0.,. Swift and Co., the Cudahy Packing Co., Morris and Co., and Wilson and Co. The business carried on by these corporations at hoipe and abroad has been exhaustively investigated in the United States during the past three years by (lie Federal Trade, Commission, by Congressional committees, and by individual experts appointed by' the Government. The report of the .Federal Trade Commission, issued in 1918, was particularly definite and to the point. It stated that the power of the "Big Five" had been and was being unfairly and illegally used to:

Manipulate live-stock market.?; Restrict interstate and international supplies of foods; Control tho prices ot dressed meats and other foods; Defraud both the producers of food and consumers ; Crush effective competition; Secure special privileges from railroads, stockyard companies, and municipalities; and Profiteer. The report threw clear light also on the methods followed by the packers' combine in producing countries other than the United States. The following passage is worth recalling: The Armour, .Swift, Morris, and Wilson interests have entered into a. combination with certain foreign corporations by which export shipments of .beef, mutton, and other meals from the principal South American meat-producing countries arc apportioned among the several companies on the basis of agreed percentages. In conjunction ' with this conspiracy, meetings aro held for the purpose of securing the maintenance of tho agreement and making such readjustments as from time to time may be desirable. The agreements restiiet South American shipments to European countries and to the United States.

The measures that arc being taken against the Meat Trust in the United States are appropriate to its policy and record. The five big corporations entered into the agreement with the American Government which was announced in December in order to avoid being prosecuted in the Courts. It was only when the results _of the exhaustive inquiries made into their' trading methods were ready to be placed before a United States Grand Jury that they submitted to all the conditions laid down by the Government and consented to the entry of an injunction dccrce providing for the carrying out of these conditions. Under the agreement the packers agree, in brief, to break up their combination and, within two years, to sell their subsidiary and affiliated concerns, and devote themselves exclusively to the production of meat products, and possibly to the sale of some other foods closely connected with meat. An official outline of the agreement sets out its main items in part, as follow: —

Under this decree, tho defendants . . . are compelled ... to sell . . . preferably to the live-stock producers and tha public, all their holdings in public stockyards.

To sell . . . all their interests in stockyards, railroads and terminals.

To sell . . . all their interests in market newspapers. To dispose of all their interests in public cold storago warehouses, except, as necessary for their own meat produets.

To dissociate themselves forever with the retail meat business.

To dissociate themselves forever with all "unrelated lines." . . . (These as the) - arc tot out in detail include a wide range of groceries, fish, vegetables, fruit and other food products and manufactured foods.)

To abandon forever the use of branch Houses, route cars, and auto trucks, comprising their distribution system, for any other than their own meat and dairy products. To submit perpetually to the jurisdiction of the United States District Courts under an injunction forbidding all the defendants ironi directly or indirectly maintaining any combination or conspiracy with each other, or any other person or persons, or monopolising, or attempting to monopolise, any food products in the United States, or indulging in any unfair and unlawful practices, la a note appended to the agreement, Mit. Mitchell I'alhek mentions that the parent companies, or the individual defendants and their families, maintain and control 574 corporations or concerns, and have a "significant minority stock interest in 5)5 others, and im interest of unknown extent in an additional 93. He states also that the net profit of the live parent companies in 1919 was nearly eciual to the amount of their total sales in 190-1, and that in addition there have been "other vast profits, difficult of ascertainment," derived from subsidiary enterprises. While the reported break-up of the great Meat Trust, so far as its operations in the United States arc concerned, may be regarded as a matter for general satisfaction, it is extremely doubtful if the restrictions imposed upon it are likely to have any very marked effect on its ventures in other markets. It has to be remembered that all the measures of the American Government against the Meat Trust and other combinations of a like character are taken with a view only to the protection of tho American consumer. The Government's general policy, very clearly developed in the Webb Act of 1918, is expressly to authorise in export trade the monopolistic methods it is attempting to suppress within the United States. Possibly the repressive measures taken against it in its home territory may hamper the Meat Trust in external as well as internal trading, but this is by no means assured. Experience may show that the real benefit offered to Great Britain and her Dominions by the action of live American Government is not actual and immediate protection against, the Meat Trust, hut rather the encouragement and incentive it gives to take similar protective, action on their own account, in the reasonable assurance that it will prove effective.