NEWS AND VIEWS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 11058, 9 May 1899, Page 3

NEWS AND VIEWS.

. TRUSTS IN AMERICA. ADDRESS BY PROFESSOR ASHLEY. At a recent dinner of the British Economia Association, Professor Ashley delivered an address on the position of trusts in America. Ten years ago, he said, the American publio suddenly awoke to the fact that the supply of some of the commodities of commonest use ! had come to be controlled by a number of industrial organisations, which seemed to be able to fix prices without regard to competition. Two or three of the largest and most conspicuous of these had taken the peculiar judicial form known as a trust. The discovery of their existence led to a great outcry. Anti-trust legislation was passed in some dozen or more States, and in 1830 by the United States Congress itself with regard ]to inter-States commerce. At the present 1 time telegraphic reports told them that hardly a day passed without the formation of some new'trust, and yet the fact was that 1 in the original and exact sense of the word I there was not a single trust to-day in America. The trust, properly so-called, was nothing but an easy legal mechanism for arriving at an end which could be achieved by other means. It was the invention, so it was said, in 18S2, of the presiding genius of the Standard Oil Trust, Mr. Rockefeller. The shareholders of a number of joint stock com- ! panies all handed over their stock, and with it their voting powers, to a small board of trustees, receiving in return certificates representing the amount deposited. Externally each company retained its independent constitution, but the direction of every one of them was in the hands of the trustees. It was, however, held by the Courts that the several bodies of shareholders., were acting ultra vires, and accordingly one after another of the great combinations declared that they had abandoned the trust. But economically the situation remained substantially unchanged, and where changed it was changed only in the direction of consolidation and amalgamation. The tendency was now towards the extension of combinations or mora or less complete amalgamation to more and more branches of industry. The process was, I however, much slower than the public believed. Protection had often been an important favouring and accelerating condition, and it had been pointed out that thoso combinations which had recently attracted the most attention in Europe, the iron and sugar combinations in Austin-Hungary, had been protected by a high tariff. But as a fundamental explanation this would not satisfy any one acquainted with the economic atmosphere of the United States. Fifty years ago England was the classic home of the " great industry ;" to-day America certainly occupied that place. The Home market was far larger ; it was constituted by a population living, on the whole, more comfortably, I capital and labour were more mobile, and the individualist spirit was more widespread and penetrating. No country ever before offered 1 such opportunities for making a fortune to those who could attract towards them an I effective demand. Accordingly, all the phenomena resulting from competitive production on a large scale were exhibited in i America with an intensity never known beI fore. Trusts were, in the main, an attempt I to get rid of the disastrous and harassing effects of cut-throat competition. Their fori mation in most cases followed upon a period i of unbridled competition and consequent deI pression and disaster. The nerves of the ! American business man stood a good deal, I but at last they revolted, and demanded more i stable conditions. This was the underlying cause of the movement towards combination, of which trusts were but the culminating : example. As to the effects of trusts, in the ! case of the Standard Oil Company its forma--1 tion had been followed, chronologically, at j least, by a pretty continuous fall of prices. ■ Owing to improved methods of refining, the | public had obtained a good commodity at a I low price. In other cases combination had ! undoubtedly been succeeded by a rise in prices, but this was as compared with previous periods when prices, owing to glut or industrial rivalry, had been very low. Of course, the trusts did not cany on'business from philanthropic motives, but the public had a greatly exaggerated impression of their power to determine prices., 'Their object was , to secure the largest net returns, and -they ' saw that a large r '» at «,low~p'r'icp' might . pay them better than a small.sale at a '.uglier price. _ So far as labour was concerned, tho : formation of a combination undoubtedly put capital in a position of advantage. Some of ! the great monopolists, like Mr. Carnegie, had been very successful in freeing themselves i from trade union pressure. Combinations, I on the other hand, had increased the stability j of industry, continuity of employment, and I steadiness in the rate of remuneration, Unj doubtedly, however, the success of the comI binations tended at present towards the I creation of a regime ot what the French I called patronage. Several of the combinai tions might fairly be taken as illustrating the I proposition of Karl Marx that competition j was bound to destroy competition, and it i might even be added that- the development I in some cases reached a point, at which, I from the purely economic and administrative point of view, it might not be difficult for the Government to take over the business. In England formal combinations were rare, and the ill-success of the Salt Union was a standing example to show that they were | not likely to succeed, but informal agreements and understandings were by no means unknown. Further, an actual amalgamation, ■ like that of the Coats Company in the thread . manufacture, or of the Armstrong and WhitJ worth engineering businesses, might have : much the same results as a combination.

THE CHINESE PROBLEM. "VERY LIKE A WHALE." Rome, March 16.The well-known sciem tific an, Cesare Lombroso, publishes an article warning the Italian Government in the most earnest manner about the dangers attending their new colonial enterprise in China. He compares the European grasping after territorj there to the fable of the fishermen who landed on an unknown island, raised their tents, and boasted of theconquest they had made, when suddenly they were thrown into the sea, with all' their paraphernalia, the island being simply an enormous sleeping whale, which awakened under them. Professor Lombroso thinks that this will be the case with China. He is especially bitter against England, as he considers her to be the indirect cause of the Italian reverses. In England, he says, tha people are eminently selfish, though they are great. He adds: "When, notwithstanding the warnings of her statesmen, she saw we insisted -on our colonial frenzy, she decided to profit by it, and sent us to Kassala, which we kept at great expense at her disposal. Now she allows us to be her accomplices in China."

j THE RHODESIAN GOLD OUTPUT. : February was as short a month in Rhodesia . as in the Rand, yet the newer gold industry, I de-'pite the fewer days, lias oeen able to ; sLow increasing figures, the total for the month, according to the return to hand, largest amount which has yet been produced having been 6423 ounces, which is the in any one month. The following statement iihows the result secured month by month since crushings first commenced: — February, 1899 6423' ounces. January, 1899 6370 ounces. December, 1893 6258 ounces. November. 1898 5566 ounces. October, 1893 .' 3913 ounces. The progress made, it will be seen, has been " continuous, and it is fully expected that at no distant date the output will show veryconsiderable augmentation ; that is, when the stomps now b-;ing erected get to work. •COAL PRODUCTION 1893. Notwithstanding the Welsh strike, the production of coal last year fell only a very little short of that for 1897, the total amounting to 202,042,300 tons as compared with • 202.119.200 tons in the previous year. : To \ I what extent the various divisions of the <• kingdom contributed to the aggregate out--, put will be seen from the following state?menfc:— ■ ' 1393. 1897. _ , . Tons. Tons. England <M ,„ 147.813.500 143,477,100 Wales .... '. ' 23,863.M0 29,424,100' ? c ,- lan d-' '39,237,500 29.083,090 -h Ireland • 130.0C0 135.000. •j. '.'.' , V, 202.042.330 .202,119.200;': The output of Wales last veai fell short of y that of 1897 by about 5,560,000 tons, and there was also a falling-oif of 3,250.000 tons . V in the production ot Monmouth; But these '.-i decreases, which may. be set : down to Jho;.,; Welsh'strike, were almost completely.made ,> good by. an'enlargement of the production _;'■:'; the'Epulish and Scotch collieries,'