In the Congressional session of 1902-03 the law creating the Department of Commerce and Labor made provision for a Bureau of Corpora tions. whose duty it should be to collect full data regarding Trusts, with the purpose of thus ac quiring information which might he used, if deemed advisable, for further legislation. The President was given power to make public such of this information as he thinks wise, in order that through the remedy of publicity some of the evils might possibly be checked. Likewise, the Interstate Commerce Act was amended by the so-called Elkins law, which, it is thought, will prevent, better than the previous provisions of the law could do, discriminations in railroad rates.
The decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States and of the United States Circuit Court, both in earlier eases, and especially in the ease of the Northern Securities Company, in dicate that the Federal Government has the power to prevent combinations among railroads or manufacturing corporations ,engaged in inter state commerce which are created for the pur pose of securing monopoly, or which in actual practice do tend toward restraint of trade, and that whether this restraint is reasonable or un reasonable.
The English Government has gone no further in the way of anti-monopoly legislation than the old provisions of the common law against monopoly and the somewhat rigid provisions of their corporation act regarding publicity in the promotion and management of companies.
In France the status of the law seems not to be definitely fixed, for although there are statutes existing against combinations to influence prices, and although there have been certain successful prosecutions under this law, notably in the ease of the Copper Syndicate, still industrial com binations in the form of joint selling bureaus do exist without apparent legal opposition.
In Germany, contracts for fixing prices, con trolling output, or in other ways tending toward the prevention of destructive competition have been upheld by the courts as reasonable, and the restriction of such combinations is apparently limited to those that can be shown to be contrary to public policy. In Austria the Government has
made efforts to put the combinations under some what more rigid supervision, especially for finan cial reasons, but although there has been consider able feeling against the Trusts, as yet compara tively little has been done by either the legislature or the courts, and some very strong combinations have been in existence there for several years.
Both in Austria and in Germany, however, Gov ernment commissions have been studying the subject with reference to further legislation, and so far as their recommendations go, the in clination is to recognize the combinations as proper, provided they place themselves suf ficiently under Government supervision and con duct their business so that it will not be consid ered by the Government officials as contrary to public policy.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. Steinmann-Bneher. Wesen und Bibliography. Steinmann-Bneher. Wesen und der gewerbliehen 'CarloHo (Leipzig, 1391) ; Halle, Trusts or Industrial Combinations (New York, 1895) ; Liefman. Die Unternehmer rerbiinde (Leipzig, 1S97) Die Kartelle der gezrerb/ichca Un ternch er (ib., 1898) ; Tiousiers, Les industries monopolisFes (Paris, 1898) ; Baker, Monopolies and the People (New York, 1899) ; Corporations and Public Welfare, report 4th annual meeting, American Acad emy of Political and Social Science (ib., 1900) ; Report of Conference on Trusts (Chicago, 1000) ; Collier, Trusts (New York, 1900) ; Monopolies and Trusts (lb_ 1900) ; Jenks, Industrial rom binat ions. Bulletin of Department of Labor (Washington. 1900); id., The Trust Problem (4th ed., New York, 1903) ; Reports of the United ,States Industrial Com mission, vole. and xix. (Wash ington. 1900-19021 : Trusts and Trade Combina tions in Europe, State Department, Consular Reports, vol. xxi. (lb_ 1900) : Le Rossignol, Monopolies Past and Present (New York. 1901) ; Raffalovich, Les trusts (Paris. 1903). Also con sult the authorities referred to under such titles as RESTRAINT OF TRADE; CONSPIRACY; CONSTI TUTIONAL LAW. AC.