similar recommendations in respect of centralization of power supply. In Australia various projects for development of hydroelectric power have been put forward by the government of Tasmania, New South Wales, Queensland, and Victoria.

State ownership of railroads is being advocated in Great Britain, where government control of the railways has been established as a war measure. The president of the Board of Trade in April of this year, in discussing the subject, said that he did not see how it was possible in the national interest that railways and canals should revert to their pre-war state.1

In Uruguay the Finance Minister has proposed the purchase by the state of the Central Uruguay Railway and of the Montevideo Waterworks and the United Electric Tramways.

The Minister of Public Works of Spain, in outlining the steps which his government hoped to take in the interest of Spain's economic restitution, mentioned nationalization of the trunk railways and regularization of water-power concessions as parts of the program. He stated also that all the different projects discussed by him tend in the direction of an increased intervention of the state and of an intense economic nationalism, which he considers to be absolutely indispensable in order that Spain may not be at the end of the war a country economically invaded and financially despoiled. Legislation has been enacted which is calculated to protect the coal and the potash industries. Under a royal decree of July 12, 1917, the National Coal Mining Council (Consorcio Nacional Carbonero) was organized, which embraces all the coal-mine owners of Spain and combines them into regional syndicates. The president of the Council is appointed by the government and a government bank finances the undertaking. This new organization is in reality a compulsory syndicate.

Action along similar lines has been taken to safeguard the newly discovered potash deposits. On July 24, 1918, a law was enacted3 which gives the Spanish government supervisory control

The Board of Trade Journal, April 11, 1918, p. 429.

a Gaceta Madrid, July 14, 1917.

3 Loc. cit., July 28, 1918.

of all mining concessions, already granted or to be granted, for the production of potash salts. Whenever the total national production of potash salts reaches 50,000 tons or more per year, a special office shall be created to regulate such production, and the quantities and proportions to be produced by each mine shall be determined by such office. Spain thus did what Germany did in 1910 through the Imperial Potash Law. Prior to the discovery of the Spanish potash deposits Germany had what practically amounted to an absolute natural monopoly of potash. The agreement of the German Potash Syndicate, which under the above-mentioned law is a compulsory combination, has been renewed until December 31, 1926. For the calendar year 1918 the distribution bureau of the German Potash Syndicate allocated 10,561,000 double cwts. of potash to the home and foreign markets. Of this quantity the foreign markets are to receive 1,375,000 double cwts. The number of constituents of the syndicate is now about 200, over against 151 in December, 1916. The rise in the market value of potash investments during the war may be seen from the fact that the shares of 78 potash corporations quoted in the RhenishWestphalian market, whose total quoted value on December 31, 1913, amounted to $75,025,000, had increased to $197,030,000 on February 1, 1918.

In conclusion there may be mentioned a bill in the German Reichstag providing for a government monopoly of the production and trade of drinking spirit, and the plan of government ownership of the telephone system of Stockholm, Sweden. A bill in the Swedish Riksdag which has the backing of the government provides for a state monopoly of methylated spirit. The tobacco trade has been made a state monopoly in Sweden. A recent Austrian law gives to the state the right of monopolizing the mining of materials containing phosphoric acid. On March 8, 1915, the German Federal Council initiated measures having in view the formation of a state monopoly of the trade in air nitrates. A Reichstag bill to this effect provides that the state shall monopolize this trade until March 31, 1922, and that the monopoly may be continued after that date.

ANTI-TRUST LEGISLATION

Generally speaking, the policy pursued by state authorities during the war toward combinations in trade and industry has been, if not actually encouraging, at least of a laissez faire nature. This is true of the executive as well as of the legislative and judicial branches of the different state governments, and is particularly noticeable in Great Britain, France, and in this country, where the laws and public opinion hitherto have been more or less antagonistic to monopolistic combinations.

The United States Congress in April, 1918, enacted the so-called "Webb Law," which provides that associations or combinations engaged solely in export trade shall not be illegal under the Sherman Anti-trust Law, provided that such associations are not in restraint of trade within the United States, or responsible for any act which enhances or depresses prices or substantially lessens competition within the United States. All such export associations must register with the Federal Trade Commission, and that agency is directed to carry out the provisions of the law and to report violations to the Department of Justice.

In the United States Supreme Court no important decisions have been made in the so-called anti-trust cases during the war. Hearings which have been pending before that court have been postponed from time to time on account of war conditions. Cases are pending against the United States Steel Corporation, Eastman Kodak Company, Associated Billposters and Distributors of the United States and Canada, American Can Company, Quaker Oats Company, Southern Pacific Company, and the Corn Products Refining Company. In the case against the International Harvester Company, which had been pending in the Supreme Court for several years, an agreement was reached recently. The company agreed to accept the decree issued by the federal court at St. Paul in 1914, which provided for partial dissolution. A decision adverse to the government was upheld by the United States Supreme Court in the case against the United States Shoe Machinery Company on October 28, 1918.

Public Act, No. 126, 65th Congress.

In Great Britain action similar to that provided for in the Webb Law has been proposed by the Committee on Commercial and Industrial Policy after the War. In its final report that committee says:

We think that if serious efforts are to be made by British manufacturers and traders to organize themselves on the lines recommended by the various trade committees, it is desirable that some means should be devised for securing to a responsible government department adequate information as to any combinations so formed, and that provisions should be made for state investigation in special cases.

We believe that this would be advantageous to the combinations themselves, since the knowledge that a power of investigation did exist and could be brought into operation wherever adequate cause was shown, would be likely to have a moderating effect upon public opinion. We think that the experience of the war has shown that it is particularly desirable that information as to all international combinations affecting the production of goods in the United Kingdom, or the restriction of the markets in which they may be sold, should be in the possession of some government department. On the other hand, it is in our judgment of great importance that government intervention in our control of the operation of combinations should be carefully restricted to cases in which those operations can be clearly shown to be inimical to national interests. We approve of combinations amongst manufacturers. All such combinations should, where necessary, be legalized, so as to be enforceable between members. We think that combinations, to be useful to the trade of the country, should be upon lines aimed at co-ordinating production, promoting efficiency, economising waste, promoting home trade, facilitating export trade, and unifying selling arrangements. The ideal at which trade combinations should aim is the maximum of production at the minimum of cost.

We accordingly recommend:

(a) That it should be a legislative requirement that all international combinations or agreements (or combinations or agreements which are made directly or indirectly on behalf of foreign interests) to which British companies or firms are parties, made for the regulation of the prices of goods or services, or for the delimitation of markets, should be registered at the Board of Trade by the British persons, firms, or companies concerned, with a statement of the names of all the parties thereto and of the general nature and objects of the combination or agreement; and that all modifications of such agreements and all adhesions and withdrawals should also be notified.

(b) That it should be optional for the parties to any combination or agreement between British firms having for its object joint marketing arrangements, either in the United Kingdom or abroad, or the regulation of prices I 1 London, 1918, p. 39 ff.

or output or the delimitation of markets, to register such combination or agreement at the Board of Trade, with a statement of the names of the parties thereto, and as to its general nature and object; and that such steps as may be necessary should be taken to make any price or other marketing arrangements made by or resulting from combinations and agreements so registered enforceable at law as between parties thereto.

(c) That, in order that the Board of Trade may be able to keep itself fully informed as to the nature, extent, and operations of industrial combinations in the United Kingdom or of international combinations of which British firms, companies, or associations form part, that department should have power to call upon individual consolidations or combines from time to time to furnish for its confidential use such information as it may require.

The British Board of Trade has already taken definite steps to keep the government informed in respect of developments relating to trade monopolies and combinations. Under its reorganized form the Board of Trade comprises a Department of Commerce and Industry, of which Section C covers "Industries and Manufacturers." This section is to deal among other things with "questions of policy connected with trade monopolies and combinations." Section D, covering "Industrial Property," is to deal with "all branches of industrial property from the point of view of commercial and industrial policy, including the protection of the commercial public from the abuse of monopoly."

In New Zealand the operations of large foreign concerns interested in the meat business have created public anxiety.

A select committee appointed to investigate the present position and future prospect of the export meat trade of the dominions, particularly with regard to the operations of large foreign companies, has submitted the following recommendations:

1. That legislation be at once passed giving the government power to make it illegal to grant concessions in consideration of exclusive dealing, and to control or prohibit special rebates.

2. That the government promote legislation generally (a) to control monopolies; (b) to prevent unfair trading by freezing companies or shipping companies; and (c) to provide for issuing licenses to freezing works and the business of meat-exporters; (d) dealing with shipping as common carriers; (e) making charges of carriers just and reasonable; (f) preventing undue

The Board of Trade Journal, January 17, 1918, p. 66.