Popular Law-making eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 485 pages of information about Popular Law-making.

Popular Law-making eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 485 pages of information about Popular Law-making.

The Tennessee statute of 1891 is about the same as the Kansas statute of 1889, above referred to, except that it adds the words “which tend in any way to create a monopoly,” and the Kansas statute makes trust certificates unlawful, that being still the usual way of organizing a trust at that time.  The Nebraska law (Nebraska, 1889, 69) is much the same, except that it also denounces combinations, etc., whereby a common price shall be fixed and whereby any one or more of the combining parties shall cease the sale or manufacture of such products, or where the products or profits of such manufacture or sale shall be made a common fund to be divided among parties to the combination, and goes on to add that “pooling between persons, partnerships, corporations ... engaged in the same or like business for any purpose whatever, and the formation of combinations or common understanding” between them is declared unlawful, and the persons are made liable for the full damage suffered by persons injured thereby, and each day of the continuance of any such pool or trust shall constitute a separate offence; this, the doctrine of a continuing conspiracy, being for the first time before the Supreme Court of the United States at the time of writing.  North Carolina the same year (N.C., 1889, 374) defines a trust to be an arrangement, understanding, etc. for the purpose of increasing or reducing the price beyond what would be fixed by natural demand, and makes it a felony with punishment up to ten years’ imprisonment.  Here for the first time appears a statute against unfair competition.  “Any merchant, manufacturer ... who shall sell any ... goods ... for less than actual cost for the purpose of breaking down competitors shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.”  Tennessee the same year (Tennessee, 1899, 250) in its elaborate statute, which is a fairly good definition of the law, also denounces throwing goods on the market for the purpose of creating an undue depression, whatever that may mean.  In the next year, 1890, there were many more State statutes, but we should first notice a simple law of New York forbidding any stock corporation from combining with any other corporation for the prevention of competition (N.Y., 1890, 564, 7).  The usual statute in other States of that year is addressed against combinations to regulate or fix prices or limit the output, but Texas (4847a, 1) and Mississippi (1890, 36, 1) have elaborate laws, which, however, add hardly any new principles to the common law.  They define a trust to be a combination of capital, skill, or acts, by two or more persons or corporations, (1) to create or carry out restrictions in trade; (2) to limit or reduce the output, or increase or reduce the price; (3) to prevent competition; (4) to fix at any standard or figure whereby its price to the public shall be in any manner controlled, any article intended for sale, etc.; (5) to make or carry out any contract or agreement by which they are bound not to sell or

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Popular Law-making from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.