like that of Jacques Coeur in France, an early prototype of Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan, or even vast hereditary fortunes kept in one family, like the Fuggers of Augsburg, and based on a natural monopoly—­mineral salt—­as is Mr. Rockefeller’s upon mineral oil.  Yet as lives are short and abilities not usually hereditary, the great corporation question of to-day would hardly have arisen.  Nevertheless, it is presumed that no one, not even the greatest radical, would now propose to dispense with the invention of the business corporation with limited liability.

A careful discussion of the two theories above referred to will be found in pages 1 to 28 of the report of the Committee on Corporation Laws to the legislature of Massachusetts, of January, 1903.  The bill for a business corporation law recommended by this committee was enacted into law without substantial change, and has apparently been satisfactory in the six years it has been in force, as the amendments to it, except only as to the system of taxation of corporations, have been few and trifling.  I venture to quote from the report referred to a few of the remarks of the commissioners upon the general question, as it is now out of print: 

    The investigations of the committee, the results of which have
    been briefly summarized, have led to the following conclusions: 

First.—­That the more important provisions of the present law regulating the organization and conduct of business corporations and the liability of its stockholders and officers are unsuited to modern business conditions.

Second.—­That the restrictions governing capitalization and the payment of stock as shown in the piecemeal legislation enlarging the classes of corporations which may organize under general laws are arbitrary or impossible of execution.

Third.—­That it is a general practice to organize under the laws of other States corporations to carry on enterprises which are owned and managed by citizens of Massachusetts, particularly where a part or all the property is situated outside the State.

THEORY OF LEGISLATION RECOMMENDED

The history of corporations, as well as the logic of the case, shows that there are possible two general theories as to the State’s duty in creating corporations:  first, the old theory that, being creatures of the State, they should be guaranteed by it to the public in all particulars of responsibility and management; and the modern quite opposite theory that, in the absence of fraud in its organization or government, an ordinary business corporation should be allowed to do anything that an individual may do.  Under the old theory the capital stock of a corporation was, in the law, considered to be a guarantee fund for the payment of creditors, as well as affording a method of conveniently measuring the interests of