It is impossible to reconcile or combine the two systems.  Either the old theory must be maintained, under which the State attempts though vainly to guarantee both to stockholders and creditors that there is one hundred dollars of actual value behind each one hundred dollars of par value of capital stock, or some other system must be adopted which, while not being chargeable with the vagueness and laxity of the newer legislation of other States, will permit a share of capital stock, although nominally one hundred dollars in value, to represent, as the word implies, only a certain share or proportion, which may be more or less than par, of whatever net assets the corporation may prove to have.  Under a system of this sort the State machinery will only provide that the stockholders and, perhaps, the creditors, may at all times have access to the corporation records or returns in such manner as clearly to show, both at organization and thereafter, all of the property or assets of which such share of capital stock actually represents its proportion of ownership.

The question of monopoly the committee does not conceive to have been left to its consideration.  The limitations now existing on the capitalization of business corporations are, no doubt, attributable to the sentiment which has always existed against monopoly, but it is clearly the policy of the commonwealth, as shown in its recent legislation, to do away with the attempt to prevent large corporations, simply because they are large.  Moreover, it is apprehended that the question of monopoly, or rather of the abuse of the power of large corporations, does not result necessarily from the size of corporations engaged in business throughout the United States.  In the opinion of the committee, some confusion has been created, in the discussion of the form of so-called trust legislation, by a failure to appreciate that its real object is not to protect the investor, who can or should learn to take care of himself, or the creditor who has already learned to do so.  The real purpose of such legislation is the protection of the consumer.  In other words, there is no reason for an arbitrary limitation of capitalization unless it can be used as a means of creating a monopoly which will influence the price of commodities.  In the opinion of the committee, the question of capitalization is not a contributing factor in the fight for a monopoly.  The United States Steel Company would have no greater and no less a monopoly of the steel business if it were organized with one-half of its present capitalization.  The Standard Oil Company has a very conservative capitalization, and yet it is the most complete monopoly of any industrial corporation in this country.