business, such organization or combination being formed primarily to control the supply and price of its products. The trust may itself be a corporation, or it may consist of a number of persons or business corporations united by mutual contracts or agreements. The trust is, it is contended by many, a natural evolution of business. The waste due to keen competition among a number of business firms in the same line of business is only to be eliminated by the combination of these firms into one or by their operation under a mutual agreement with respect to territory, selling prices, etc. When the great trusts began to be formed in this country, they had many defenders; but the advantage that huge business combinations have taken of their size and money resources to stifle legitimate competition and thus create for themselves an absolute monopoly in production has caused a general revulsion of feeling. In general, it has become evident that to allow any combination of individuals to control the output of any necessity for a hundred millions of people is to give to that combination more power than it ought to have. Such a situation tends to result in a deterioration of product and a rise in price. Individual initiative for the invention of new and more efficient machinery required in such a business is stifled. The prices offered for the raw material used in the business may, where a single buyer may dictate its own figures, fall to almost ruinous levels. Stock may be issued to an amount far beyond the value of the combined plants ("stock watering") and figures may be juggled to deceive the stockholders. An unhealthy moral tone may result from continued business deception. A number of such combinations, controlling capital to a staggering amount, may easily exercise a control over the government itself.

In view of the possibilities and the facts, important legislation has been passed both by the federal government and by the commonwealth governments to check the formation of trusts and to accomplish the dissolution of such as were already formed. The most important of these laws is that known as the Sherman Anti-trust Act of 1890, by which, in the words of

section 1, "every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is hereby declared to be illegal. Every person who shall make any such contract, or engage in any such combination or conspiracy, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and, on conviction thereof, shall be punished by fine not exceeding $5000, or by imprisonment not exceeding one year, or by both said punishments, in the discretion of the court." In a succeeding section the act provides that any person injured by such a combination in restraint of interstate trade may recover threefold damages, with costs. Under the provisions of this Sherman Act, the government has actually caused the dissolution of two great corporations on the ground that they were trusts (the Standard Oil Company and the American Tobacco Company) and is at the present time carrying on cases in the courts against various others. The decisions of the Supreme Court in test cases will operate to allow efficiently managed and non-monopolistic trusts to exist, for great emphasis is laid on the "rule of reason" in construing the words restraint of trade in the Sherman Act. Apparently in the future the character of the acts of a combination rather than the form of organization will determine whether or not it is illegal.

Trusts in Foreign Countries.-The aggregation of business concerns into trusts is not confined to this country; in France, Austria, and Germany trusts in one form or another abound. In England the trusts have little influence, owing to the freetrade principles, which allow the unrestricted competition of foreign producers in the English markets. In Austria and Germany it is probable that trusts include as many industries and control as large a proportion of manufactures as they do in the United States. These industrial combinations are not checked by law in foreign countries to the extent they are in this country. France has a law prohibiting combinations of the chief producers with a view to controlling prices, but the law is not now rigorously enforced and there are many such

combinations. A somewhat similar situation exists in Austria, where, in spite of a law to the contrary, many great combinations exercise a marked control over prices and output. In Germany price agreements are legal, but if the prices fixed are unreasonable, the trust is liable to suit in the courts for extortion.

4. Regulation of Labor.-The last of the classes of industrial regulation is the governmental regulation of labor. Modern governments have gone to extraordinary lengths to protect the laborers of various types and in various kinds of work.

This regulation has been necessitated chiefly by the wholesale introduction of machinery and its results upon industrial conditions. Where communities formerly were rural and where each laborer owned his own means of production, suddenly huge factories housing the means of production for thousands sprang up and created cities. The home spinning wheel could not compete with the machine, and the laborer was forced to go into the factory and use the capitalist's machine to earn a living. All the power of economic life or death was thus suddenly delivered into the hands of the capitalists. They were careless of their employees' lives, for the empty places were soon filled. All the evils of child labor, too long hours of labor, unsanitary factories, improper protection against accidents, were allowed to flourish.

It required a generation of people enduring these conditions to arouse the public conscience. After conscience was once aroused and trustworthy investigations had revealed the true state of affairs, remedial legislation was soon passed. In England, where conditions were at one time the worst, there is now a complete set of laws securing the health and safety of the laborers and providing for periodical official inspections of the places used by the laborers. In other countries also, as France, Germany, and the United States, the government has extended its functions in the endeavor to secure the advantage of the laboring classes.

These protective labor laws are not only intended to protect the dependent laborer from the capitalist, but also to protect the laborer from the results of his own ignorance or carelessness. The ignorant laborer will allow his small children to work in the factory for the pittance that their wages add to his income; the government will not (in most states) allow children under a certain age to be employed except under the most favorable conditions. The ignorant or careless laborer will accept employment involving great risk, either without knowledge of the risk or with the belief that he will be lucky enough to escape. Here again the government intervenes with special laws covering employment in dangerous trades and with legislation placing the liability for disease, accident, or death upon the employer.

V. PUBLIC SAFETY REGULATION

Public Safety Regulation. The fifth great class of optional functions includes the various regulations which government enforces in its effort to conserve the public health and safety. In this present day, when the causes of the spread of disease are better understood than ever before, government exercises a control over sanitary conditions which it never attempted to exercise in previous eras; and now, with the spread of democracy, the life of each individual, however lowly, has its value, which government recognizes by a multitude of regulations intended to insure safety.

Sanitary Regulations.-The regulations with which we are all familiar are those which impose a quarantine upon persons suffering from a contagious disease and those which require vaccination or inoculation as a preventive to certain diseases. The national government provides that each ship that comes to its shores shall be inspected for the presence of contagious disease. In this country the federal government provides for the physical examination of all immigrants before they are allowed to land. Usually the local governments attend to the quarantine of persons with contagious disease in their locality.

Vaccination is commonly a requirement of the local government in communities, and is rigidly enforced among school children. Under the head of public safety regulations we may classify the mass of prohibitive legislation which has, in recent years, found a place in the statute books of the various commonwealths of the United States and of the federal government itself. Within the last 30 years the evils of alcoholism have been generally recognized and vigorously combated through the medium of legislation prohibiting the manufacture and sale of fermented and spirituous beverages. Although many of the commonwealths of the United States have had prohibition for years, Russia was the first great state to adopt nation-wide prohibition. The manufacture and sale of vodka, which was a monopoly of the Russian government and from which a large revenue was derived, was stopped shortly after the outbreak of the World War. This step was taken as an economic measure to conserve the man-power of the nation for war purposes.

In the United States in January, 1919, the commonwealths ratified an amendment to the federal constitution prohibiting the manufacture, importation, and sale of alcoholic beverages. The strict enforcement of this amendment was provided for by the Volstead Act which limits the alcoholic content of beverages to one-half of 1 per cent. Prohibition is vigorously objected to on the ground that it is an infringement upon the liberty of the individual; and defended as a measure promoting the general welfare of the people.

Regulation of Morals. Side by side with the physical health, government tries to protect the moral health of its people by the regulation of pictures, posters, and printed matter, and by strict supervision of theaters, dance halls, and the like. Such regulation is commonly undertaken by the local government.

Regulation of Businesses and Professions.-Another way. in which the government extends its functions to safeguard health and life is by inspection of certain businesses and professions which closely affect the people. For example, the