OCR Text |
Show THE INDUSTRIAL COMMISSION. -me industrial commission gave out a compact summary of the report on the industrial combinations in Europe prepared pre-pared for it by Professor Jer ks of Cornell. Cor-nell. Everywhere in Europe, it is stated, industrial combinations have teen gathering strength for several years past, and in Germany and Austria Aus-tria their power is probably as great as in the United States. Their exceptional development in these countries is not attributed by the commission to the influence of the protective tariff in facilitating fa-cilitating combinations by removing the fear of foreign competition and promoting promot-ing them by guaranteeing the members mem-bers high prices on their domestic sales. No such criticism of the protective system sys-tem receives " the ' indorsement of the commission. Its tendency is rather to minimize the influence of the tariff, and even perhaps to minimize the tendency of combinations to exact higher prices. The emphasis of its report is rather upon the weakness of popular opposition opposi-tion to trusts in Europe, and the danger of laws which will hamper their development, devel-opment, except by requiring complete publicity for all their operations. Fortunately, For-tunately, this form of regulation, which '. is a prime essential to intelligent regulation regu-lation ' along other lines, is strongly commended. The commission's conclusions conclu-sions are stated as follows: 1. There is relatively little objection to combinations in Europe, and in some countries the governments and people seem to believe that they arc needed to meet modern industrial conditions. They believe that they should be carefully care-fully supervised by the government, and, if necessary, controlled. 2. There is little or no belief that the protective tariff is responsible for their existence. They at times use the tariff to keep their prices higher than would otherwise be possible, and their export prices are often lower than their domestic do-mestic prices. The tariff should be guarded so as to prevent serious abuses, but there is practically no thought of its abolition. 3. The great degree of publicity in the organization of corporations has largely prevented the evil3 arising from stock watering, and has evidently had much effect in keeping prices steady and reasonable, and in keeping wages steady and just. 4. There seems to be no inclination toward the passage of laws which shall attempt to kill the combinations. That is believed to be impossible and unwise. Laws should attempt only to control, and that apparently chiefly through rublicity, though the governments maybe may-be given restrictive power in exceptional excep-tional cases. |