The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-12-06
EUROPE Is AFRAID IF OUR TRUSTS Has Exaggerated Ideas of Amer
 ican Combinations MUCk- BAKERS UNKNOWN France Is Now Aeitated Over Report ed Plan of United States Pack
 ing Interests to Control
 French Market.
MUCK BAKERS UNKNOWN

the oulum Which attaches to them in the minds of most Europeans. Nothing will throw a European country into such a panic of alarm and resentment as the report that an American trust has de- signs on their market in this, that or the other line. A few years ago England spent millions of dollars. or rather their equivalent in pounds, to frustrate the at tempt of the tobacco trust to secure con trol of the British tobacco trade A little later Germany waged a bitter campaign to bar out various lines of American manufactures Now France is violently protesting and preparing to put it's pro- test into action in order to prevent the beef trust from obtaining a dominant position in the meat business of their country, as the Frenchmen are con- vinced the trust is trying to do.
 Not but that Europe has trusts of it's own, although they are not called by that name. In almost every European country there are monopolies protected by the government itself and some of them are operatel directly by the various governments. There are combinations as powerful in their own fields as Standard Oil; in fact, the European oil combination operating in the Russian and other fields is quite as impressive an organization as it's American competitor, and is tho
 
 trade of the world. There are also in Europe combinations among manufactu- rers to maintain prices. These exist in almost every important line of production in Germany and to a less extent in France and Great Britain. But the peo- pie of these countries have not become excited about the trust features of their industrial organizations as Americans have. Even in cases where they have encountered features in the operation of big business which seemed to be inimcal to the general welfare their way has not been to get out in the middle of the road and shout about 1t to all the world. The muck-raker is practically unknown on the other side of the Atlantic. Any soiled linen relating to their national business affairs is washed away very, very pri- vately by some inconspicuous official body, or else it is tucked out of sight and the people conveniently forget about it.
 Where the foreigner, and particularly the American, is concerned, however, the action of the native European is very different. The very fact that the people of the United States have indulged in so much discussion of the iniquities of their trusts has given Europeans an exaggerat- ed idea of the power and the octopus like characteristics of American indus trial combinations. Consequently when ever the cry is raised in any European nation that an American trust is prepar- ing to invade their market the people grab their pocketbooks with both hands and shout with all their might for the government to kick the invader out-a task which the government usually is quite willing to undertake.
 The agitation which is now being raised against the beef trust in France is a good case in point. The cattle-raising busi- ness is an important one in France and the agricultural interests are greatly alarmed for fear that the American pack CTS will secure control of the French meat market and ruin the local cattle growing industry by the importation of the American product They have taken up the matter with their representatives in the Senate and the Chamber of Depu- ties and as these representatives are both numerous and powerful it is altogether likely that their demand for legislative action against the American packing combination will be needed. Not only has clamor for legislation been started, but the story is current here that a special representative of the French agricultur- ists has been spending the past two months in the United States collecting in- formation about the control of the Amer ican market by the Chicago packers and that this information is to be used to, x show the Frenchmen what they may
 
 strengthens it's foothold in their country. According to the story the emissary who has been collecting this material in the United States spent some time in each of the cities of New York, Boston, Chi cago St. Louis, Cincinnati, Kansas City and Omaha and that in addition he ob-' tained here in Washington some informa- tion from reports of the Department of Commerce and Labor that is regarded as good ammunition for use in the cam paign against the American invaders.
 The leader in the movement to bar the beef trust from France, or at least to restrict its future expansion, is M. Me- line, formerly President of the Council and Minister of Agriculture. He is an able and Influential man and has the agricultural interests solidly behind him. He professes to have information of an elaborate plan on the part of the Chicago packing combination to secure complete control of the slaughtering and packing business in France According to his statement the effort to inaugurate this att tempt was begun three years ago when representatives of the beef trust tried to purchase a large tract of land near Di- eppe for the erection of abattoirs. The municipality objected to this and the Americans then turned to Graville Saint Honorine, near Havre, where they estab- lished three immense slaughtering plants at a cost of ten million francs. He as- serts that the plan included the acquisi- tion o1 other large tracts of land near the ports of Bordeaux and Marseilles and close to the Vllettte meat market in Paris
 The claim of the agricultural leader in the Chamber of Deputies Is that while the ostensible purpose of the packing combination in securing this property was to provide a place for the slaughter of French cattle the inevitable result of the consummation of their plans would be the introduction of a larger and larger proportion of American animals since these could be obtained at far lower prices than those raised in France with the ultimate result that the French cattle trade would be extinguished.
 To prevent any such dire result as this it is proposed to enact law which will restrict the number of cattle that may be slaughtered in any one commune, thereby preventing the concentrating of the slaughtering and packing business at two<or three points. Under such a law conditions would be the same as though Chicago for instance, or any other Amer ican city, were permitted to kill and dress only enough cattle to supply the demand of the city and the state in which 1t hap pened to be located.
 This would be drastic form of anti trust legislation, but as the French agri- cultural interests are thoroughly alarmed over the prospect that the beef trust may repeat in France it's control of the meat business of the American market and as M. Moline appears to be thoroughly In earnest and has behind him a large body