The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1911-07-20
THERE ARE OTHER REASONS.


master, than disseminated properties
and segregated activities without con-
slant governmental supervision.
THERE ARE OTHER REASONS.
But there are other reasons for such
regulation. The federal department OF
justice is not organized or equipped to
maintain constant supervision and con,
troll over business organizations. 1t
deals not only with cases of violation
Of the law. The activities Of an ad
ministrative board or commission would
be directed to preventing such viola
lions, and in aiding business men to
maintain a continued status of har-
mony with the requirements of the law.
Whether or not such a federal in
dustrial commission should have power
to regulate prices is, Of course, a mat
Ter for serious consideration. The in
terstate commerce law prescribes as a
legislative rule that prices for trans
portation by rail or wire or pipe line,
shall be reasonable and that no unjust
discrimination shall be made between
individuals or localities similar stu
ated. A similar rule might be declared
by congress with respect to the prices
of commodities handled in interstate
commerce.
I'VE have become accustomed to the
regulation of rates Of transportation
but the suggestion that prices of COM
seems novel and radical.
Yet, the principle on which the
regulation of transportation rates is
based is simply that when property is
used in A manner to make IT of public
consequence and affect the community
at large it becomes clothed with a
public use and may he controlled by
the public for the common good.
THE conduct of the great commerce
in staple articles among the states is
becoming a matter OF public conse-
quence and the courts have upheld leg
islation regulating 1t and prescribing
some of the conditions under which it
may be carried on. To require as one
of these conditions that prices for
commodities dealt in interstate COM
merce must be reasonable, only in
wolves a new application Of the same
principle.
The antitrust legislation of the
United States and most of the separate
states is based on the theory that the
natural price of an article is that fixed
| by the operation Of the natural law Of
supply and demand. working without
artificial restraint.
But the fact is that the law Of sup.
| ply and demand does not and has not
| for many years worked in this country
| in a natural unrestrained and unfet-
/ tered manner. The government in the
]
| restraint in the protective tariff on i'm
ports. True. the theory Of this tariff is
| to equalize conditions of competition:
| to place as It were, a handicap on the
! foreign competitor who has produced
! his commodities under conditions less
| burdensome than those under which
| the American manufa cturer produces
| his. But in fact. the inequalities re-
| sulting from the methods Of tariff leg
/ islation are very often impossible to
justify on the theory Of sufficient pro-
| lection only. and the resulting price is
] that fixed by limited competition be-
| tween dealers in the market from
| which foreign competitors are, to q
| certain extent, excluded.
Nor is this all. 1t is probably safe
to say that in almost every one Of the
great staple issues, prices have beer
for years fixed by agreement between
| the principal producers and not from
free play Of competition among domes-
tic producers, nor by the unfetter ed
operation of the law of supply and de-
mand.
The fact seems to be that the prices
| Of standard articles of consumption
/ sold in the United States for number
of years past have not been fixed at al
by the operation of the laws Of supply
| and demand or unrestrained Competi-
| ton but by associations Of the pro-
| ducers, without the participation Of the
! consumer OF general public-that is
without those who have to pay the bill
| having any voice in fixing the price
In this view, it is certainly not unrea-
sonable that the purchasing public
should desire TO have some part in de-
/ termining the price II is to pay-in like
\ manner as has been recognized to be
4 juse with sesR4ct to the ~est Of trans
4 port5SYrn