The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-12-02

government has enforced from the case
 of the Northern Securities company to
 the present time, left the same body of
 stockholders in the various companies
 that were nominal competitors.
 This feature of the matter received
 the careful consideration of the parties
 to the litigation and the court. The facts
 were that the common stockholders of
 the American Tobacco company num- bered more than HOO. and the decree pro vided that full voting rights should be
 given to tho preferred stockholders, num-
 bering more than 5000, who heretofore
 had had no votes and there was thus
 added an even larger number to tho body
 of controlling holders.
 "The disintegration, without this fea- ture of common stocl<holding. was ob-
 viously impossible, unless property was to be absolutely conflscated or the ere
 ation of another so-called monopoly per
 mitted
 Nothing more sane or comprehensive can be said on this subject than was said by Circuit Judge Moves in his opin- ion at the time of the decree of No vember 16, 1911. was entered
 " The objection to mutual stockholding l is not that competition is eliminated in principle. Potential competition neces-
 sarly exists. The same conditions do l
 die and estates are divided. Differences
 of opinion upon values lead 10 sales and l exchanges. Potential competition with an | open market must fairly end in real com petition.
 " Manifest difficulties must attend the establishment of real competition between different corporations having the same body of stockholders. In the case of | small corporations having few stockhold- m hp directly rn rfi ri fa in, ai, agement they would be, perhaps, insu- perable.
 {" They would decrease in proportion to the increase in the size of the corpora tions and the separation of the stock holders from the active management of their affairs, until-as I view it--in the case of the disintegration of a corporation having vast assets and a very large num- Der of scattered stockholders they would
 be so minimized as hardly to warrant consideration even from an economic standpoint
 Injunctive Features of the Decree Tn recognition of the possibility Of a feigned and not a real competition, in view especially of the common stock
 holding, the decree of November 16, 1911, not only provided for a distntegration,
 but it entered continuing injunctions, some perpetual and some operative during the time when the common ownership would likely obtain, most detailed and drastic "These injunctions run not only against the American Tobacco company, Liegett X Myers Tobacco company r. Lorilla rd company, but all the companies whose stock was distributed by the American
 Tobacco company, including R. J. Key
 holds Tobacco company. United Cigar Stores, the lcorice companies, the foil companies snuff companies British American Tobacco company, limited and
 the Imperial Tobacco company. limited.
 These injunctions provide that none of these companies shall directly or indirectly cooperate in the control or management of corporation, or in fixing the price to be paid for leaf tobacco or other raw | materials, or the prices to be charged for manufactured products or for the apportionment of trade. either with re- spect to customers or locality that none of them should convey businesses to an-
 other. and none of them should have the same clerical organization or the same