The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-07-04
READING GROUP OF. CORPORATIONS NOT
 RESTRAINT OF TRADE
Government Loses Another Important Antitrust Suit, But Scores One Im-
 p0rtant Point

Philadelphia, July 3.-The federal court for eastern Pennsylvania decided today that the Reading group of cor Dorations, the Central Railroad com pnny of New Jersey, the Lehigh Coal and Navigation company and subsid- inry and allied companies are not 1eagued together fin an unlawful com binntion and therefore do not unduly restrain commerce in the production, sale transportation of anthracite conI.
 The government, which brought the suit to dsmember the alleged combina- tion and to nullify certain agreements and leases, wins a point in that the court suggested that the Lehigh and Wilkes Barre Coal company be divorced from the Jersey Central railroad.
 The Reading ownership of the Jersey Central railroad is not disturbed
 The court decided there was no violation by the Reading company of the commodi- ties clause of the Hepburn act, which prohibits a railroad from transporting any commodity in which 1t has an in terest.
 Important Suit
 The suit is one of the most important the government has brought to break up what 1t declares to be an illegal combna- tion in the anthracite coal business To- days decision refused to declare that the Reading company a holding concern; the Philadelphia and Reading Railway com pany and the Philadelphia and Reading Coal and Iron company were, either sep arately or individually, a combination in violation of the antitrust law
 The court also decided that the railway company and the coal and iron company were legally separate corporations< and that the railway did not violate the com modities clause in transporting the an- thracite of the coal and iron company
 As to its finding on the commodities clause. the court stated
 That the law has been consciously and deliberately violated we do not believe and decline to find. But as the commod- ities clause does not make the carrier state of mind an essential element in the offense the question Is still open whether the Reading railway and the coal and iron company whatever their intention may have been, have in fact so conducted their affairs as to violate the law"
 Not Competitors
 On the ownership of the Jersey Central railroad by the Reading company the court said that so far as the carriage of coal is concerned, the Jersey Central and the Reading railway are not competitors, but are in competition in marketing the coal
 The court goes into some of the de- tailed business transactions between the Reading holding company and the coal company regarding a debt of the coal company carried on the books of the holding concern. On this the court said:
 "Although 1t is denied the debt is not the property of the holding company and although there is some obscurity on this subject, we are inclined to believe that the denial is more formal than sub stantial."
 The district court refused to take up charges that -antedate the Readings re- organization in 1896. Tt Was," the court said, "a time of unrestrained competi- tion. of violent industrial warfare and of legislation believed now by many per- sons to have been unwise. As a matter of common knowledge, we may take note of the fact that during that period much was done that Is condemned at present by general opinion, although the prac- tices now reprobated were then the com monplaces of business in some of it's most important branches"