The Gisborne Times. PUBLISHES EVERY MORNING. FRIDAY, AUGUST 25, 1911,

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3305, 25 August 1911, Page 4

The Gisborne Times. PUBLISHES EVERY MORNING. FRIDAY, AUGUST 25, 1911,

A measure which it will be acknowledged embodies an extremely radical proposal has been introduced in the U.S. Congress. Its object is the creation of a commission which shall control the operations ot ali corporations engaged in inter-State Commerce. This commission, it is proposed, shall not only regulate the corporation, but shall also have'the power of fixing the prices of commodities! According to a San Francisco no recent public utterance in the United States has evoked more discussion than a speech by Mr. Wickersham, the AttorneyGeneral in President Taft’s Cabinet, endorsing the principle. While the At-torney-General (we are told) did nothing more than voice his personal views, it is nevertheless thought that the President and the Administration hold the same convictions. On the other Band, it is surmised in other quarters that the speech may have been in the nature of a “kite” sent up to test public opinion before announcing this far-reaching policy as an issue for the Presidential issue next year. However this may be, the measure which has been introduced—and its author is a private member—seems, it is reported, to have strong support both in and out of Congress. Briefly, the plan is to create a body having the same measure of control over business corporations as the Inter-State Commerce Commission has over the railroads. The latter body, immensely strengthened by recent Federal enactments, now fixes railway rates both for freight and passengers. The railways of the United States are all privateiy owned, but the directors of no one of them doing an inter-State business is permitted to raise its rates without first getting the permission of the In-ter-State Commerce Commission. The proposed Inter-State Corporation Commission would in the same manner regulate corporations. A license from it would be necessary before a corporation could engage in Inter-State business. Unreasonable restraint of trade or ruthless crushing out of competition would involve the revocation of the license. “The inter-State Commerce law,” remarked Attorney-General Wickersham in the speech to which we have alluded, provides that prices for transportation by rail or wire or pipe line shall be reasonable, and that no unjust discrimination shall be made between individuals or localities similarly situated. A similar rule might be made with respect to the prices of commodities the subject of Inter-State commerce. AVe have become accustomed to the regulatation of the rates of transportation, but the suggestion that the prices of commodities be regulated by Congress seems novel and radical. Yet the principle upon which the regulation of transport 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 be 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 consequence, and the courts have upheld legislation regulating it and prescribing some of the conditions under which it may be carried on. To require as one .of these conditions that prices may be reasonable only involves a new application of the same principle.” A remarkable fact in, connection with the proposal, -we are further told, is that, despite the fact that it is decidedly Socialistic in tendency, it appears to have the support even of a great many “Conservatives,” who declare that the tendency is immaterial so long as it is the right thing, and will serve to protect the public against corporate greed.

A Radical Proposal.