THE SHERMAN LAW

to any conspiracy (and being the subject thereof) mentioned in section one of this act, and being in the course of transporta tion from one State to another, or to a foreign country, shall be forfeited to the United States, and may be seized and con demned by like proceedings as those pro vided by law for the forfeiture, seizure and condemnation of property imported into the United States contrary to law." SUIT FOR THREEFOLD DAMAGES. The statute reads: "SEC. 7. Any person who shall be injured in his business or property by any other per son or corporation by reason of anything forbidden or declared unlawful by this act, may sue therefor in any circuit court of the United States in the district in which the defendant resides or is found, without respect to the amount in controversy, and shall recover three fold the damages by him sustained, and the costs of suit, including a reasonable attorney's fee." This suit for threefold damages is the only affirmative redress given by the act to individuals injured by contracts in restraint of trade. The most important limitation placed upon the Act in this regard is that the action to recover -damages must be a direct one, and that relief cannot be claimed by way of set-off to a suit by the combination upon a collateral contract. In Connolly v. Union Sewer Pipe Co. (supra),

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such damages were claimed by way of set-off, and disallowed by the court, because, as the court said, the action authorized by the statute " must be a direct one " (p. 552). The right of an individual to recover in a direct action for threefold damages was sus tained in the case of Montague v. Lowry, which case has already been discussed. This second inquiry may well be concluded by the suggestion with which it was begun, that the plain provisions of the Statute are to be looked to, to determine the conse quences of the criminality of illegality of a contract within the purview of the anti trust laws. GENERAL CONCLUSIONS. To summarize briefly : ( i ) (a) Any inter ference, however reasonable, with the natural play of competition is a restraint of trade; (b) the element of restraint must enter directly into a contract to bring it with in the purview of the act; (2) The statute makes such a contract illegal and void; gives rise to a right in the Government to prosecute criminally the contractors, to enjoin the carrying out of the contract, and, in proper case, to seize the property in volved; and gives to an individual injured a right of action for threefold damages. WASHINGTON, D. C., March, 1908.