The Editor's Bag

tion of the rule of reasonableness or unreasonableness would lead to the greatest variableness and uncertainty in the enforcement of the Sherman law. We would have, he said, this situation: "A court or jury in Ohio might find a common agreement or combination rea sonable, while a court or jury in Wiscon sin might find the same agreement or combination unreasonable." As a matter of fact, the courts of our various states pay great respect and deference to one another's decisions, and a system of case law, generally speaking, tends toward uniformity rather than toward inconsistency. The determination whether a restraint of trade is reasonable or unreasonable is one which should be left to the courts of the United States, and the principal fault with the tinkerings of the critics of the Sherman law is their failure to realize that the defects of that statute are to be remedied by other means than by investing administrative officials with judicial duties. A PROBLEM OF INTERSTATE COMMERCE The New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad Company of Con necticut is said to own and operate under its Massachusetts charter only about seven miles of railroad in that state, yet it conducts a large railroad business there by means of the New York & New England, Old Colony, and other corporations with which it has merged at different times. A pecu liar situation now confronts the Massa chusetts Legislature in view of the report of the Attorney- General that

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the charter and franchise are subject to forfeiture. Attorney- General Malone found that the company had increased its capital stock between 1898 and 1907 from $47,500,000 to $121,728,000 without the authority of the state and in violation of its statutes. Two alternatives were open to him: to proceed by means of injunc tion, or to declare the possibility of the forfeiture of the charter and leave the matter in the hands of the Legislature. He chose the second of these alternatives. The matter has been referred to the joint Judiciary Committee and the Railroads Committee. Obviously the dissolution of the cor poration by means of a receivership is a practical impossibility in view of the injury to innocent holders of stock. That legislator realized the truth of this, with more or less distinctness, who asserted: "We could say: 'Now we've got the New Haven at a disadvantage. We can raise the devil with it if we see fit. We can smite it hip and thigh.' But it won't do. The results to in vestors and others would be too serious." Were the • recommendations of the Attorney-General, who believes that hereafter the law should provide some specific penalty less onerous than that of legal extinction, and more speedy than redress by means of a hard-con tested injunction, to be adopted by the Legislature, such a penalty for violation of the statutes would of course not meet the particular situation, as such legisla tion would be ex post facto. It is difficult to see, therefore, just what the Legisla ture can do beyond supplying a signal illustration of the incapacity of separate states to deal with interstate questions.

The Editor will be glad to recetve for this depc,tment anything likely to entertain the readers of the Green Bag in the way of Uga antiquities, facetut, and anecdotes.