ANTI-TRUST LAWS

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 166, 8 April 1919, Page 7

ANTI-TRUST LAWS

FRESH PROPOSALS IN AMERICA. The widely dillused opinion that modification of anti-trust laws is necessary if I his country is to assume the position in international trade and finance lo which her resources and abilities seem to give her title has been embodied in a ssries of proposals which the Chamber oi Commerce of the United States has referred to its membership for a vote /stales the '■Bulletin" of the New l'ork Oiiiaranty Trust Company). These proposals are-. , (1) Tlio committee recommends that Congress should at once consider the situation of all statutes constituting anti-trust legislation; (2) the committee recommends that there should bo formulated standards of general business conduct to be administered by a supervisory liody; (..')) that an enlarged Federal Trada Commission should be made the supervisory body; (i) that the membership of the Federal Trade Commission should bo increased from live to nine.

The- ■ committee having the. matter in charge apparently seeks to dissipate Ihe uncertainties of anti-trust, legislation now existing, to authorise closer eo-onern-tion among producers in the same'line of business, and to remove sections of Ihe Shormiin law alleged to be a handicap to business growth. The Government also would bo asked to toll business what it could do, as well as what it could not, and to supervise business to see that the bounds were not overstepped.