CHICAGO BEEF BARONS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 227, 23 March 1912, Page 7

CHICAGO BEEF BARONS

INTERESTING REVELATIONS. Interesting revelations are being made at Chicago, where the big American packers, the "beef barons," as they are called, are charged with conspiracy in restraint of trade, with the object of securing a monopoly. It seems that the packers. had planned a merger with a capital of over £100,000,000, about 60 per cent, of which, according to the Government, wa# "water." An agreement was drawn up between the packers in 1902, but, said Mr. Albert Veeder, lawyer for the Beef Trust, the plans were abandoned the following year because the New York financiers did not produce the expected funds, and the packers then' organised the National Packing .Company to take over the "independents," which had been purchased with an eye to including them in the consolidation. By the terms of the proposed merger three of the biggest Chicago packers were to consolidate their great interests and acquire scores of subsidiary companies and enough independent firms to assure absolute control. Mr. Veeder admitted that in the capital stock of the new company there was to be common stock to the value of 25 times the annual earnings of the three interests. Not only were the earnings to be capitalised, but the earnings for 25 years! Counsel for the packers sought to restrict the > evidence before the jury to the years after the Garfield inquiry in 1905, but the Government prosecutor strongly objected to what he called the "immunity bath," and protested that the secret weekly meetings which, he alleged, took, place previous to 1905, were the basis of the monopoly afterwards formed with the object of fixing prices. The Judge said lie would consider the question and return an answer late.

Simultaneously with the prosecution of the "beef barons" comes news that a syndicate of American and Canadian capitalists has been formed to buy 9,000,000 acres of land in Brazil for raising cattle and establishing the world's largest beef industry. It is sought to capture the European market by sending chilled beef to the other side' of the Atlantic by means of special steamers, with'every facility for refrigeration. This is confirmation of a report which was recently heard in Chicago, and is accepted as an illustration of the theory that any money the American packers may lose as the result of the present investigation on the Chicago swings they will more than recover on Brazilian roundabouts.