the defendants as they accused the latter of being to them, and he said that the conduct of the plaintiffs disentitled them to much sympathy. From what we see in some of the Home papers the decision is likely to be appealed against and the doubts of the Lord Chief Justice are an invitation to carry the case to the highest Court.
It is not for us to question the decision of the Lord Chief Justice. No doubt there were very nice points of law to be considered in arriving at a conclusion as to the legality of the proceedings of the Conference as a combination which was resolved on furthering its own interests to the injury of the plaintiff company. The United States are finding a somewhat similar difficulty in dealing with the combinations which call themselves trusts, the objects of which are not very different from those of the defunct Conference. Trusts are formed to relate prices in favour of their memers, and they squeeze out those in the yama trade who will not join them. The decision of the Lord Chief Justice will not help American statesmen and lawyers, who are trying to get rid of the' trusts. The Lord Chief Justice takes a somewhat hopeless view of the morality of trade. The finding amounts to this that, so long as malice cannot be proved, the law of conspiracy will not touch those who combine to destroy the trade of rivals. This is so opposed to the great precept to do unto others as we would have others do unto us, that if it is English law it is immoral. And if it be English law, and shall be generally or often acted upon by powerful capitalists, it will be another weapon in the hands of those socialists and others, who desire to upset the present order of affui
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.