ITEMS OF INTEREST February 1, 1913 Issue

ITEMS OF INTEREST

Seven corporation bills, favored by President-elect Wilson in his capacity as Governor of New Jersey, have been introduced in the Legislature. Explaining the bills, Edwin R. Walker, head of the chancery court, the highest in the state, who prepared them under the direction of the Governor, said: "These acts are designed to put an end to trusts and monopolies under the laws of New Jersey, and Governor Wilson confidently predicts that they will accomplish that much desired result. They emanated from Governor Wilson and have been drawn for the purpose of preventing monopolies by corporations, firms, and individuals." The bills make violation of the proposed laws a misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment for not more than three years or fine of not more than one thousand dollars. The measures provide that any combination between two or more corporations, firms, or persons to create restrictions in trade, limit production, prevent competition, transportation, or selling, fix prices for purposes of trade control, or make any secret oral agreement, shall be a misdemeanor. One bill provides that bona fide values in money or property must stand behind all stock issued; that stock shall not be issued against anticipated profits; that when stock is issued in exchange for other stock, no more shall be issued than was actually paid for the other stock; that no purchase may be made of a concern of different character from that doing the buying. It also prohibits one corporation buying into another for the purpose of restraining trade or acquiring a monopoly.

The forest service is considering a plan which, if adopted, will make the federal government the timber broker for all homesteaders who have stumpage for sale. The scheme is aimed at the relief of settlers in the national forest reservations in Montana, Idaho, and other western states. Complaint has been made that the government is selling stumpage to the great lumber companies which operate within the reserves at prices as low as one dollar per thousand feet. This timber is condemned by the forest service where growths become too thick, or when the trees are injured by storms, forest fires, or rot. It is then put up at auction and the government accepts practically any bid, no matter how low. Settlers living within or near the forest reserves point out that the prices at which the government sells its timber make it impossible for them to compete in the sale of their private timber. As most of the settlers rely on the sale of timber for their living while they are proving up on their homesteads, they very naturally protest.

The concentration of most of the timberlands of the United States into the hands of a few powerful interests has created a problem so grave for the nation, in the judgment of Luther Conant, Jr., commissioner of corporations, that he has recommended to President Taft that the existing national forests not only be retained by the federal government, but increased as far as practicable. He urges that the forests of Alaska be included in reserve, as well as all timbered lands recovered in forfeiture suits. He advises a further searching inquiry into land grants of the past, with the view of instituting additional forfeiture suits if the facts justify the procedure; while he warns us that attempts are still being made to "secure the transfer of public timberlands to private owners under the same pleas of settlement which in the past often proved wholly specious and insincere."

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