That old doctrine has worked out its own destruction. On the one hand, powerful business interests will not let the weaker ones alone; on the other, the state dares not let the powerful combinations alone.
The right and duty of the state to preserve conditions conducive to the general welfare being recognized, it may be expected that mistakes and blunders made because of ignorance of the real meaning of new industrial forces will be rectified as those forces are better understood. The element due to demagogism will also doubtless be sifted out. While it is assumed that monopolies "cannot be granted in such ordinary vocations as can be left open to all to the common benefit," it has always been recognized that they "may be given as a matter of regulation, where the business is such that the public interest can be best subserved and protected by confiding it to one person, or association of persons, who shall manage it exclusively. This obligation to serve the public impartially would seem to be an essential incident to any grant of a monopoly, since without it, it would be impossible to justify the grant on public grounds."[1]
Presumably, then, if it is found that a trust can best subserve the interests of the public, and can be made to serve it impartially, there is nothing in the spirit of our laws to prevent a change of attitude toward such combinations. The right of a state to pass laws of this sort is based upon its general right of police regulation. This right is abridged somewhat by the constitutional provision that a state cannot interfere with interstate commerce; but a decision of the Supreme Court, rendered January 21, 1895, in the case above referred to against the consolidated Philadelphia and New Jersey sugar refineries, reserves to the United States the right to regulate trade and commerce only, and leaves the regulation of the acquisition and control of property to the states. Under these circumstances the responsibility is thrown upon the states. With the further progress of the coöperative movement, which is sure to come,
- ↑ Cooley; "Constitutional Law," p. 247.
