Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 August 1891 — The Protection Principle In Court. [ARTICLE]

The Protection Principle In Court.

The judges of the Cook County Appellate Couit have recently rendered a decision at Chicago which is of very great importance in its bearing on the tariff question. The case involved the question of competition among stenographers. In its decision the court used this language: “Any agreement which in its object or necessary operation tends to diminish comnstition as to anything the public have for sale or it is necessary the publio should use is void. Public policy requires that the public shall obtain the things necessary for its use upon fair competition in a free and open market or under such rules and regulations as the public laws may prescribe.” The court said further: “Combinations looking to the destruction of competition have always been unfavorably regarded by the law, for It is manifest that without competition there can be no such thing as freedom of trade. ” This decision leads the Chicago Herald to make the following timely reflections: “The judges assume that freedom of trade is a good thing and that combinations are odious, not only when they destroy, but even when they tend to diminish competition. But a great political party which has for thirty years shaped the economic policy of this country assumes that it is not restriction of trade but freedom of trade that la odious. That party has formed an irresistible combination with classes engaged in the pursuit of certain industries to diminish competition and to compel people to pay more for certain things than they would have to pay under free competition. The Chicago judges agree with other able judges in condemning the policy of the party which has formed the greatest of all combinations for the suppression of competition, the destruction of freedom of trade and the practice of licensed extortion on the greatest scale possible. When the principles of justice are applied the trade policy of the Republicans will not bear the test one moment.”