The debates of Congress tend to show
that, in enacting the Sherman Law, Congress did not intend to forbid
the restraint of competition among those in the same business but
only intended to prohibit the forming of a combination by those
who, combined, would have a monopoly of a particular business or
product. It is easy to see why all the coal mines in the country
should be prohibited from combining; but it is not easy to see
why certain people engaged in the tobacco business should be
prohibited from taking their competitors into their combination,
because tobacco is a product which could be raised upon millions
of acres of our land and cannot be made the subject of a monopoly.
The German courts have expressly said that if prices are so low
that the manufacturers of a particular article see financial
ruin ahead, a formation of a cartel by them must be looked upon
as a justified means of self-preservation. The German laws are
directed to the end to which it seems to be such laws should
logically be directed; namely, to the prevention of unfair
competition.
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