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The Green Bag

form of government. It would be idle to deny the expressions of dissatisfac tion which are coming from the people, not merely with the law, but with the other institutions of our government. We are living in an age of political revolution." Mr. Gregory charged the lawyers of the country with the duty of standing side by side, remt )ering the traditions

of their profession to do its part in bring ing about remedial legislation and re formed court rules. The election of officers for the ensu ing year resulted as follows: President, Harry L. Higbee, Pittsfield; vice-presidents, Robert McCurdy of Chicago, William R. Wright of Effingham and Edwin M. Ashcraft of Chicago; secre tary-treasurer, John F. Voight, Mattoon.

The Law of Restraint of Trade THE keen, thorough-going analysis of the subject of restraint of trade, made by Mr. Roland R. Foulke, of Philadelphia, in two recent articles in the Columbia Law Review, forms the most valuable contribution to this subject that has appeared in any legal pub lication for a long time. The Green Bag takes pleasure in reproducing Mr. Foulke's view of the subject because a sound law of monopoly is surely to be built only on the foundation of clear and accurate economic thinking. Mr. Foulke himself summarizes his discussion as follows * :— "Trade consists of buying and selling. The factors involved are the buyer and seller, and the chief elements of a sale are (1) person, (2) place, (3) time, (4) price, (5) thing sold. Freedom of trade exists when each individual is entirely unrestrained in his individual action in buying or selling as to each of the ele ments mentioned . This freedom depends on the common law principle favoring freedom of contract, which in turn is opposed at times by the principle pro tecting the rights of the community.

Freedom of trade presents an oppor tunity for the existence of competition. Competition in trade consists in en deavoring to make one or a number of sales or purchases which one or several other parties are also endeavoring to make. Competition, so far as it is suc cessful, is an interference with the trade of the party competed against, who has no standing under the law to complain unless the competition is unfair. Com petition among the sellers operates to the advantage of the buyers, and vice versa. Competition in either case may be to the disadvantage of the parties com peted against and, when carried to excess, exterminates competition and leaves the buyer or seller, as the case may be, without the benefit of any competition at all. Competition, therefore, is bene ficial to a certain extent, always more or less injurious to the parties competed against, and when carried to excess pro duces the same state of affairs as the absence of competition. A person who has freedom of trade may compete, and restriction on this freedom of trade diminishes, to that extent, his capacity to compete. Competition may there fore be the indirect result of freedom of "Columbia Lam Review, March, 1912. pp. 246trade. The market is the contract be 251.