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them may be thus summarily stated: (1) The power which the monopoly gave to the one who enjoyed it to fix the price and thereby injure the public; (2) the power which it engendered of enabling a limitation on production; and, (3) the danger of deterioration in quality of the monopolized article which it was deemed was the inevitable resultant of the monopolistic control over its production and sale. As monopoly as thus conceived embraced only a consequence arising from an exertion of sovereign power, no express restrictions or prohibitions obtained against the creation by an individual of a monopoly as such. But as it was considered, at least so far as the necessaries of life were concerned, that individuals by the abuse of their right to contract might be able to usurp the power arbitrarily to enhance prices, one of the wrongs arising from monopoly, it came to be that laws were passed relating to offenses such as forestalling, regrating and engrossing by which prohibitions were placed upon the power of individuals to deal under such circumstances and conditions as, according to the conception of the times, created a presumption that the dealings were not simply the honest exertion of one's right to contract for his own benefit unaccompanied by a wrongful motive to injure others, but were the consequence of a contract or course of dealing of such a character as to give rise to the presumption of an intent to injure others through the means, for instance, of a monopolistic increase of prices. [53] This is illustrated by the definition of engrossing found in the statute, 5 and 6 Edw. VI, ch. 14, as follows:

"Whatsoever person or persons * shall engross or get into his or their hands by buying, contracting, or promise-taking, other than by demise, grant, or lease of land, or tithe, any corn growing in the fields, or any other corn or grain, butter, cheese, fish, or other dead victual, whatsoever, within the realm of England, to the intent to sell the same again, shall be accepted, reputed, and taken an unlawful engrosser or engrossers."

As by the statutes providing against engrossing the quantity engrossed was not required to be the whole or a proximate part of the whole of an article, it is clear that there was a wide difference between monopoly and engrossing, etc. But as the principal wrong which it was deemed would re

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sult from monopoly, that is, an enhancement of the price, was the same wrong to which it was thought the prohibited engrossment would give rise, it came to pass that monopoly and engrossing were regarded as virtually one and the same thing. In other words, the prohibited act of engrossing because of its inevitable accomplishment of one of the evils deemed to be engendered by monopoly, came to be referred to as being a monopoly or constituting an attempt to monopolize. Thus Pollexfen, in his argument in East India Company v. Sandys, Skin. 165, 169, said:

"By common law, he said that trade is free, and for that cited 3 Inst. 81; F. B. 65; 1 Roll. 4; that the common law is as much against 'monopoly' as 'engrossing;' and that they differ only, that a 'monopoly' is by patent from the king, the other is by the act of the subject between party and party; but that the mischiefs are the same from both, and there is the same law against both. Moore, 673; 11 Rep. 84. The sole trade of anything is 'engrossing' ex rei natura, for whosoever hath the sole trade of buying and selling hath 'engrossed' that trade; and who[54] soever hath the sole trade to any country, hath the sole trade of buying and selling the produce of that country, at his own price, which is an 'engrossing.'”

And by operation of the mental process which led to considering as a monopoly acts which although they did not constitute a monopoly were thought to produce some of its baneful effects, so also because of the impediment or burden to the due course of trade which they produced, such acts came to be referred to as in restraint of trade. This is shown by my Lord Coke's definition of monopoly as being “an institution or allowance whereby any person or persons, bodies politic or corporate, are sought to be restrained of any freedom or liberty that they had before or hindered in their lawful trade." It is illustrated also by the definition which Hawkins gives of monopoly wherein it is said that the effect of monopoly is to restrain the citizen "from the freedom of manufacturing or trading which he had before." And see especially the opinion of Parker, C. J., in Mitchell v. Reynolds (1711), 1 P. Williams, 181, where a classification is made of monopoly which brings it generically within the description of restraint of trade.

Generalizing these considerations, the situation is this: (1) That by the common law monopolies were unlawful be

Opinion of the Court.

cause of their restriction upon individual freedom of contract and their injury to the public; (2) that as to necessaries of life the freedom of the individual to deal was restricted where the nature and character of the dealing was such as to engender the presumption of intent to bring about at least one of the injuries which it was deemed would result from monopoly, that is an undue enhancement of price; (3) that to protect the freedom of contract of the individual not only in his own interest, but principally in the interest of the common weal, a contract of an individual by which he put an unreasonable restraint upon himself as to carrying on his trade or busi[55]ness was void. And that at common law the evils consequent upon engrossing, etc., caused those things to be treated as coming within monopoly and sometimes to be called monopoly and the same considerations caused monopoly because of its operation and effect, to be brought within and spoken of generally as impeding the due course of or being in restraint of trade.

From the development of more accurate economic conceptions and the changes in conditions of society it came to be recognized that the acts prohibited by the engrossing, forestalling, etc., statutes did not have the harmful tendency which they were presumed to have when the legislation concerning them was enacted, and therefore did not justify the presumption which had previously been deduced from them, but, on the contrary, such acts tended to fructify and develop trade. See the statutes of 12th George III, ch. 71, enacted in 1772, and statute of 7 and 8 Victoria, ch. 24, enacted in 1844, repealing the prohibitions against engrossing, forestalling, etc., upon the express ground that the prohibited acts had come to be considered as favorable to the development of and not in restraint of trade. It is remarkable that nowhere at common law can there be found a prohibition against the creation of monopoly by an individual. This would seem to manifest, either consciously or intuitively, a profound conception as to the inevitable operation of economic forces and the equipoise or balance in favor of the protection of the rights of individuals which resulted. That is to say, as it was deemed that monopoly

Opinion of the Court.

in the concrete could only arise from an act of sovereign power, and, such sovereign power being restrained, prohibitions as to individuals were directed, not against the creation of monopoly, but were only applied to such acts in relation to particular subjects as to which it was deemed, if not restrained, some of the consequences of monopoly might result. After all, this was but an instinctive recognition [56] of the truisms that the course of trade could not be made. free by obstructing it, and that an individual's right to trade could not be protected by destroying such right.

From the review just made it clearly results that outside of the restrictions resulting from the want of power in an individual to voluntarily and unreasonably restrain his right to carry on his trade or business and outside of the want of right to restrain the free course of trade by contracts or acts which implied a wrongful purpose, freedom to contract and to abstain from contracting and to exercise every reasonable right incident thereto became the rule in the English law. The scope and effect of this freedom to trade and contract is clearly shown by the decision in Mogul Steamship Co. v. McGregor (1892), A. C. 25. While it is true that the decision of the House of Lords in the case in question was announced shortly after the passage of the Anti-Trust Act, it serves reflexly to show the exact state of the law in England at the time the anti-trust statute was enacted.

In this country also the acts from which it was deemed there resulted a part if not all of the injurious consequences ascribed to monopoly, came to be referred to as a monopoly itself. In other words, here as had been the case in England, practical common sense caused attention to be concentrated not upon the theoretically correct name to be given to the condition or acts which gave rise to a harmful result, but to the result itself and to the remedying of the evils which it produced. The statement just made is illustrated by an early statute of the Province of Massachusetts, that is, chap. 31 of the laws of 1778-1779, by which monopoly and forestalling were expressly treated as one and the same thing.

It is also true that while the principles concerning contracts in restraint of trade, that is, voluntary restraint put

Opinion of the Court.

by a person on his right to pursue his calling, hence only operating subjectively, came generally to be recognized [57] in accordance with the English rule, it came moreover to pass that contracts or acts which it was considered had a monopolistic tendency, especially those which were thought to unduly diminish competition and hence to enhance prices-in other words, to monopolize-came also in a generic sense to be spoken of and treated as they had been in England, as restricting the due course of trade, and therefore as being in restraint of trade. The dread of monopoly as an emanation of governmental power, while it passed at an early date out of mind in this country, as a result of the structure of our Government, did not serve to assuage the fear as to the evil consequences which might arise from the acts of individuals producing or tending to produce the consequences of monopoly. It resulted that treating such acts as we have said as amounting to monopoly, sometimes constitutional restrictions, again legislative enactments or judicial decisions, served to enforce and illustrate the purpose to prevent the occurrence of the evils recognized in the mother country as consequent upon monopoly, by providing against contracts or acts of individuals or combinations of individuals or corporations deemed to be conducive to such results. To refer to the constitutional or legislative provisions on the subject or many judicial decisions which illustrate it would unnecessarily prolong this opinion. We append in the margin a note to treatises, etc., wherein are contained references to constitutional and statutory provisions and to numerous decisions, etc., relating to the subject."

It will be found that as modern conditions arose the trend of legislation and judicial decision came more and more to adapt the recognized restrictions to new manifestations of conduct or of dealing which it was thought [58] justified the inference of intent to do the wrongs which it had been the purpose to prevent from the beginning. The evolution

Purdy's Beach on Private Corporations, vol. 2, pp. 1403, et seq., chapter on Trusts and Monopolies; Cooke on Trade and Labor Combinations, App. II, pp. 194-195; Am. & Eng. Ency. Law, 2d ed., article "Monopolies and Trusts," pp. 844, et seq.