the necessary instrumentalities for its prosecution; it is deemed to be doubtful whether they could be created upon an adequate scale under our present laws. We should clear away all legal obstacles and create a basis of undoubted law for it which will give freedom without permitting unregulated license. The thing must be done now, because the opportunity is here and may escape us if we hesitate or delay.

Chamber of Commerce Commends and Supports Measure.

A committee of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States as early as 1914 had recommended "that Congress should direct the Federal Trade Commission to investigate and report to Congress at the earliest practicable date on the advisability of amending the Sherman Act to allow a greater degree of cooperation in the conduct and for the protection of the foreign trade." In a referendum vote by its members on April 14, 1914, the recommendation was carried by a vote of 538 to 67.1 At its annual meeting in 1915 the Chamber unanimously adopted a committee report in which it was urged that the following principles should be embodied in a bill to be submitted to Congress :

1. All combinations entered into or carried on in good faith for the sole purpose of increasing, facilitating or benefiting export trade, including agreements, transactions and acts entered into, performed or carried out in the course of export trade, which do not restrain or monopolize, or tend to restrain or monopolize trade, in the United States, should be lawful.

2. The term "export trade" should be confined to trade or commerce from the United States to any foreign nation and the term "foreign nation" should not include any of the insular possessions of the United States.

3. The Federal Trade Commission should be given the same power with reference to organizations, associations, agreements, transactions or acts entered into, performed or carried out in the course of export trade which it has reason

1See Hearings before the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, 64th Congress, 1st session, in H. R. 16707.

to believe restrains or monopolizes or tends to restrain or monopolize trade within the United States as it has under the Federal Trade Commission Act in the matter of unfair methods of competition.

4. That none of the powers conferred upon the Federal Trade Commission in the act entitled "An act to create a Federal Trade Commission," etc., should in any way be abridged in such a bill."

Again at its special war convention at Atlantic City on September 21, 1917, the Chamber adopted a resolution urging Congress to pass the Webb-Pomerene bill "before American export trade is brought face to face with the conditions which will follow the close of the European War."1

Foreign Trade Council Voices Similar Sentiment.

The National Foreign Trade Council, at its meeting at Washington, D. C., in May, 1914, adopted a resolution in which it urged Congress "to take such action as will facilitate the development of American export trade by removing such disadvantages as may be imposed by our anti-trust laws, to the end that American exporters *** may be free to utilize all the advantages of co-operative action in coping with combinations of foreign rivals, united to resist American competition, and combinations of foreign buyers equipped to depress the prices of American goods." In a report submitted by the Council at the hearings before the United States Senate Committee on Interstate Commerce on January 5, 1917,2 the following reasons were given in favor of the enactment of the Webb-Pomerene

Bill, viz.:

1. The doubt, amounting to prohibition, of the right to co-operate enables foreign buyers, playing American producers one against another, to obtain American raw materials cheaper than American buyers, which with the lower European labor cost gives the European merchandise fab

1Chamber of Commerce of the U. S. American Export Trade. The Webb-Pomerene Bill a War Measure. September, 1917.

2See Hearings before the Committee on Interstate Commerce, U. S. Senate, 64th Congress, 2nd session on H. R. 17350, p. 36.

ricated therefrom an added advantage in competition with American goods. Inability to co-operate thus confers upon our competitors a practical subsidy.

2. Co-operation in export selling is imperative to meet the proposed post-bellum co-operative buying not only by groups of European industries but even by governments with the object of controlling prices.

3. Co-operation would enable many similar manufacturers and merchants jointly to develop abroad selling power and resources too costly for them to develop individually.

4. Greater stability of export business could be obtained through co-operation and a wider distribution obtained of the benefits of oversea sales as a balance wheel against recurring periods of domestic depression and unemployment. 5. Reduction of "overhead" cost of foreign selling.

6. Increase of normal export trade is essential to defend the gold reserve from sudden drains due to increased European competition.

7. Since the countries with which 95 per cent of American export commerce is conducted have their own antitrust laws, the application of the American laws to exporters merely subjects them to a double standard and can not reach their competitors.

Influential Trade Organizations Advocate Enactment.

The Merchants' Association of New York, the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York, the Associated Business Papers, Inc., New York, the American Manufacturers' Export Association, the National Association of Manufacturers of the United States of America and others declared themselves in favor of the Webb-Pomerene Bill and advocated its passage before committees of Congress which held hearings on the bill.

Congress Enacts Webb-Pomerene Law.

After various changes and amendments the Webb-Pomerene Bill (H. R. 2316) was finally passed by a vote of 241 to 29 in the House of Representatives on June 13, 1917, and by a vote of 51 to 11 in the Senate on December 12, 1917. On April 6,

1918, the Senate agreed to the report of the committee of conference on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses on the amendments of the Senate to the bill, and on April 10, 1918, the same was approved and signed by President Wilson. It is entitled "An Act to promote export trade, and for other purposes," Public Act No. 126, 65th Congress. (40 Stat. at L. 516-18.)