enactment. * * * competition, not combination, should be the law of the trade."
And so is established the proposition that the Statutory and Common Law, in relation to public policy, is that the public welfare is best served by giving the power and liberty of price fixing as to commodities to the whole body of our people, worked out through competition, and protected from control by any lesser group or groups, or even the Government itself. This has all resulted from the demonstration by experience, as is stated in the Northern Securities case:[1] "That the natural effect of competition is to increase commerce, and an agreement whose direct effect is to prevent this play of competition restrains instead of promotes trade and commerce." To such an extent, indeed, did it prevent trade, that it became necessary to constitute it a criminal offense to do those things that by their necessary operation tend "to deprive the public of the advantages that flow from free competition."
Mr. Justice Holmes, in the same case, points out that: "At times Judges need for their work the training of of economists and statesmen, and must act in view of their foresight of consequences."
Indeed, no tribunal has been more conscious of the necessary point of view than the Supreme Court itself, as is shown by its decisions hereinbefore referred to, and particularly in the Knoxville Water Company case,[2] where the Court by a unanimous opinion points out the impropriety of guesses as a basis of judicial action, and gives warning that values would become unsettled and confidence destroyed by denying to private property its just reward.
