CHAPTER VI.
The Act in Relation to the Uncertainties in Trade.
The great question that presents itself under this heading is—"how much must be guessed" in business? How many elements must be risked? The difficulty, under present conditions, consists not in finding instances in trade where the purest speculation and surmise are essential, but in deciding how many of these may be treated without overburdening the subject.
Economic decisions are self appealing, being founded on natural law. Human law cannot vary the inevitable results that follow human errors. In the end we are inevitably controlled by the uncontrollable, and part of that law is that nothing more decreases production, with its consequent increase of prices, than uncertainty. And we have uncertainty to the nth power when ordinary commodities, that are capable of unlimited production, are being dealt with in free and untrammeled competition. If this be but clearly kept in mind and made the touchstone, no other classification seems imperative. There are those who think it but a matter of nomenclature. That if the legislative power or some other proper authority but decree that certain things be called public utilities, thereby it changes the whole natural law, and that anything can be regulated in the same way. But that is placing the cart before the horse and asserting that the mere name brings about the constant distinction between these two classes, and not the economic differences. If, however, there ever has been a time when there was no excuse for falling into such error, it is the present.
In the case of commodities, the distressing preponderance of failure is easily accounted for. The lowest
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