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THE GREEN BAG
masters of Paul's that there should be no other masters in all London except them selves. But Justice Hill said: There was no ground to maintain this action; since the plaintiffs had no estate but a ministry for the time; and though another equally com petent with the plaintiffs came to teach the children, this was a virtuous and charitable thing, and an ease to the people, for which he could not be punished by the law. This was not accepted as good law without a struggle. Thirty-five years later in the case of the Prior of Nedeport (Y. B. 22 Hen. VI. 14 b) we have a long and heated argu ment between counsel and court over a writ claiming damages for the injury done to the business of the mill of the prior by the estab lishment of a mill by another party without authority. Finally Justice Newton dis posed of the argument for the plaintiff by putting supposititious cases. He concluded with this: Let us suppose that there is a freeholder in a certain vill who is making large profits by using his lands for pasturing cattle, and then another turns his arable land into pastures, thereby getting from the inhabitants the agisting of many beasts, will there be a remedy for the first landowner? Clearly not; for it is lawful for an owner to make the best profit he can from his land. Not only did these cases establish for the future beyond all doubt that competition was to be free unless an exclusive franchise had been granted in explicit terms, but they declared with the high hope of new enthu siasm that free competition was altogether beneficial. After some centuries of experi ence such indiscriminate praise, it may be, would not be given the competitive system. It has been learned that the competitive regime along with its good results brings deplorable injustices even to meritorious individuals. But there are few persons notwithstanding this, who would assert that any practicable method of ordering affairs would produce better results.
Ill And indeed this is so fundamental in modern opinion that the issue is hardly to be found in litigation in modern books. As a usual thing it is only incidentally that the question comes up, as in Allen v. Flood (1898 A. C. 1), where Lord James of Here ford supposes this case : An architect seeks to be employed to the exclusion of his rivals. He says: " My plans are the best, and follow ing them will produce the best house at the least cost. Therefore, employ me and not A. or B." Can this rival sue? His Lord ship says not, clearly: " Before discussing the question it is necessary that some defi nition of the words ' interfered with ' in their legal sense should be given. Every man's business is liable to be 'interfered with' by the action of another, and yet no action lies for such interference. Competition repre sents 'interference,' and yet it is in the interest of the community that it should exist. A new invention utterly ousting an old trade would certainly ' interfere with ' it . If, too, this loose language is to be held to represent a legal definition of liability, very grave consequences would follow." Again, in Vegelahn v. Guntner (167 Mass. 92), Mr. Justice Holmes propounds *by way of illustration the case of rival shopkeepers, a new man endeavoring to drive the old man out of business. The town, he sup poses, is too small to support more than one, and the new man succeeds in ruining his rival within a short time. Yet it is the necessary decision that no legal wrong is done: "The reason, of course, is that the doctrine generally has been accepted that free competition is worth more to society than it costs, and that on this ground the infliction of the damage is privileged. Yet even this proposition nowadays is disputed by a considerable body of persons, includ ing many whose intelligence is not to be denied, little as we may agree with them. I have chosen this illustration partly with reference to what I have to say next. It shows without the need of further authority
