On Friday week President Taft sent a special Message to
Congress dealing chiefly with the proposed amendments of the Inter-State Commerce Law and with the question of Trusts. It contained two important proposals: first, that industrial companies may be incorporated under a Federal law, and secondly, that a United States Court of Commerce should be created to try all railway cases arising out of Orders made by the Inter-State Commerce Commission. The Washington correspondent of the Times says that the Message is an extraordinarily careful legal argument such as would come from " a Cabinet of lawyers with a lawyer at their bead." The proposal of a Federal incorporation law is, as might have been expected, already being attacked as an invasion of State rights, and to some extent also as a violation of the Constitution. But on the whole the Message is com- mended as a moderate document. There seems to be little chance, however, that the present Congress will deal either with the railways or the Trusts.
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