7 DECEMBER 1901, Page 1

The true way of dealing with the Trusts is to

provide that the administration of the law shall be strong enough and well organised enough to secure complete protection to the individual against any oppressive and illegal action by the ,Trusts. If Trusts are restrained by an efficient judicial administration from oppressing individuals, they will be kept from injurious monopoly by the play of free competition. Unfortunately, how- ever, in America the administration of justice is a State matter, and it is therefore very difficult to be sure that the Courts will always-and everywhere protect the individual from illegal action. But President Roosevelt, while refusing to hamper-the legiti- mate work of Trusts, or to attempt to make them.illegalper se, rightly proposes that the nation should supervise and regulate any corporation doing inter-State business; and if Congress concludes that it has not power to pass the necessary legislation, then recourse must be had to a Constitutional amendment. We are specially glad to note the allusion to a Constitutional amendment. Hitherto American statesmen have been too much inclined to regard the notion of a Constitutional amend- ment as something quite impossible, something beyond even discunnionJ—a point of view from which, the Constitution becomes nothing but a political strait-waistcoat. •