New Jersey to break the laws of Minnesota," even if Minnesota
permitted it.

Trusts started as combinations and ended as corporations. They began
as State corporations, subject both to State and Federal control and
regulation; they may end as Federal corporations subject to no control
except by Congress. It is too early yet to predict the result, but
one assertion may be hazarded, that just as the original Sherman Act
against trusts compelled the formation of trusts, so this proposed
Federal legislation will compel the formation of Federal trusts, by
all but the most local of business corporations.

As to public-service corporations, both the legislation and the
principle on which it rests are, of course, quite different. There is
no serious difference of opinion that the stock should be paid up in
actual money at par nor that dividends at the expense of the public
should not be paid on watered stock. More and more the States are
putting this sort of legislation into effect. There is also the
general provision discussed in a former chapter that the rates or
charges of all such corporations may be regulated by law or ordinance;
and by far the most notable trend of legislation in this particular
has been that franchises of corporations should be limited in time and
should be sold at auction to the highest bidder. Thus, by a California
law of 1897, all municipal franchises must be sold for not less than
three per cent. of the gross receipts and after a popular vote or
referendum on the question. It has been matter of party platform for
some years that all franchises should thus be submitted to the local
referendum. That is, all exclusive franchises whereby rights in
the streets, or other rights of the public, are given away to a
corporation organized for purposes of gain. In Louisiana, street
railway franchises may only be granted on petition of a majority of
the abutters, and must be sold at auction for the highest percentage
of gross receipts, and so substantially in South Carolina. In
Washington, an elaborate statute against discrimination by
public-service corporations was passed by the initiative; but as the
statute itself omitted the enacting clause the law has been held to be
of no effect. Lastly, we will note as the most recent tendency, a
more intelligent limitation by the States themselves of corporations
organized in and by other States, frequently denying to such the right
of eminent domain or, as in Massach