tions, they were enabled, without any formal organization among themselves, to direct the affairs of all these corporations in perfect harmony just as efficiently as they had done while acting as trustees and holders of a majority of the Trust certificates. Here, again, there was a change in form; but in this case, instead of the Trust becoming a single corporation, it became twenty corporations, the majority of the stock in each being held in the same few hands, and all of the corporations being managed in perfect harmony.

A comparatively late change in this company of a different kind has been made. One of the separate corporations, the New Jersey corporation, has increased its stock, and so arranged that it can take control of the business of all of the different companies. The stocks of the separate companies are therefore now being exchanged gradually for the stock of the New Jersey corporation, and in the course of time it is expected that this one corporation will own all of the stocks of the twenty different corporations, so that the management will thereafter be not merely practically one, but also technically and legally one under the directors of one

corporation, they voting all the stock of each of the corporations. It is practically a return to the Trust form in all but name.

A voting Trust, somewhat different from the kinds of Trusts described before, is also frequently found. In this form the Trust applies ordinarily only to one corporation. The holders of a majority of the stock of this corporation put into the hands of some few trustees or possibly of a trust company the voting power of the stock, with specific instructions in certain instances as to the way in which this stock is to be voted and the affairs of the corporation carried on. In other cases the power is left to the trustees to carry on the business of the corporation as seems to them wise in accordance with a certain general line of policy laid down beforehand. The individual shareholders may then pledge or sell or dispose of their stock in whatever way seems to them best, but the voting power remains in the hands of the trustees. The purpose of such a voting Trust is, of course, to secure continuity of the policy which, for whatever reason, the stockholders prefer. In some cases it may be that the majority of the stockholders of the original corporation think it

desirable to devote all the earnings for a specific period to the improvement of the property instead of to the payment of dividends. It might be impossible to continue such a policy with a shifting body of stockholders, many of whom might wish to receive annual dividends. If, however, the stock can be transferred, but the voting power remain in a few hands, the policy can be carried out consistently for a fixed period of years.

In the case of the Pure Oil Company and other competitors of the Standard Oil Company, it was thought desirable to place the majority of the stock in the hands of a few trustees, because many stockholders felt that otherwise the Standard Oil Company might in time buy from individual stockholders a controlling number of shares, and thus succeed in absorbing more or less completely one of its chief rivals. It is claimed by the managers of the Pure Oil Company that, owing to experience with some other companies, they had reason to believe that this was the purpose of the Standard Oil Company, and, in consequence, the Pure Oil Company had its stock placed in the hands of a voting Trust.

It will be noticed that in all of these cases the difference between this form of voting Trust and the original Trust as seen in the case of the Sugar Trust, is that in the later cases provision is made simply for the management in a specific way of the affairs of some one corporation, whereas in the other case the intention of the Trust was to unite many different corporations under a single management and possibly in certain cases to secure a virtual if not a complete monopoly of the output.

After the dissolution of the old Trusts, the form of organization into one great corporation that should own the separate plants, became most common. Under that form, as, for example, in the case of the organization of the American Tin Plate Company or of the National Steel Company, each one of the separate corporations sold its plant outright to a new corporation, and the original corporation then dissolved. When the combination was completed, there remained in existence only the one great corporation owning the plants that had belonged before to the separate corporations or to individual partnerships or owners. In no essential particular did the legal aspect of the single new

corporation differ from that of the separate corporations which had preceded it.

The form of organization that seems to have become most common within the last year or two is one that is closely allied to the old Trust form in its essential character. In this case, when a combination is about to be perfected, a new corporation is formed whose purpose it is to buy up all, or at least a controlling share, of the stock of all of the separate corporations that are to come together. The different corporations then maintain their separate legal existence, but their stock is held by the one company. The officers of the great corporation having thus in their hands the control of the stock of all of the separate corporations, and voting that stock as they see fit, elect, of course, from year to year the directors of all of the corporations, and thus by this absolute control of the officers, direct the affairs of the different corporations. In some cases the " parent corporation" (so called, though born from the others), besides owning the stock of the individual corporations, owns also independently some properties of its own; but in other cases the parent corporation owns only the stock