On with the Trial

U.S. Trustbuster Stanley N. Barnes prefers to win his victories over business monopolies by the polite method of the consent decree.* But in the 20 months since he filed an antitrust suit against the $390 million United Fruit Co., Assistant Attorney General Barnes has been unable to negotiate any settlement with the company.

Testifying last week at a hearing of the House Committee on Small Business, which (like Barnes) is chiefly interested in the plight of U.S. banana jobbers who depend on United Fruit for their supplies, the trustbuster reported that the company:

P: Owns or controls 85% of the land in the American tropics suitable for banana growing (except in Ecuador where government encouragement keeps banana-growing mostly in the hands of local producers).

P: Owns or charters 73% of all banana-carrying ships controlled by banana importers.

P: Imported 63% of the bananas brought into the U.S. from 1935 to 1953, except for three banana-short war years, when Unifruit's ships were in military service.

Upon State Department urging that "distorted or sensational reporting of these hearings might reflect unfavorably on a large American company . . . and might easily be used by the Communists for propaganda purposes to damage the prestige of the United States," the hearings were secret; only Judge Barnes's testimony was made public. But other testimony leaked out. In it, jobbers gloomed that they are under the thumb of Fruit Dispatch. United Fruit's sales subsidiary. "There is no escape from

Barnes wants United Fruit to consent to nothing less than "extensive divestiture of United's lands now actually used for the production of bananas in the tropics." Breaking up the company at the growing end would presumably give jobbers competitive sources of supply. But the trustbuster added that despite 16 extensions of time to answer the complaint. "United has made no satisfactory offer to settle. The Department of Justice," he concluded, "is now actively preparing this case for trial." But Stanley Barnes will not be trying it. Last month he was appointed to new responsibilities as a judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals.

*In effect, a legal compromise under which the accused company stoutly denies that it has really done anything wrong--but agrees to mend its ways.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.