with corruption and extortion, and each failure or negligence has been eagerly pounced upon and visited with a heavy penalty. Besides being subject to State taxation, the localities through which they pass also heavily taxes them, the practical effect being that while a company, by affording profitable employment in rural districts, relieves the several villages of the expense of supporting men having no other prospect of an income, it is yet made to pay the major part of the local tax levies. In short, they have been taught, bitterly, that the justice society always accords to individuals is withheld from corporations, on the unjust assumption that the loss is distributed among too great a number to cause its being felt by any one.

The people are very jealous of their own rights, but have little regard for the rights of the railroads. They overestimate the privileges granted, and forget that the valuable concessions are denied the companies. Had this spirit been manifested at an earlier day, the flow of capital to the West would have been instantly checked. But inducements were held out, capitalists were freely invited, and their confidence gave us our 70,000 miles of operated railroad, constructed at a cost of $3,159,423,057, of which 52 per cent. is represented by stocks, and 48 per cent. in bonds or indebtedness. Upon this investment the earnings, last year, were $473,241,055, 72 per cent. of which was derived from freight, and 28 per cent. from passengers. The operating expenses were 65 per cent. of. the gross earnings, leaving 35 per cent. net, out of which to pay 6.70 per cent. interest on the bonds and 3.91 per cent. dividends on the stock.

Narrowing the confines, we find that the Western Statesincluding Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Wyoming, Dakota, Col

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449

orado, and Indian Territories-with a population of 14,080,000 souls, have 28,778 miles of railway, constructed at an average cost of $50,550 per mile. For the year ending with 1872, the gross earnings were $13.76 per head of population. The net earnings were $67,317,083, which allowed an average dividend of 28 per cent. on the capital stock$724,686,046. These results are not very encouraging to investors, neither are they calculated to divert capital westward. True, there has been much extravagance and unwisdom in construction, and great recklessness and knavery in individual management; not more so, however, than is incident to the growth of every mammoth system or enter. prise. In such cases history repeats itself. But, granting all and more than has ever been charged, the bright fact remains, clear and undeniable, that railroads have been the pioneers of Western civilization. They may be pushed out into new Territories before there is business enough to yield running expenses. That is the stockholders' loss-the people only gain. During such time the public can afford to be generous; but when the railroads populate the vast districts and swell the State revenues, then the cry is raised, "Down with the railroads!" and the infuriated multitude would destroy the agency that has made their homes habitable and their produce marketable.

This subject has been thoroughly discussed during the past decade. British statesmen have studied it in all its bearings, and Americans, too, have given it forced consideration. Their published reports have largely affected the tenor of this article; for it is by the far-reaching light of experience that we are best enabled to comprehend present necessities and speculate upon future possibilities. What we want is, not a continuance of random firing in the hope of a chance shot hitting the mark, but a skillful adjustment

A tribunal the people

and disposition of resources within reach. What more effectual method of rendering railroad enactments inoperative could be adopted than to intrust their interpretation. to men who scorn the idea of understanding the system they are to control? Why burlesque and belittle education so much as to commit our leading industry into the keeping of men whose popular qualification therefor is that they know nothing practically about it? The question is too momentous to be tampered with. Let bunglers be retired and experience come to the front. will have, and are entitled to have. That claim is not in dispute. But let it be constituted with an eye to fitness. The railroads are on trial. Give them the inalienable right to challenge jurors who are foresworn to adjudge them guilty before hearing the evidence. Demagogues have incited the people to clutch at the throats of the corporations, dethrone justice, and drown her voice amid communistic cries for confiscation clamorings that will be certain, eventually, to react upon the land-owners who were duped into inaugurating the warfare.

To obviate public jealousy and secure efficient management, the chief of the tribunal or board for the several control of railways, should be selected with exclusive regard to his fitness; and the board thus created should be placed beyond the range of political action. Being intrusted with duties demanding extraordinary qualifications, industry, and discrimination, the term of office should not be dependent upon the uncertain dictates of legislators, nor expire with every administration. Fidelity to the trusts reposed should regulate the term of service. Some such conception as this possessed the late Robert Stephenson, when, in his inaugural address as President of the British Institute of Civil Engineers, he said: "What we ask is knowledge; give us

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a tribunal competent to form a sound opinion; commit to that tribunal, with any restrictions you think necessary, the whole of the great questions appertaining to our system. Let it protect private interests apart from railways; let it judge of the desirability of all initiatory measures, and of all proposals for purchases, amalgamations, or other railway arrangements; delegate to it the power of enforcing such regulations and restrictions as may be thought needful to secure the rights of private persons or of the public; devolve upon it the duty of consolidating, if possible, the railway laws, and making such amendments thereto as the public interests and the property now depending on it may require; give it full delegated authority over us in any way you please: all that we ask is that it shall be a tribunal that is impartial, and that is thoroughly informed; and if impartiality and intelligence are secured we need not fear the results."

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

TRANSPORTATION AND THE MONEY KINGS.

THE QUESTION FROM ANTAGONISTIC STAND-POINTS.

The article on Railroad Transportation by Mr. Flagg, President of the Illinois Farmers' Association, which constitutes Chapter XXXIV of this work, and that by Mr. J. W. Midgley, Secretary of the President of the Chicago & North-western Railroad, which is concluded on the preceding page, will be accepted, I think, not only as able but also as candid statements from the particular stand-points of the interests whom the writers represent. Mr. Flagg, in this instance, has confined himself principally to giving actual facts and figures relating to the transportation of products, leaving the reader to draw his own conclusions. from what is presented.

The treatment of the subject from the railroad standpoint, by Mr. Midgley, evinces very extensive knowledge of railroad history, both in Europe and America, and sketches the growth of the railway system from its inception in England up to the present time, the introduction of steam and the changes consequently rendered necessary in the carriage of goods, and an outline of the legislation regulating the working of the system. These, I think, have never before been presented in such shape as to bring them before the masses; and from this consideration, if no other, the