at liberty to do so. But it would be fanciful use of English to call it walking in procession. It is further urgedpossibly with some show of reason-that the English Freetrade school made a definite election between two familiar theories of national progress. It was competent to Parliament to say that they desired to make England selfsufficing all round; and, in this view, to protect and foster her agricultural and possibly other specific industries, according to the exigency of circumstances. It was also competent to Parliament to say that England's welfare would be best subserved by exclusive devotion to manufacture, trade and commerce; and that they were content that England should derive her food from foreign sources, because her people could be better employed in productive industries outside of agriculture. Perhaps, say American Protectionists, England judged wisely, in view of the special conditions affecting her case. But the conditions. of America's case are widely different; and we do not care to pin our faith to a particular law or policy, if its application to a specific instance appears inappropriate and possibly disastrous. And so it has come to pass that the English view of free trade is not received in America with extraordinary cordiality.

It is unnecessary to say that the above crude remarks are not intended to make out a case for protection in America; but merely to indicate, in outline, the drift and tendency of popular feeling in this country on the subject. What bearing the existence and probable permanence of this feeling may have on the investments of foreign capitalists must, of course, be judged of by the parties concerned, according to their several idiosyncrasies and the conclusions of their particular schools of political economy. But the answers which they may think proper to give are

not wholly without meaning, if fairly applied to a comparative survey of various countries considered in one very limited aspect-viz., their relative merits as spheres of future investment. Our enquirer will not overlook the advantages of protection, whenever he proposes to invest in any particular form of protected industrial enterprise. There is of course to-day no sufficient ground for predicting that England will not maintain, for many years to come, the commercial supremacy which she has laboured hard to achieve. But there is abundant reason to say that the course, on which she is invited by the prophets of State socialism to embark, distinctly involves a denial of the principles and practice which have made her rich and strong. It may safely be affirmed that no people educated to regard the State as its dry-nurse could ever have made such a record as the history of England discloses. When the State is everybody's nurse, no doubt the nursery is kept in good order, but the children are slow in learning how to take care of themselves. Paris would never have fallen, if some twenty years of Imperial dry-nursing had not weakened the backbone of the French people. State socialism and the impending shadow of indefinite change are very real elements in existing commercial depression in England. It is true that England is very rich. But capital divorced from confidence makes, at best, a poor show in the competition of the world. The owner of capital may honestly and sincerely desire to maintain the commercial supremacy of his own country. But, in nine cases out of ten, he would rather invest it on reasonably sound security elsewhere, than retain it in English investments on the basis of " ransom." An enquirer concerning the best mode of investing his modest competence may be perfectly willing to admit Mr. Glad

stone's pre-eminent ability in the management of Imperial finance, and his unrivalled lucidity in the exposition of his views. But he may be wholly unable to find in the Premier's policy that kind of re-assurance which he looks for in the protection of his outlay in lands, houses, ground-rents, or many other familiar and attractive forms of investment. In the writer's opinion, it is impossible for England to undertake the serious political retrogression involved in State socialism, without suffering the penalties of corresponding financial retrogression.

Beyond a doubt the institutions of America, considered in their various bearings on profitable and safe investment, leave much to be desired. But, in spite of many drawbacks, there would seem to be a reasonable prospect of that kind of internal peace which favours industrial development, of reasonable stability in public feeling and opinion, and at least as high a security for the rights of property as can be found elsewhere. Before England had been overtaken by the wave of democracy, no doubt real property was better worth having in that country than anywhere else in the world. Its ownership-according to measure and extent-conferred on a proprietor peculiar advantages dear to the heart of the average Englishman. On the large land-owner it conferred indirect political power and an appreciable access of social importance. On the owner of a modest estate an atmosphere of solidity distinct from the ordinary incidents of mercantile prosperity. The merchant, it was thought, might be swamped by speculation, or the professional man by ill health; but Providence favoured the man of acres. You always knew where to find him-or, at all events, his property. His estate in —shire could not fly away. The powers that govern the universe would, it was felt,

"think twice before damning" the owner of a fair freehold estate. Liberal sporting rights and the sympathy of the county or local society made residence in a sporting shire a delightful privilege-even at the cost of low interest on invested capital. The enlightened estate agent, who was at once devout and artistic and who recommended a residence because it was close to a church, generally added that there were two packs of fox-hounds within reach, and that fair shooting and trout-fishing were obtainable. In short the ownership of English land involved a large measure of security, credit, peace and pleasure—which was honestly worth every penny of the price paid for it. But this view is undergoing a steady process of dissolution. Investors of capital must judge for themselves, in view of recent political and social complications, on which side of the Atlantic they have, on the whole, the best prospect of protecting and enlarging their store. One thing is plain, that if England abdicates her commercial supremacy, the humiliating process will not have been compelled from without, but invited from within. She will have decided for herself what is a proper price to pay for a somewhat servile observance of successful demagogues.

CHAPTER III.

CONTROL.

ON the mind of an uninitiated visitor to Wall Street a strong impression is made by the constant recurrence of the word 'Control' in discussions affecting the securities of railroad companies and their various degrees of merit or demerit. He hears experts say that it is dangerous to touch this or that stock, because it is "controlled by A. or by B's crowd,-and you never quite know where you are." Or, again, that the stock of the C. Railroad will never really be good for any thing until the road is "controlled by K. and his people." The stranger had supposed that the value of the securities of any given railroad was roughly measured by comparatively simple and definite conditions; such, for instance, as the amount of the company's fixed and floating debt, the volume of its business, the relation between net and gross receipts, the ability of its executive, and so forth. Ten or twelve years' familiarity with the details of railroad administration in its various relations to Wall Street would lead him to the conclusion that "control" has more to do with values than he had supposed, and that it is a word of the first importance in the railroad vocabulary.

Some observations have been made above (pages 8-10) as to the history and growth of American railroads, and it has been indicated that a great number of these have