342 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



believed that much waste of capital would have been prevented had 

 Government controlled the English railways from their inception ; un- 

 necessary duplicate lines would not have been built, and their heavy 

 cost in construction and maintenance would have been saved. Some 

 forms of industry, like railway transportation, where free competition 

 can be seen to lead to public waste, would seem to come appropriately 

 under state control, provided that, as in Great Britain and Germany, 

 the Government is administered honestly and intelligently. Advo- 

 cates of state-controlled industry point to the danger, particularly in 

 America, of railroad and similar monopolies robbing the people, but 

 the people are not yet satisfied that their risks are not less as matters 

 stand than if Washington officials bought supplies, constructed time- 

 tables, and engaged the servants. Mr. Albert Fink, railroad commis- 

 sioner, in ability and character the chief American authority in railroad 

 questions, gave before the Committee on Commerce in Washington, 

 last March, some very interesting explanations of the difficulties of 

 railroad management. He showed that the intricacies of the business 

 were plainly beyond the mastery of a government board, and he at- 

 tributed the sources of such valid complaints as are made against 

 railroads to their lack of mutual co-operation and good faith. He 

 suggests the appointment of a commission to investigate the facts 

 adduced in substantiation of complaints against railroads ; such a com- 

 mission, at the close of its labors, to recommend, if it thought fit, the 

 establishment of a permanent commission for the best devisable super- 

 vision by the state of railroad transportation. Mr. Fink stated that a 

 board of arbitration among the railroads themselves, with power to 

 enforce agreements and maintain good faith, would abolish the main 

 evils which beset the business. He drew attention to the fact that, 

 while agitators desire to reduce the earnings of the few roads in the 

 Union which pay more than the ordinary return upon investments to 

 that rate, they are not desirous of making up from the public treasury 

 the deficits met with in operating many of the lines of great public 

 utility. 



Modern business is unquestionably, in important departments, pass- 

 ing from individual to corporate management, particularly as the art 

 of conducting companies becomes better understood year by year. 

 Town and city corporations in Great Britain have long since absorbed 

 with advantage the business of water-supply, and have, within recent 

 years, successfully undertaken the manufacture and supply of gas ; and 

 why, if ten men agree to conduct a business, may not ten thousand, 

 or the large majority of voters in a town, or, for that matter, in a 

 country, resolve themselves into a company, if they think there are 

 good prospects of profit ahead, and conduct any business whatever ? 

 Experience alone can decide whether the expectation of profit is base- 

 less or not. 



Less ambitious than state socialism, and more practical, is co-oper- 



