180 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tion of parts it sees, not recognizing the fact that the engine can do 

 nothing without the steam-generating boiler, and the boiler nothing 

 without the water and the burning fuel, is a tendency which leads citi- 

 zens to think that good government can be had by shaping public ar- 

 rangements in this way or that way. Let us frame our state-machinery 

 rightly, they urge, and all will be well. 



Yet this belief in the innate virtues of constitutions is as baseless 

 as was the belief in the natural superiorities of royal personages. 

 Just as, of old, loyalty to ruling men kept alive faith in their powers 

 and virtues, notwithstanding perpetual disproofs, so, in these modern 

 days, loyalty to constitutional forms keeps alive this faith in their 

 intrinsic worth, spite of ever-recurring demonstration that their worth 

 is entirely conditional. That those forms only are efficient which have 

 grown naturally out of character, and that, in the absence of fit charac- 

 ter, forms artificially obtained will be inoperative, are well shown by 

 the governments of trading corporations. Let its contemplate a typi- 

 cal instance of this government. 



The proprietors of a certain railway-company (I am here giving my 

 personal experience as one of them) were summoned to a special meet- 

 ing. The notice calling them together stated that the directors had 

 agreed to lease their line to another company ; that every thing had 

 been settled ; that the company taking the lease was then in posses- 

 sion ; and that the proprietors were to be asked for their approval on 

 the day named in the notice. The meeting took place. The chairman 

 gave an account of the negotiation, and the agreement entered into. 

 A motion approving of the agreement was proposed, and seconded, 

 and to some extent discussed no notice whatever being taken of the 

 extraordinary conduct of the board. Only when the motion was about 

 to be put, did one proprietor protest against the astounding usurpa- 

 tion which the transaction implied. He said that there had grown up 

 a wrong conception of the relation between boards of directors and 

 bodies of proprietors ; that boards had come to look upon themselves 

 as supreme, and proprietors as subordinate, whereas, in fact, boards 

 were simply agents appointed to act in the absence of their principals, 

 the proprietors, and remained subject to their principals ; that, if, in 

 any private business, an absent proprietor received from his manager 

 the news that he had leased the business, that the person taking it was 

 then in possession, and that the proprietor's signature to the agree- 

 ment was wanted, his prompt return would be followed by a result 

 quite different from that looked for namely, a dismissal of the mana- 

 ger for having exceeded his duty in a very astonishing manner. This 

 protest against the deliberate trampling down of principles recognized 

 by the constitution of companies met with no response whatever : not 

 a solitary sympathizer joined in the protest, even in a qualified form. 

 Not only was the motion of. approval carried, but it was carried with- 

 out any definite knowledge of the agreement itself. Nothing more 



