EDITOR'S TABLE. 



615 



far in doing harm to others with- 

 out doing it to yourself. It is this 

 fact which the insatiable legisla- 

 tion-monger ignores. He has an in- 

 finite faith in the mischief that will 

 happen if things are left alone. He 

 can not bear to think that somebody 

 is not looking after everybody. He 

 has no faith whatever in natural 

 law or natural actions and reac- 

 tions, and would hoot the idea of 

 what the poet Wordsworth calls a 

 " wise passiveness." Such people 

 have little conception of the mis- 

 chief they do, and of the good that 

 fails of realization through their 

 pestilent activity. The readers of 

 Dickens will perhaps remember Mrs. 

 Pardiggle and the admirable system 

 of education she applied to her nu- 

 merous family of children. The un- 

 happy youngsters were under orders 

 every hour of the day; they were 

 marched round the country with 

 their mother when she went on vis- 

 its of charity, and compelled to con- 

 tribute out of their own (nominal) 

 pocket money to all kinds of reli- 

 gious and benevolent schemes. How 

 they kicked and rebelled, and what 

 distressing passions were roused in 

 their youthful breasts, the great 

 novelist has told us; and we think 

 we may take his woi-d for it. The 

 fussy legislator is a Pardiggle. If 

 he would leave things alone, oppos- 

 ing interests would find a modus 

 Vivendi, and practical justice would 

 more and more assert itself. The 

 more interference there is between 

 parties who in the last resort are 

 dependent on one another's good 

 will, the less likely they are to rec- 

 ognize their substantial identity of 

 interest. If the interference is 

 wholly in the interest of one of the 

 parties, the other is sure to be 

 forced into an undesirable attitude; 

 while the one whose protection is 

 the object in view will not unnatu- 

 rally take all the protection he can 

 get, and look for something more. 

 What is wanted to put the rela- 



tions between the railways and the 

 public upon the most satisfactory 

 footing possible is, in the first place, 

 less legislative interference; and, in 

 the second, a higher tone of busi- 

 ness morality throughout the com- 

 munity. We place this second not 

 as underrating its importance, but 

 because we believe it would to some 

 extent flow from the first. It is 

 when the public transfers its right 

 of eminent domain to a railway cor- 

 poration that it should take ade- 

 quate measures to protect its own 

 interests; but how can this be done 

 when legislation is sold — when char- 

 ters are given or withheld, accord- 

 ing to the amount of money avail- 

 able for purposes of persuasion? 

 With honest legislators and honest 

 courts there would be very little 

 trouble between the railways and 

 the public, and such as arose could 

 be easily remedied. Commerce com- 

 missions are a testimony to the ex- 

 istence of low standards of business 

 morality; and, unfortunately, they 

 tend to keep them low, if not to 

 make them lower. 



The sooner we make up our 

 minds to trust more to moral influ- 

 ences freely acting in the inter- 

 course of man with man and of in- 

 terest with interest, and less to legal 

 compulsion, the better it will be for 

 us in every department of our na- 

 tional life. The Thirteenth Annual 

 Report of the Interstate Commerce 

 Commission is a virtual confession 

 of the failure of legislation to ac- 

 complish a purpose which was sup- 

 posed to be easily within its field of 

 action. The confession is coupled 

 with a demand for more legislation, 

 but, were the demand conceded, who 

 can guarantee that more still would 

 not be wanted? The railways are 

 not at the end of their resources, 

 and new laws would, we fear, be 

 only too likely to suggest new means 

 of evasion. ISTo ; the remedy lies 

 elsewhere, and if Congress is wise 

 it will give that remedy a trial by 



