ACTUAL COST OF CARRYING PASSENGERS. 395 



It makes fuel cheap not only in Pennsylvania, but in Con 

 necticut. It distributes those necessaries of life all over the. 

 land, and gives equal advantages to all sections. It permits 

 the free movement of the people one among another, so that 

 a more general and continuous commingling of blood, of 

 habits, and ideas ensues. 



We admit the proposition of carrying at cost also when 

 the matter of postal carriage comes up. We admit and 

 approve the principle that the general government should 

 take the risk of carrying the mails, based on the idea that 

 such carriage shall be nearly or quite self-supporting. 



But the proposition can be put in more general and equally 

 forcible terms, and I do it, using the language of our present 

 minister to Italy, George P. Marsh, as written ten years ago 

 (&quot; Man and Nature,&quot; page 54) : &quot; It is, theoretically, the 

 duty of government to provide all those public facilities of 

 intercommunication and commerce which are essential to 

 the prosperity of civilized commonwealths, but which indi 

 vidual means are inadequate to furnish, and for the due 

 administration of which individual guaranties are insufficient. 

 Hence, public roads, canals, railroads, postal communications, 

 the circulating mediums of exchange, whether metallic or 

 representative, armies, navies, being all matters in which the 

 nation at large has a vastly deeper interest than any private 

 association can have, ought legitimately to be constructed 

 and provided for by that which is the visible personification 

 and embodiment of the nation, namely, its legislative head.&quot; 



ACTUAL COST OF CARRYING PASSENGERS. 



This intervention of the public authorities I justify by 

 a third proposition, viz. : That the cost of railway transpor 

 tation is, or may be, far below the charge now collected from 



