SHOULD THE NATION OWN THE RAILWAYS? 61 



to the drouth-stricken portion of Kansas fcir fifteen cents per one hundred pounds wliile 

 the Kansas corn-grower, living; within seventy-five miles of (he same market, is charged 

 ten cents per one hundred pounds for a haul onc-eijrlith as lon>;;. By such rates the rail- 

 ways force the hauling of corn from Iowa to Wes'cn Kansas, and then force the corn- 

 grower of Central Kansas to send his corn eastward, the result being two long haids 

 where one short one would suffice, but then the corporations would have absorbed less of 

 the substance of the people. 



Another and incalculable benefit which would result from national ownership 

 would be the relief of state and national legislation from the pressure and corrupting prac- 

 tices of railway corporations, which constitute one (if the greatest dangers to which re. 

 publiciin institutions can be subjected. This alone renders the nationalization of the rail- 

 ways most desirable, and at the same time such nationalization would have the effect of 

 emancipating a large part of the press from a galling thraldom to the corporations. 



With the nation operating the railways we may have some hope that rates will be 

 reduced by some system resembling the Hungarian zone, which has had the efTect of re- 

 ducing local passenger rates about forty per cent., resulting in such an increase of tratflc 

 as to greatly increase the revenues of the roads, the average of rates liy ordinary third-class 

 trains being about three-fourths of a cent per mile, and one and a half cents per mile for 

 first-class express trains. 



In Victoria the parcel or express business is done by the government railways, and 

 the rates are not one-half what they are with us when farmed out to a second lot of cor- 

 porations. Space does not permit the discussion or even the statement of the many salu- 

 tary phases of government control as developed in the various countries of Europe, and 

 it is not necessary as there are abundant rrasons to be found in conditions existing at 

 home for making the proposed change. 



By far the most menacing feature of continued corporate ownership isthe power 

 over the money markets, which it places in the hands of unscrupulous men, any half 

 dozen of whom can, at such a time as that following the failure of the Barings, destroy 

 the welfare of millions and plunge the country into all the horrors of a money panic. 

 Whether it be true or not there are many who believe that a small coterie who had in- 

 formation before the public of the condition of Baring Brothers, and that a block of many 

 millions of railway securities, held by that house, were being (or soon would be) pressed 

 upon the market, entered into a conspiracy for the purpose of locking up money, and 

 thereby depressing prices in order to secure, at low cost, the control of certain coveted 

 railways. The railways were secured, and the e is not much doubt that they had been 

 lying in wait for such a critical condition of the money markets to accomplish this pur- 

 pose, which still further enhances their power for evil. With the railways nationalized 

 not only would there be no temptation for such nefarious operations but the power of 

 such men over values would be greatly lessened if not wholly destroyed as there would 

 be no railway shares for them to play fast and loose with and as money, instead of being 

 tied up in loans on chromos representing little but water would seek investment in bona- 

 flde enterprises their operations would have little influence and would certainly have no 

 such baleful power over the industries of the country as their ability to affect the value of 

 railway shares — on which such immense sums are now loaned on call — gives them they 

 being able, by locking up a few millions when the money-market is in the condition 

 which obtained at the time of the Baring collapse, to force the calling of loans and the 

 slaughtering of vast numbers of shares carrying the control of the railways they covet. 

 If only for the purpose of divesting "the dangerous wealthy classes" of this 

 frightful power, national ownership would be worth many times its cost, and without 

 such ownership a score of manipulators are soon likely to be complete masters of the re- 

 public and all its industrial interests; hence the question reverts to the form stated in the 

 opening of this paper: Shall the nation accept as a master a polBical party that may be 

 dislodged by the use of the ballot or shall the republic be dominated by a master in the 

 form of a score of unscrupulous Goulds, Vanderbilts and Huntingtons who cannot be dis- 

 lodged and who never die? 



