COLD STORAGE AND FOOD SPECULATION 63 



The cold-storage evil and with it food speculation 

 can be corrected by the public ownership of the 

 cold-storage plants, and it can probably be corrected 

 in no other way. Any one familiar with the attempt 

 to regulate the prices of public-utility corporations 

 knows how futile the whole proceeding is. So satis- 

 factory is regulation to the railroads and public- 

 service corporations that they would probably fight 

 as hard now to retain the public-service commissions 

 as they fought to prevent their creation. They are 

 the best possible guarantee of existing rates and 

 charges. The difficulties in the way of rate regula- 

 tion, even when the utility commissions are intelli- 

 gent and free from control, are so insurmountable, 

 and the contests in the courts are so costly and pro- 

 longed, that decisions favorable to the public have 

 ceased to be expected. And the regulation of food 

 agencies by price control, etc., or by criminal pro- 

 ceedings is so vastly more difficult than the regula- 

 tion of pubHc-utility corporations, where responsible 

 officials can be found and the property is in sight, 

 that it is utterly beyond the power of the govern- 

 ment successfully to attempt it. Other countries 

 more courageous or less controlled by these interests 

 than we recognize the unpracticability of private 

 distributing agencies and do not permit them in 

 this field. In Germany, Denmark, and Australia, 

 the countries where the food supply is successfully 

 controlled in the public interest, the cold-storage 



