348 The National Geographic Magazine 



certain proportion of the value as a 

 loan. 



You will remember how the farmers 

 in Kansas and Nebraska, when the 

 bankers were borrowing money from the 

 government under the subtreasury 

 scheme, proposed that the Government 

 of the United States should loan them 

 something on the value of their crops, 

 as it lends money to the holder of gov- 

 ernment bonds. Do you remember how 

 that was greeted by all the statesmen 

 and the editors ? How these unfortu- 

 nates were branded as anarchists or 

 something even worse than that ? And 

 yet today precisely that same scheme is 

 in actual and successful operation on the 

 other side of the world among a people 

 of related blood, of related institutions, 

 and of related political affiliations. 



But while we were doing that the 

 people of New Zealand, as a sort of side 

 issue, gave woman the suffrage. It 

 seemed to them so much a matter of 

 course that a real democracy should not 

 allow any portion of their community, 

 and the best part of it, to be disfran- 

 chised that the bill went through in one 

 night, practically without a single dis- 

 senting vote. 



This last fall New Zealand, first of 

 Christian nations, out of the proceeds 

 of the general taxes, gave its destitute 

 old men and women the old-age pension. 



Step with me into the chamber of the 

 minister of railways and get a glimpse 

 of what it means to a people to be the 

 owners of their own highways. All are 

 free to discuss where the lines shall be 

 built, how they shall be operated, what 

 the rate shall be, and so on. Every- 

 thing is a matter of public discussion — 

 in the newspapers, in the commercial 

 bodies, in the homes, it is the privilege 

 of all to discuss these questions, as they 

 know that the roads are not to be used 

 to make a profit from the people, but 

 are to be used to give the people a great 

 necessity of life at the cost of production. 

 So far is this principle carried that as 



rapidly as the profits show a tendency 

 to increase, the government cuts down 

 the rate ; and this is being done all the 

 time. They are not to be used as a 

 means for fleecing the people. There 

 are different ways of fleecing the people 

 on the railways of the United States. 

 Last year there were killed in all eight 

 thousand, to say nothing of fifty thou- 

 sand wounded. The death roll of the 

 war was not as great as that of the 

 railwa3's. But in New Zealand, under 

 this public administration of the precept 

 of the highest good to the greatest num- 

 ber, there were killed last year of em- 

 ployes and passengers — not one ; and 

 yet by their mileage statistics they were 

 entitled to have killed at least two hun- 

 dred and fifty. 



The traveler will not find the railways 

 equal to the American railwa3 r s, al- 

 though in some respects superior. 

 There are no air brakes on them, but 

 neither are there any records of their 

 having been needed. There is no 

 continuous cord through the train, but 

 neither are there any private cars. 

 There is no continuous passage 

 through the train, but neither is 

 there any credit mobilier burrowing its 

 way. There are no dining-room cars, 

 neither any merchants' fast lines nor 

 fast-freight lines. The rates are the 

 same, even if it is the treasurer of the 

 road ; such a thing as a special rate is 

 unknown. No one could get a special 

 rate. A merchant shipping ten thou- 

 sand tons could not get a lower rate 

 than one shipping ten tons, no, nor one 

 shipping a million tons. A preferential 

 rate given by an officer of a road in 

 order to enable his friend to run his 

 business is unknown. So you see what 

 it means to have the railwa}'s owned by 

 the people. 



I stood on the railway station at 

 Wellington and saw a train full of chil- 

 dren, many of them copper-colored 

 Maori boys and girls, on a school excur- 

 sion. A series of these is arranged by 



