BAIL WAY MALADJUSTMENTS. 373 



plement each other, and afford further proof that a stable adjust- 

 ment is only possible when the development of a country's com- 

 merce and its means of transport and communication advance 

 together. 



The State of Iowa early passed sundry laws very favorable to 

 the construction of railroads, and, as a consequence, induced the 

 premature development of several systems. For convenience of 

 illustration, let us watch the early settlers of Iowa distribute them- 

 selves along three lines of railroad when they could have been 

 better accommodated at less cost for highways, schools, churches, 

 policing, and the administration of township and county affairs 

 along the line of one ; but in addition to these incidental burdens 

 they found themselves compelled to pay high rates for railway 

 service in order to pay the fixed charges and dividends on the 

 stock of three railroads doing the business of one. If the legis- 

 lators had been endowed with the common sense of the locomotive- 

 driver, they would have closed the throttle-valve and put on the 

 brakes ; but, instead of doing this, they allowed the disturbing laws 

 to remain in force, and prescribed legal rates to be charged for 

 railway services, hoping thereby to retain the benefits and still 

 escape the evils of premature railroad extension, and from that 

 day to this Iowa has vainly sought a satisfactory solution of the 

 problem. 



The evils to be corrected were those due to the premature or 

 unnecessary construction of railroads : this could only be accom- 

 plished by deterring such construction ; and in so far as the laws 

 succeeded in so doing, the people were relieved of the evils but 

 lost the advantages arising from the operations of the original 

 law, and, in so far as the remedial laws failed to deter further con- 

 struction, the evils as well as the supposed benefits of the original 

 law remained in force. 



As might be expected, the two classes of laws — the one stimu- 

 lating direct, the other repressing railroad extensions by impair- 

 ing their value as investments — did not operate to restore a stable 

 equilibrium; for the adverse legislation was not aimed directly 

 against premature and unnecessary construction, but it simply 

 made the conditions of operating railroads more onerous. 



Hence the influence of the two laws may be likened to a see- 

 saw, and in their operations they have caused abrupt changes and 

 violent oscillations. The first effect of adverse legislation tended 

 to stop further building ; but when populative increase caused the 

 legal tariff rates to become remunerative to the railroads, the 

 deterring laws became inoperative, the stimulating enactments 

 once more hastened a development far in advance of the natural 

 wants, and the pressure of adverse laws was again experienced ; 

 and so these spasmodic fluctuations have taken the place of the 



