62 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMENS ASSOCIATION. 
of the best minds of this country and Europe, not only in regard to the 
great economic question involved, but because of its relation to the govern¬ 
ment itself; and its probable bearing upon the future of the country. A 
few years ago, a joint commission of the British Parliament, composed of 
the ablest men of the kingdom, had the whole subject under most elaborate 
consideration for a long period of time; and strange as it may seem, about 
the only conclusion arrived at was that during their forty years of experience 
their railroad legislation had never accomplished anything which it sought 
to bring about; and had never prevented anything it sought to hinder. 
And a subsequent report comes to the alarming conclusion “ That the time 
was soon coming when the question would have to be decided whether the 
government would possess the railroads, or the railroads possess the govern¬ 
ment.” In our own country, we all know how commissions upon commissions 
have been raised by our different State Governments and reports made 
thereby, and though we have not accomplished apparently very much, yet 
I believe great good will be the‘result of all this thought and investigation, 
and that in the language of Charles Francis Adams, Jr., one of the railroad 
commissioners of Massachusetts, “ the subject is rapidly being discussed 
down to certain principles and practical issues, which can be so formulated 
as to bear directly and successfully on this absorbing subject,” and establish 
the true relation of these vast corporations to the government, and the 
public; so all shall act in harmony and as they were designed, for mutual 
good. 
And here I ought to say that many of our ablest and best railroad 
managers are themselves keenly alive to this subject, moved by a sense of 
its importance, not only to their own real interests, but from a consciousness 
of the higher questions involved, and who I feel confident will, as correct 
principles of practical application are ascertained, aid in securing or at least 
assent to such legislation as shall restrain more selfish, reckless, or corrupt 
operators. I have such an abiding faith, not only in the intelligence of 
our countrymen, but in their moral sense, as to believe them capable of 
seeing and ready to sustain the right, so that wrong cannot permanently 
continue. It is often claimed that these subjects should be left entirely to 
competition to regulate, and that thence will come all needed reforms, but 
here again observation and experience prove the very reverse, and upon 
principle must continue to do so. 
In order to secure safe competition in any business, capital must easily 
be placed in or removed therefrom, which can never be the case with rail¬ 
roads. There capital is fixed and permanent, and a competing line is sure 
either to be crushed or consolidated, and the public made to sustain the 
