ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. 63 
!oss For a practical illustration of this we have but to recall the contest 
, !* ? rea . t .. rU ".^ Lines last year; for a time rates were for those lines 
., r les ’ ru i Q ously low, but it all ended in a stronger combination 
broken Ver ’ ^ ° De WMch fr ° m the ' r ^ ex P erience is not likeI y soon to be 
Among the favorable agencies in active operation is the greater 
economy and reduced cost of transportation to the railroads themselves 
arising from the many improvements constantly introduced, and especially 
in le use of steel rails, costing now little more than iron, and lasting at 
east three times as long, and further in banishing a great number of fast 
reight lines owned by outside parties and rings, in which too often mana¬ 
ger have themselves been interested, and which have not only profited 
largely at the expense of the roads, but tended to a general demoralization. 
' Again, something is annually gained by judicial investigation and 
decision in settling principles, and by prudent legislation based thereon. 
mong e remedies yet to be applied are laws holding directors and officers 
to a much more stringent accountability-demanded alike for the good of 
stockholders and the public, and by the more rigid enforcement of existing 
aws requiring fuller reports to State authorities, and giving commissioners 
the fullest power of investigation ; and when it is proven by the latest 
reports that rates have declined on an average through the country over 
twenty- ve per ^ cent, during the last seven years, surely we need not be 
opeless of the future. But over and above all agencies and at the basis of 
this as of all reforms in a popular government like our own, is a ri-ht 
public opinion formed by agitation, producing the fullest discussion, and"all 
the power of the press brought to bear upon the questions involved. 
Keason and experience prove that with this, sooner or later, the right will 
triumph. This may cost in time and money, but as “eternal vigilance is 
the price not only of liberty but of equal and just laws and their proper 
administration, so he who is unwilling to pay such a price, fails in his duty * 
and should not expect the rights of an American citizen or the enjoyment 
of the priceless blessing of a government- which, with all its faults, is the 
best the sun in its centuries of light has ever shown upon. 
Had time permitted I had intended to have spoken upon the advances 
being made iu the construction of narrow-guage railroads, with their greatly 
reduced cost of construction and economy of operation, from which many 
well advised persons are sanguine of most favorable results, and also of the 
great work going on at the mouth of the Mississippi, under Captain James B. 
Hads, and its probable results upon the Northwest as a most efficient source 
of competition in cheapening transportation for all that section. 
