than either lighting or water supply. The laboring man, who has to pay perhaps twelve cents for the necessary ride back and forth to his work every day, feels this tax most severely. Suppose that under such an arrangement for street railways as we have outlined for gas and electric lighting companies the fare would be reduced to three cents. His savings from this source would amount to at least $18 per year. Counting the extra rides and those which his wife and children have to take, the annual saving would probably reach $25, a sum which to the average laboring man with a family dependent upon him means a great deal.
Our municipal monopolies are now taxing us that they may pay swollen dividends on millions of dollars of fictitious capital. It is quite time that the public recovered possession of the valuable franchises which are its rightful property, and managed them for its own benefit. The legal difficulties in regaining the title to these franchises are certainly not insuperable, and the readjustment of capitalization can be made on the principle outlined in the case of steam railways. To illustrate: The city of "Polis" purchases the works which supply it with water from the private company owning them, paying the average market value of the stock and bonds during five years past, which amounts, perhaps, to one and one half times the cost of the works. The revenue from the works has been sufficient, probably, to pay 8 per cent. on these securities. The city issues 3 per cent. ten-year bonds to raise funds for the purchase, and it then operates the works so as to gain a yearly revenue of 6 per cent., or 2 per cent. less than that gained by the private company. At the end of ten years the surplus income from the works is enough to pay more than one third the bonded indebtedness; and, if desired, the rest may be reissued as new bonds to run for a long period.
The three classes of monopolies just discussed—railways, mineral wealth, and municipal works—include practically all the monopolies which are generally acknowledged to be subject to the public control by virtue of their use of natural agents or the exercise of franchises granted by the public.