competitors because he could obtain special rates, while they, perhaps, were charged an extra amount. The strong monopolies have in this way been able to strengthen their hands for the purpose of throttling their weak competitors. Passenger rates, too, have been low to one class and high to another; and the system of free passes has led to great abuses. Discrimination between towns and cities and States has been hardly less serious; and while the railways were permitted to make high local rates and low through rates, a great stimulus was given to the city at the expense of the country. The second class of evils is that rates in themselves have been too high. The railways have been wastefully built and then capitalized at double their actual cost, and it has been attempted to pay dividends of 6 to 10 per cent. on these securities. In some cases the principle of charging "what the traffic will bear" has been so applied that industries have been ruined through the absorption of their profits by unjust transportation charges. But our space will not permit a comprehensive review of the many abuses of railway management. They are already familiar to the public. We needed only to refer to them sufficiently to carry on our argument by showing that the railroad monopoly is not by any means a harmless monopoly if left to work its own pleasure.
There are two evils of our present railway system, however, which are not chargeable to monopoly, but to the attempt to defeat monopoly, and which are important to our discussion. The first is the waste of competition in railway traffic; the second, the waste of competition by the construction and threatened construction of competing lines where present facilities are ample for the traffic. Of the first it need only be said that in advertising, "drumming," and soliciting patronage the railways spend many millions of dollars every year, which comes out of the pockets of the public. The second is most serious, for it involves a far greater waste. It is a conservative estimate to say that 5 per cent. of the railways of the country were only built to divide the profits of older roads, and that their owners would be delighted to-day to have their money