ded corporate competition fails to help out the citizens of Kansas,
who are subjected to the domination of the new tyrant denominated a
"traffic association." With the nation operating the railways, all
this would be changed, and localities favorably located would be able
to reap the benefits which such location should give, and should such
a condition ever obtain, the farmers of western Iowa will not then
ship corn to the drouth-stricken portion of Kansas for fifteen cents
per one hundred pounds, while the Kansas corn grower, living within
seventy-five miles of the same market, is charged ten cents per one
hundred pounds for a haul one eighth as long. By such rates the
railways force the hauling of corn from Iowa to western Kansas, and
then force the corn grower of central Kansas to send his corn
eastward, the result being two long hauls, where one short one would
suffice; but then the corporations would have absorbed less of the
substance of the people.

Another, and an incalculable benefit, which would result from national
ownership, would be the relief of State and national legislation from
the pressure and corrupting practices of railway corporations which
constitute one of the greatest dangers to which Republicaninstitutions
can be subjected. This alone renders the nationalization of the
railways most desirable, and at the same time such nationalization
would have the effect of emancipating a large part of the press from a
galling thraldom to the corporations.

With the nation operating the railways, we may have some hope that
rates will be reduced by some system resembling the Hungarian zone
which has had the effect of diminishing local passenger rates about
forty per cent., resulting in such an increase of traffic as to
greatly increase the revenues of the roads; the average of rates by
ordinary third-class trains being about three fourths of a cent per
mile, and one and a half cents per mile for first-class express
trains.

In Victoria, the parcel or express business is done by the government
railways, and the rates are not one half what they are with us when
farmed out to a second lot of corporations. Space does not permit the
discussion or even the statement of the many salutary phases of
government control, as developed in the various countries of Europe,
and it is not necessary, as there are abundant reasons to be found in
conditions existing at home, for making the proposed change. By far
the most mena