costly system, and do better.

We know what canals mean to Holland. They are its highways. We also
know how much traffic there is on the canals. What is carried along our
highroads and railroads is transported on canal-boats in Holland. There
you could find cause to fight, in order to make your boats pass before
others. There the Government might really interfere to keep the traffic
in order.

Yet it is not so. The Dutch settled matters in a more practical way,
long ago, by founding guilds, or syndicates of boatmen. These were free
associations sprung from the very needs of navigation. The right of way
for the boats was adjusted by the order of inscription in a navigation
register; they had to follow one another in turn. Nobody was allowed to
get ahead of the others under pain of being excluded from the guild.
None could station more than a certain number of days along the quay;
and if the owner found no goods to carry during that time, so much the
worse for him; he had to depart with his empty barge to leave room for
newcomers. Obstruction was thus avoided, even though the competition
between the private owners of the boats continued to exist. Were the
latter suppressed, the agreement would have been only the more cordial.

It is unnecessary to add that the shipowners could adhere or not to the
syndicate. That was their business, but most of them elected to join it.
Moreover, these syndicates offered such great advantages that they
spread also along the Rhine, the Weser, the Oder, and as far as Berlin.
The boatmen did not wait for a great Bismarck to annex Holland to
Germany, and to appoint an Ober Haupt General Staats Canal Navigation's
Rath (Supreme Head Councillor of the General States Canal Navigation),
with a number of gold stripes on his sleeves, corresponding to the
length of the title. They preferred coming to an international
understanding. Besides, a number of shipowners, whose sailing-vessels
ply between Germany and Scandinavia, as well as Russia, have also joined
these syndicates, in order to regulate traffic in the Baltic, and to
bring about a certain harmony in the _chasse-croise_ of vessels. These
associations have sprung up freely, recruiting volunteer adherents, and
have nought in common with governments.

It is, however, more than probable that here too greater capital
oppresses lesser. Maybe the syndicate has also a tendency to become a
monopoly, especially where it receives the precious patronag