s. Those familiar with the subject need not be told that
the attempt to establish rates in this manner was a failure. Then
it was asserted that competition, if encouraged by the Government,
would prove a remedy for the abuses with which the railroads were
charged. The suggestion was acted upon. The Government encouraged
the construction of competing lines. As a result, rates fell.
Competition, however, finally began to entail disaster upon the
competitors and compel them to become allies to escape destruction.
The competitors combined; railroads were consolidated; rival lines
were united, and competition was thus destroyed. The danger of
great combinations of this kind, not only to the business interests
of the country, but also to the State, was at once suggested, and
occasioned alarm. This alarm resulted in a public opinion that
the Government should own the railroads. But consolidation, to
the surprise of the prophets of evil, did not result in higher
rates. On the contrary, lower rates and higher dividends resulted.

"Thus by a logical process of attempt and failure to control railroad
corporations, the conclusion was reached that wise policy required
permission to such corporations to operate their railroads in their
own way upon ordinary business principles. But at the same time
a board of commissioners was wisely created and authorized to hear
and determine complaints against railroad corporations, and to
exercise other important powers. This board was created about five
years ago; and the most notable feature in its career, says Charles
Francis Adams, junior, is the very trifling call that seems to have
been made upon it. The cases which come before it are neither
numerous nor of great importance. It would, however, be unwholly
safe to conclude from this fact that such a tribunal is unnecessary.
On the contrary, it may be confidently asserted that no competent
board of railroad commissioners clothed with the peculiar power of
the English board, will, either there or anywhere else, have many
cases to dispose of. The mere fact that a tribunal is there, that
a machinery does exist for the prompt and final decision of that
class of questions put an end to them. They no longer arise.

"The process through which the public mind in America has passed
on the railroad question is not dissimilar to that through which
the public mind of England passed. But here competition was relied
on from the first. T