age of the world has
doubled during the past fifteen years, and that its average annual
increase is at present not far from 17,000 miles. There is no doubt that
the extent of railroad construction has everywhere exceeded all
anticipations. So fast has the railroad system expanded in the most
highly civilized countries that it soon outgrew in nearly all of them
the laws originally adopted for railroad control. In time an almost
universal demand arose for reform, and the most progressive governments
were not slow in heeding it. For the past fifteen years there has been a
decided drift on the European continent toward state ownership of
railroads, or to such strict control of the transportation business as
virtually deprives the operating companies of the power to do injustice
to the public.

The railroad is assuming more and more the character of an international
highway. A movement is on foot to connect the railroad systems of the
United States with those of South America by an intercontinental or
"Pan-American" railroad. Appropriations have been made by the United
States and several of the South American republics for a preliminary
survey of the proposed line. Three different surveying parties are in
the field, one in Central America and the other two in the United States
of Colombia and Ecuador. The progress so far reported by them is
encouraging, and there is now some hope that before the close of the
nineteenth century one may be able to travel by railroad from New York
to Valparaiso without even a change of cars.

It has also been proposed to span Behring Strait and connect North
America with Asia and Europe by an international railway. This line, if
constructed, would be simply an extension of the proposed Pan-American
railroad and would follow the western coast of the United States as far
as Behring Strait, then cross over into Asia, traverse Siberia and
finally reach London via St. Petersburg, Berlin and Paris. It is very
questionable whether such a line is at present feasible either from a
technical or financial point of view, but the time will probably come
when the railroad track will connect New York and London.

CHAPTER IV.

MONOPOLY IN TRANSPORTATION.

From time immemorial efforts have been made by designing men to control
either commerce or its avenues, the highways on the land and on the sea,
by a power which law, custom, ingenuity, artifice or some other agency
had placed into their hands.