imical to their
interests, places the average cost of the railroads of this country no
higher than at $30,000 per mile; and this estimate, it should be
remembered, includes the value of the large donations made to railroad
companies by the public. With a full understanding of all the
circumstances, Mr. Poor said of railroad investments several years ago
that if the water were taken out of them no class of investments in this
country would pay as well. In the face of this statement Mr. Hadley
would do well to revise his figures.

We find, however, in Prof. Hadley's book also eminently sound views,
like the following: "If the object of a railroad manager is simply to
pay as large a dividend as possible for the current year, he can best do
it by squeezing his local tariff, of which he is sure, and securing
through traffic at the expense of other roads by specially low rates;
that is, by a policy of heavy discrimination. But the permanent effect
of such a policy is to destroy the local trade, which gives a road its
best and surest custom, and to build up a trade which can go by another
route whenever it pleases. The permanent effect of such a policy is
ruinous to the railroad as well as the local shipper." And he continues:
"By securing publicity of management you do much to prevent the
permanent interests of the railroads from being sacrificed to temporary
ones. By protecting the permanent interests of the public you enlist the
stockholders and the best class of railroad managers on the side of
sound policy."

Edward Atkinson, in an essay entitled "The Railway, the Farmer and the
Public," endeavors to prove that the farmers have no cause for
complaining against the railroad, because rates of transportation have
been greatly reduced during the past twenty years. Speaking of the
reductions made in freight rates in the State of New York, he says: "Had
the rate of 1870 been charged on the tariff of 1883 the sum would have
been at 1.7016 cents on 9,286,216,628 tons, carried one mile,
$158,014,262; the actual charge was $83,464,919, making a difference of
$74,549,343 saved on one year's traffic on the lines reported in New
York." It either did not occur to Mr. Atkinson, or, if it did occur to
him, he failed to mention it, that these freight reductions were forced
upon the railroads chiefly by water competition, and that if the
railroad companies had not saved these seventy-four million dollars for
the people, the canal lines,