y the improvement of our rivers and harbors.
That our water-courses act as levelers of interstate rates is apparent
from the fact that railroad rates invariably rise with the freezing of
the water-ways and fall with the opening of river and lake navigation.
By connecting, wherever feasible, our large Western rivers with the
great lakes, the Government could greatly extend the reign of
competition in transportation, and thereby keep freight rates within
reasonable bounds. Lake transportation even now plays an important role.
In 1892 it was not less than 20,000,000,000 ton miles during the season
of eight months' duration, and it is almost equal to one-fourth of the
total ton mileage of all the railroads in the country for the entire
year. The average rate of lake transportation has been reduced to 1.3
mills per ton per mile, which is only about one-seventh of the average
railroad freight rate in the United States.

Where the masses hold the sovereign power, there, if anywhere, the
welfare of the people should be the supreme law. Violent political
commotions never disturb the government whose policy is to secure the
greatest good to the greatest number. Thorold Rogers justly remarks that
the strength of communism lies in the misconduct of administrations, the
sustentation of odious and unjust privileges and the support of what are
called vested interests. Lord Coleridge, in a remarkable article
published not long ago, recommended a revision of the laws relating to
property and contract, in order to facilitate the inevitable transition
from feudalism to democracy, and laid down the rule that the laws of
property should be made for the benefit of all, and not for the benefit
of a class.

During the middle ages, and even up to the beginning of the present
century, nearly all the laws on the statute books looked towards the
protection of the rights of the feudal lord. Provision was made for the
expeditious collection of his dues and a severe punishment of his
delinquent debtor. The peasant was forced to labor fifteen hours per day
and three hundred and sixty-five days in the year to pay the baron's
rentals and sustain life. The law permitted him to be flogged for
failing to courtesy the feudal lord, and to be executed for injury to
the lord's person, while to kill a peasant was no worse a misdemeanor
than to kill his lordship's favorite dog or falcon. In short, all laws
were made to protect and perpetuate the wealth and powe