efore, declares that all water in running streams is
the inalienable property of the whole people, and the system providing
for its use by private parties is based on this principle.

So much for the power of the public to exercise its supreme control,
when public exigency requires, over Nature's gifts in land and water. As
an example of the supreme control of the public over the franchises
which it grants, take the case of the railway again. It is well
established that the public has the right through its legal
representatives to regulate the management and operation of the railway
in every detail; and not only that, but the rates which the railway may
charge for its services as well. Many other examples might be given, for
the necessities of the present decade have awakened men as never before
to the facts which we have just discussed. The final conclusion must
inevitably be that _the public as the sole possible holder of the
natural title to the gifts of Nature, while it may find it expedient to
transfer this ownership to private owners, retains always supreme
control, which may be exercised as the public exigency demands_.

We have next to determine in what cases the exercise by the public of
this right of supreme control over its heritage is demanded. We are
greatly aided here, however, by the thorough study we have made of the
laws of competition. It is evident at once that competition in the case
of natural agents acts according to the laws already found. Agricultural
land in this country is so abundant and its ownership is so widely
diffused that any monopoly of it is now impossible. Each farmer competes
with every other farmer, and the extension of transportation facilities
has so broadened the field of competition that in no industry is the day
when the few competing units shall replace the many, and monopoly shall
ensue, farther off than in this. In Great Britain and Ireland opposite
conditions prevail. A limited amount of land is held by a few owners,
and its rental is fixed without competition; consequently the land
question has been almost, if not quite, the chief issue in British
politics during this decade.

If we examine Nature's gifts to the world in the shape of metals, we
find iron to be so widely distributed that competition has always acted
to reduce profits, and that combinations to restrict competition in the
production of the metal have only recently become even possible. On the
other hand, th