and both Houses
contain railway directors and others who speak frankly as the
representatives of railway interests, and lose thereby nothing of the
respect of the country or their fellow-members. It is not possible here
to explain in detail why the assumption, which prevails in America, that
a railway company is necessarily a public enemy, and that any argument
in favour of such a corporation is an argument against the public
welfare, does not obtain in England. It will be necessary later on not
only to refer to the fact that fear of capitalism is immensely stronger
in America than it is in England, but also to explain why there is good
reason why it should be so. For the present, it is enough to note that
it is possible for members of Parliament to do, without incurring a
shadow of suspicion of their integrity, things which would damn a member
of Congress irreparably in the eyes alike of his colleagues and of the
country. There is hardly a railway bill passed through Parliament the
supporters of which would not in its passage through Congress have to
run the gauntlet of all manner of insinuation and abuse; and when the
sensational press of the United States raises a hue and cry of "Steal!"
in regard to a particular measure, the Englishman (until he understands
the difference in the conditions in the two countries) may be bewildered
by finding on investigation that the bill is one entirely praiseworthy
which would pass through Parliament as a matter of course, the only
justification for the outcry being that the legislation is likely,
perhaps most indirectly, to prove advantageous to some particular
industry or locality. The fact that the measure is just and deserving of
support on merely patriotic grounds is immaterial, when party capital
can be made from such an outcry. I have on more than one occasion known
entirely undeserved suffering to be inflicted in this way on men of the
highest character who were acting from none but disinterested motives;
and he who would have traffic with large affairs in the United States
must early learn to grow callous to newspaper abuse.

In wider and more general ways than have yet been noticed, however, the
members of Congress are subjected to undue influences in a measure far
beyond anything known to the members of Parliament.

In the colonial days, governors not seldom complained of the law by
which members of the provincial assemblies could only be elected to sit
for the towns or