other in December 1907, of the
formation of two "working agreements" between British railway
companies,--that namely between the Great Northern and Great Central
railways and that between the North British and Caledonian. In the
former case the Boards of Directors of the two companies merely
constituted themselves a Joint Committee to operate the two railways
conjointly. In the latter, not many details of the agreement were made
public, except that it was intended to control competition in all
classes of traffic and, as the first fruits thereof, there was an
immediate and not unimportant increase in certain classes of passenger
rates. Neither agreement has, I think, yet received the sanction of the
proper authorities, but the public generally received the announcement
of both with approval amounting almost to enthusiasm. Of these
agreements the former, certainly, and presumably the latter, would be
flagrantly illegal in the United States. If, moreover, an attempt were
made in America to arrive at the same ends in some roundabout way which
would avoid technical illegality, the outburst of popular indignation
would make it impossible. Personally I sympathise with the English view
and believe both agreements to be not only just and proper but in the
public interest; but it is certain that they would have created such an
uproar in the United States that English newspapers would inevitably
have reflected the disturbance, and English readers would have been
convinced that once more the Directorates of American railways were
engaged in a nefarious attempt to use the power of capital for the
plundering and oppression of the public. In the still more recent debate
(February 1908) in the House of Commons, the views expressed by both Mr.
Lloyd George and Mr. Bonar Law in favour of the lessening of competition
between railway companies would have exposed them to the hysterical
abuse of a large part of the American press. Both those gentlemen would
have been openly accused of being the tools of (if not actually
subsidised by) the corporations, and (but for Mr. Bonar Law's company)
Mr. Lloyd George's attitude would, I think, be sufficient to ruin an
Administration. These statements contain no reflection on the American
point of view. The conditions are such that that point of view may, in
America, be the right one. But the absurdity is that Englishmen hear
these things, or read of them as being said in the United States, and
thereupon