ederation has asserted a control over them that has stopped short
only of management. Hence there are no duplicated lines, no
discriminations in rates, no cities at the mercy of railroad
corporations, no industries favored by railroad managers and none
destroyed. The government prescribes the location of a proposed line,
the time within which it must be built, the maximum tariffs for freight
and passengers, the minimum number of trains to be run, and the
conditions of purchase in case the State at any time should decide to
assume possession. Provision is made that when railway earnings exceed a
certain ratio to capital invested, the surplus shall be subjected to a
proportionately increased tax. Engineers of the Post-Office department
superintend the construction and repair of the railroads, and
post-office inspectors examine and pass upon the time-tables, tariffs,
agreements, and methods of the companies. Hence falsification of reports
is prevented, stock watering and exchange gambling are hampered, and
"wrecking," as practiced in the United States, is unknown.

Owing to tunnels, cuts, and bridges, the construction of the Swiss
railway system has been costly; Mulhall's statistics give Switzerland a
higher ratio of railway capital to population than any other country in
Europe. Yet the service is cheap, passenger tariffs being considerably
less than in France and Great Britain, and, about the same as in
Germany, within a shade as low as the lowest in Europe.

Differing from the narrow compartment railway carriages of other
European countries, the passenger cars of Switzerland are generally
built on the American plan, so that the traveler is enabled to view the
scenery ahead, behind, and on both sides. For circular tours, the
companies make a reduction of 25 per cent on the regular fare. At the
larger stations are interpreters who speak English. Unlike the service
in other Continental countries, third class cars are attached to all
trains, even the fastest. On the whole, despite the highest railroad
investment per head in Europe, Switzerland has the best of railway
service at the lowest of rates, the result of centralized State control
coupled with free industry under the limitations of that control. In the
ripest judgment of the nation up to the present, this system yields
better results than any other: by a referendary vote taken in December,
1891, the people refused to change it for State ownership of railroads.

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