public—can any one seriously suppose that these considerations will for a moment engage the attention of either party in the dispute, when the victory is gained? Can any one suppose that the gaining of a fortune, however colossal it may be, by successful gambling in Wall street, is a school which will fit any one for the comprehension or the performance of the duties belonging to wealth?
No! The whole affair is the most public and striking exhibition of the fact that society is on the high road toward the feudalism of capital.
Supposing then, that the railways were under the control of the Government, as the mint is, and were so organized and managed, that their operation was as accurate and satisfactory as that of the mint, there can be no question but that they would thus fulfil their mission much more satisfactorily than they do now.
It is evident that under such circumstances, if they placed their rates too high, the excess they earned over their expenses would go to diminish the taxes.
The objections which will most readily be made to this arrangement are, that if the Government undertook such an operation, it would be carried on more extravagantly than under private management, and would also only open a new field for bribery, peculation, and incompetence in office; and that further, it would be an interference by the Government with private business; and that it is not within the strict province of government to attend to such matters.
To these objections it may be answered, that the primary duty of a government, and especially a representative government, is to look after and further the well-being of the people; and if such an arrangement would tend toward accomplishing these ends, it is most manifestly within the province of government to undertake it. It is very true, that as a general rule, government should avoid interfering in the domain of private business, but in this case, such an arrangement would be no more out of the domain belonging legitimately to government, than the establishment of the postal money-order system is an unjustifiable infringement upon the rights of private bankers, or than the system which has been so successful in England, and by which every branch post-office is made a savings bank, is an unjustifiable infringement upon the business of the savings banks.
Of course any one who obtains his conception of public administration from the way New York City is governed, would be apt to believe that incompetency and extravagance, bribery and corruption are a necessity of any such system; nor would an investigation of the representative system, as practically illustrated in the National Government have much other tendency than to confirm such an opinion.
And yet, however, both in the national and in our city Government, amid all the wastefulness and incompetency, instances can be found of industrial enterprises which are correctly organized, and which work justly. The Post-Office and the Croton Aqueduct will serve as instances.
It would therefore be possible to organize the management of the railway department in such a way as to avoid the dangers of incompetence and extravagance. Doubtless the entire system of modern government is far from perfect, and it is questionable whether it is possible to secure a system which shall be perfectly harmonious in its workings, until the associative principle shall in industry, as in social life, replace the isolation and antagonism of the present transitional phase of society. But yet there are improvements quite possible with the means now in our possession, and one of the most necessary is this suggested with our railways.
