This has two sides to it: it is doubtless bad for the public to have to pay rates which give a return on twice the actual cost, and the possession of a close monopoly in the hands of a few millionaires may be abused to the detriment of individual traders. But, on the other hand, the railway could not have been made in any other way. If it had been necessary to wait until the slow growth of population insured such a traffic as would induce the ordinary public to subscribe for shares at par, you might have waited for twenty years before a single mile of railway was made west of the Mississippi. Nor is this all: the enormous profit realised in the first of these enterprises led to a rush of rich speculators into the lottery of pushing railways ahead of traffic, in which there were such magnificent prizes. The continent was covered by new railways built to create new traffic rather than to provide for that which already existed. And the traffic was created, though, as the lottery contained blanks as well as prizes, many of the original promoters were ruined. The second great line spanning the continent—the Northern Pacific—ruined two successive sets of promoters, and is only now beginning to be moderately successful. But the final result has been that while British India, which went on what may be called the respectable system of getting a pound’s worth of work for every pound raised, has only 12,000 miles of railway, the United States, under the speculative system, has got 120,000 miles. I cannot doubt that the national wealth of America is greater at the present day than if there had been no Jay Goulds or Vanderbilts, and the construction of her railways had been delayed on the average for twenty years. The contrast between labour and capital or free trade and protection is only a particular case of the larger polarity between what is called in scientific language egoism and altruism, or, in more popular phraseology, individualism and socialism. According to one theory, the best result is obtained by leaving individuals as free as possible to act on their own suggestions of their duties and interests, and confining the intervention of the State to enforcing laws for the protection of life and property, and such measures as are obviously necessary for the safety of society. According to the other theory, the State ought to interfere wherever the results of individual liberty lead to abuses, and should endeavour to create a society as near to ideal perfection as possible, by administering and regulating the public and private affairs of its citizens. It is obvious that the question has two sides, that extreme conclusions in either direction are, as is always the case, invariably false. Individualism carried too far would disintegrate society. It would be impossible to leave it to the short-sighted selfishness of every citizen to say whether an army and navy should be maintained for national defence, and taxes should be levied for their support.