A cheap form of transportation, either electric trolley, with or without track, or buses, is absolutely necessary. Buses and individual jitneys cannot, where the business is heavy, carry passengers as cheaply as the electric street car, but for a more limited traffic the buses may take their place, and for still less traffic jitneys can find a useful occupation. If buses and jitneys are allowed absolute freedom without restrictions as to schedule or route they will skim the cream from the street transportation business and so reduce the revenues of the street cars that they will have to discontinue operation. A thing so undesirable that the public will have to subsidize the street cars and guarantee a certain percentage of earnings or take over their ownership, run them at a nominal fare and let the taxpayer take care of the deficit. By these means those persons who ride their own automobiles, the heavier taxpayers, who are, or should be, most vitally interested in maintaining cheap transportation for the unfortunate residue who cannot possibly afford automobiles, yet whose labor is absolutely essential to the industrial and commercial prosperity of the city, will be required to pay a portion of the upkeep of street-car transportation. If a subsidy be adopted it would be better that it should not be a direct guaranty of a fixed percentage of earnings for in that manner there is no premium on efficiency as our Government found to its cost in dealing with the railroads during the recent war. It would be better if some sort of a sliding scale could be worked out whereby the lines should be relieved of occupational taxes or license fees in proportion as they lowered fares, and such that the lower the fares the greater the percentage of profit they might earn. The contract or charter might provide that all earnings above a specified percentage, due allowance having been made for operation, repairs, and upkeep, on bona fide capital invested should be turned over to the city as a license for the use of the streets. For example with a fare of three cents the city might guarantee a 5 per cent income, but allow, by reduction of taxes and all payments to the city an earning of 10 per cent; on a five cent fare guarantee 3 per cent and allow earnings of 8 per cent; and so on as shown by the accompanying table the figures of which are merely illustrative: +--------------+----------+-------------+ |With a fare of| The City |And allows an| | |Guarantees| earning of | +--------------+----------+-------------+ | 3 cents |4 per cent| 10 per cent | | 4 |3¹⁄₂ | 9 | | 5 |3 | 8 | | 6 |2 | 7 | | 7 |1 | 6 | | 8 |0 | 5 | +--------------+----------+-------------+