Many people assume that, because the government represents the nation as a whole, therefore government officials will not be under the same temptations to act unjustly which are felt by the representatives of a private corporation. This is a mistake. It is not as representatives of the investor that railroad agents do much injustice; this motive has practically nothing to do with it. Most of the abuses complained of are positively injurious to the investor in the long run. When officials really represent the interests of the property with wise foresight, they, as a rule, give the public no ground to complain. The question reduces itself to this: Will the State choose better representatives and agents than a private corporation? Will it secure a higher grade of officials, more competent, more honest, and more enterprising? The difference between state and private railroads is not so much on matters of policy as on methods of administration. The success of government administration varies with different countries. In Prussia, where it is seen at its best, the results are in some respects remarkably good; yet even here the roads are not managed on anything like the American standard of efficiency, either in amount of train service, in speed, or in rapidity of development. And what is barely successful in Prussia, with its trained civil service on the one hand and its less intense industrial demands on the other, can hardly be considered possible or desirable in America. No one who has watched the workings of a government contract can desire to have the whole trade of the country put to the expense of supporting such methods in its transportation business.