instead of being tied up in loans on chromos representing little but water, would seek investment in bona fide enterprises, their operations would have little influence, and would certainly have no such baleful power over the industries of the country, as their ability to affect the value of railway shares--on which such immense sums are now loaned on call--gives them, they being able by locking up a few millions when the money market is in the condition, which obtained at the time of the Baring collapse, to force the calling of loans and the slaughtering of vast numbers of the shares, carrying the control of the railways they covet. If only for the purpose of divesting "The dangerous wealthy classes" of this frightful power, national ownership would be worth many times its cost, and without such ownership a score of manipulators are soon likely to be complete masters of the republic and all its industrial interests; hence, the question reverts to the form stated in the opening of this paper: Shall the nation accept as a master a political party that may be dislodged by the use of the ballot, or shall the republic be dominated by a master in the form of a score of unscrupulous Goulds, Vanderbilts, and Huntingtons, who cannot be dislodged, and who never die? Assuming that $30,000 per mile is the maximum cost of existing railways--as is shown in THE ARENA for February,--and that there are 160,000 miles, it would give a total valuation of $4,800,000,000; but that there may be no complaint that the nation is dealing unfairly with the owners of much water, it will be well to add twenty-five per cent. to what will be found to be the outside value of the railways when condemned under the law of eminent domain, and assuming that $6,000,000,000 of three per cent. bonds are issued in order to make payment therefor, and it involves an interest charge of $180,000,000, to which add $670,000,000, as the cost of maintenance and operation, and $50,000,000 as a sinking fund, and we have a total annual cost, for railway service, of $900,000,000 as against a present cost of $1,050,000,000 ($950,000,000 from traffic earnings, and $85,000,000 from other sources of railway revenue) resulting in a net annual saving to the public of $150,000,000 to which must be added the other various savings which it has been estimated would result from government control, and which, for the convenience of the reader, are here recapitulated, namely:--