The State railways of Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Denmark, and the Anglo-Saxon republics of South Africa and Australasia are absolutely free from unjust discrimination. There are no complaints or suspicions on that score. Shippers know to a certainty that their rivals are paying the same charges that they are. Even the most strenuous opponents of public railways do not accuse them of favoritism. The railways privately operated in Holland, Denmark, Sweden and Norway, are also free from discrimination. Thorough public control, natural honesty, and lack of overwhelming temptation have combined to produce a pure administration. In Prussia, the Government, strong as it was, did not succeed in preventing discrimination on the private railways. President A. T. Hadley, of Yale, says: “Where the system of granting special rates becomes deeply rooted a great many are given without any principle at all, through the caprice or favoritism of the railroad companies and their agents.” The revelations made before the Hepburn Committee, as to the practice of railroads in the matter of secret rates were simply appalling. This is the most indefensible part of the whole system of railroad management. It is characteristic that Bismarck, who always chose his fighting ground with skill, made this a main base of operations in his contest against private railroad policy in Prussia. The Prussian Cabinet in the argument for the nationalization of the railways submitted to the Parliament in 1879 made the following statement: “The principles of the publicity of the rates and the equal treatment of all shippers which are embodied in the railroad legislation of all countries, are liable, as experience has shown, to be circumvented on account of the competing interests of the railroads, and also by individual interests which have influence with the managements. The granting of these secret advantages in transportation in the most diversified ways to individual shippers, and in particular the so-called rebate system, is the most injurious misuse of the powers granted to railroad corporations. It renders government control of rates impossible, makes the competition between the different lines, as well as that of the shippers dependent on them, dishonorable and unfair, carries corruption among the railroad employés, and leads more and more to the subordination of the railroad management to the special interests of certain powerful cliques. It is the duty of the government to oppose this evil, to uphold the principle of the equal treatment of all shippers, and to enforce the legislative regulations on this subject. The importance of this problem is only equalled by the difficulty of its solution.”