The truth is that England never attempted anything like the system of regulation embodied in the Hepburn Bill; never delegated to any commission the power to fix reasonable rates or make reasonable regulations in place of rates or regulations found on complaint and hearing to be unjust, but she has done and continues to do the other thing that President Hadley gives us to understand she has tried and abandoned, viz., the intrusting of power to a Railway Commission to render final decision on questions of fact. In the _Transcript_ of April 1, 1905, President Hadley says he “urged that a single hearing in the railroad court was better than two successive hearings by two different kinds of bodies. Mr. Hepburn’s committee desires to avoid the double hearing, but it undertakes to do it by eliminating the court instead of the Commission. There is reason to fear that this plan will not work.” That may be true. There is reason to fear that no plan for government control of these giant interests will work so long as the ownership is divorced from the said control. As stated in the text, one of the ablest and most honorable of our railroad presidents, in answer to my question as to what would happen if the Interstate Commission were really given power to fix rates, replied, “The Commission would have to be controlled, that’s all.” And when I quoted this to one of the leading members of the Interstate Commission his comment was, “I always said the railroads would own the Commission as soon as it was worth owning.” Even without owning the Commission the railroads can block it pretty effectually by secret practices, extensive forgetfulness on the witness stand, persistent persecution of shippers who make complaint, cunning evasions, and interminable litigation. It is quite likely the proposed regulation will not realize what is hoped for from it, but we cannot predict such failure from English experience as President Hadley does when he says, “The history of English railroad regulation shows that a similar measure, passed under closely analogous circumstances, failed to do the good which its advocates expected. The same failure is likely to be repeated in the United States.” The Hepburn Bill in its scope and directness is very different from anything that England has attempted. It is quite likely that England may try some more vigorous measure than she has yet adopted, but in spite of all her efforts at regulation Mr. W. M. Acworth, the classic railway writer of England from the railway standpoint, corresponding to President Hadley in this country, told me a few months ago that dissatisfaction with the railway situation is so great in England that “9 out of 10 would vote for public ownership of the roads if the question were submitted to-morrow.”