In reply to this it may be said that it will be an unfortunate day for the States when they surrender the power to control their home affairs. Differences between State and interstate rates could easily be adjusted by the National and State commissions and by the courts. It certainly ought not to be difficult for such tribunals to see that a rate which is made higher or lower, as it may be for State or interstate traffic, is wrong. Mr. Stickney has fallen into the error common to railroad men in believing that lower rates of transportation will not prevail in the future. There are many reasons why it is probable that they will be lower. Present rates are highly profitable on well located lines. Labor-saving inventions will increase, and roads will be built and operated more cheaply. Lines will be located with lower grades, lighter curvature and more directness. Business will increase largely, and the ratio of expenses will decrease. Steel will be improved in quality and will be substituted for iron. A heavier rail and more permanent roadway will be used. Rates of interest will rule lower, and there will be much more economy in superintending. Extravagant salaries to favorites will be reduced, and sinecures and parasites will be cut off from the payrolls. Lower wages are inevitable as our population becomes more dense. A very interesting and instructive author upon railroad subjects is Charles Francis Adams, Jr., ex-president of the Union Pacific Railroad and formerly a member of the Board of Railroad Commissioners of the State of Massachusetts. After twenty years' constant association with railroad men, Mr. Adams should certainly know the character of his quondam colleagues. In his book, "Railroads, Their Origin and Problems," he says of them: "Lawlessness and violence among themselves [_i. e._, the various railroad systems], the continual effort of each member to protect itself and to secure the advantage over others, have, as they usually do, bred a general spirit of distrust, bad faith and cunning, until railroad officials have become hardly better than a race of horse-jockeys on a large scale. There are notable exceptions to this statement, but, taken as a whole, the tone among them is indisputably low. There is none of that steady confidence in each other, that easy good faith, that _esprit du corps_, upon which alone system and order can rest. On the contrary, the leading idea in the mind of the active railroad agent is that some one is always cheating him, or that he is never getting his share in something. If he enters into an agreement, his life is passed in watching the other parties to it, lest by some cunning device they keep it in form and break it in spirit. Peace is with him always a condition of semi-warfare, while honor for its own sake and good faith apart from self-interest are, in a business point of view, symptoms of youth and a defective education." And again, in an