In the March, 1891, number of the _Forum_, Mr. W. M. Acworth discusses, under the title "Railways under Government Control," the working of the railway systems of the different nations. He holds that the management of railroads which are the property of the State is, as a rule, greatly inferior to the management of those roads which are the property of private trading corporations; he assigns to the railway experts of England and America the first places among the railway experts of the world, and appears to attribute all the good in the railroad management of these countries to the absence of State interference, and all the evil in the management of the railroads of other countries to the fact that such interference exists. He says of the railroads of England and the United States: "In speed and accommodation, in the energy which pushes railways into remote districts, and in the skill which creates a traffic where no traffic existed before, they stand to-day in the front rank, as they have stood for the last half century. To say that they are very far from perfect is nothing; it is only to say that they are worked by human agency. Their worst enemies will scarcely deny that they are at least alive; so long as there is life there may be growth, and we may hope to see them outgrow the faults of their youth. The charge made against State railway systems is that they are incapable of vigorous life. The old adage which proclaimed that 'necessity is the mother of invention' has been re-stated of late years as the law of the survival of the fittest in the struggle for existence. If the doctrine is true, the State railway system, relieved from the necessity of struggle, must cease to be fit and will fail to survive." While it is not intended to enter here into a defense of a State railway system, it may justly be questioned whether "the State railway system, relieved from the necessity of struggle, must cease to be fit and will fail to survive." The growth of the State system in Europe is in itself a sufficient refutation of Mr. Acworth's theory. The mail service has for several hundred years been a monopoly of the government; but, while it is far from being perfect, it remains to be demonstrated that private enterprise could give to the public a better service in the long run.