And even this comparatively simple question the President would not be expected to decide unaided. He will need competent advisory bodies. Railroad history shows two such bodies that have been eminently successful--the Prussian State Railway Councils and the Massachusetts Railroad Commission. Wholly unlike in most respects, they are yet alike in this: their proceedings are public, their conclusions are published, and those conclusions have no mandatory force whatever. And it is to these causes that, in my judgment, their success, which is undeniable, is mainly due. Let me describe both bodies a little more at length. There are in Prussia a number (about ten I think) of District Railway Councils, and there is also one National Council; they consist of a certain number of representative traders, manufacturers, agriculturists, and the like, together with a certain number of government nominees; and the railroad officials concerned take part in their proceedings, but without votes. The Councils meet three or four times a year, their agenda paper is prepared and circulated in advance, and all proposed changes of general interest, whether in rates or in service, are brought before them, from the railroad side or the public side, as the case may be. The decision of the Council is then available for information of the Minister and his subordinates, but as has been said, it binds nobody. The Massachusetts Railroad Commission is a body of three persons, usually one lawyer, one engineer and one man of business, appointed for a term of years by the Governor of the state. Originally the powers of this Commission were confined to the expression of opinion. If a trade, or a locality, or indeed a single individual, thought he was being treated badly by a Massachusetts railroad, he could complain to the Commission; his complaint was heard in public; the answer of the railroad company was made there and then; and thereupon the Commissioners expressed their reasoned opinion. The system has existed now for more than 30 years, and it is safe to say that, with negligible exceptions, if the Commission expresses the opinion that the railroad is in the right, the applicant accepts it; if the Commission says that the applicant has a real grievance, the railroad promptly redresses it on the lines which the Commission's opinion has indicated. The success of the Commission in gaining the confidence of both sides has been so great that of late years its powers have been extended, and it has been given, for example, authority to control the issue of new capital and the construction of new lines. But on the question with which we are specially concerned here, the conduct of existing railroad companies as public servants, it can still do nothing but express an opinion; and it may be added that the Commission itself has more than once objected to any extension of that power.