Excerpt from National Ownership of Railways The Railways are Public Highways and as such, be ing necessary to transportation as a means of exchange, they should be owned and operated lay Society in the interest of Society. Highways are not private but public institutions, and when government lets out the construction of its highways, giving to corporate bodies the privilege of taxing those who use them, there is always retained a superintending power, a right to regulate the charges imposed upon the public. That the government has a right to prescribe rates has been so well established by judicial decisions that it is no longer a question for discussion. It is the duty of the State to provide inter-communication, and the chartering of a railroad by a private company is for the purpose of performing said duty for the State. Says Chief Justice Black A railway is a public highway for the public benefit, and the right of the corporation to exact a uniform, reasonable, stipulated tell from those who pass over it, does not make its main use a private one. The public have an interest in such a road when it belongs to a corporation as clearly as they would 1f it were free, or if the tolls were payable to the State. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.