expediency often leads astray.

An exchange of personal

favors between members at the public expense is also a most fruitful source of bad legislation. There is a never failing tendency to multiply offices and increase salaries to the utmost limit that the people will bear. This is true of all forms of government, though most extreme in the most despotic. It results everywhere from mere motives of personal expediency.

There is a further question in which no moral consideration is directly involved, yet concerning which there is much strife and hot contention. What business functions and useful enterprises ought the state to conduct? With the increasing disposition and capacity of men to combine and coöperate in enterprises calling for concert of action, industries have developed employing great numbers of men. Railroad, telegraph, mining, manufacturing and trading companies, deal with so many people that their management becomes a matter of public concern. It is demonstrated that they can be operated successfully by private corporations acting through their own agents and officials and under their private laws. It is also shown by experience that some of them can be successfully operated by public agents. The question then is primarily one of expediency. Yet expediency deals with the selection of means to accomplish ends, and we often find public expediency and private in sharp conflict. Whenever it can be truthfully said that the public is as well served by a private owner or corporation as by a public agency, it would seem to accord with the principle of liberty to leave the business in private hands. But where the governing agency of a private corporation uses its power to enrich a few at the expense of the many, or fails to give as good service as its revenues warrant, it would appear necessary to either effectually supervise or assume the management of the business. Supervision necessitates two sets of managers, one for the private owner and the other for the public. There is a marked trend in the direction of the assumption by governments of useful business functions, but no modern state has ever approximated the business organization of ancient Peru, which

singularly affords a model of state ownership of the ultimate title to all the land, mines, fisheries, flocks and herds, as well as the roads and public buildings.

In determining the expediency of assuming business functions by the state the capacities of the men whom it can and will place in public office and their moral purposes are factors of prime importance. No mere theory of organization, however attractive, can make good a lack of capacity for the duties imposed on public agents. Much may be done by those charged with the general supervision of grant enterprises to systematize and simplify the work of each subordinate, and by careful instruction in their respective parts to qualify men of moderate capacity for their work. This is equally true under public and private management. The great corporations exhibit great inequality in the apportionment of the benefit of the combined efforts of many in the conduct of their business. These inequalities are based in part on the value of the effort contributed, but much more on positions of advantage held by some, due to the government of the affairs of the corporation by a select few. This results from the plan now generally followed of allowing a majority of the stockholders to rule. It usually insures efficiency and vigor of management, but at the expense of much injustice. The Post Office, operated by the governments, is the greatest and best business organization in the world, and is a model for other lines.

The legislature makes provision for public schools, in all the American and European states, with some few exceptions. In assuming the function of educating the young in public schools modern states have done more to elevate conceptions of duty, standards of morality and efficiency in all lines of activity than by any other means. Here direct public supervision has been shown to be vastly better than private direction. The Hindoos sought to insure the education of the twice born classes by requiring the instruction of the youths as a religious duty. The Chinese encouraged learning by making it the avenue to public employment. Modern states give instruction as a preparation for all the duties of life.

The Hindoos, the Mohammedans and many Christian states regard the maintenance of the established religion and the observance of religious forms and ceremonies as not only a legitimate function of government, but one of prime importance. The Chinese regard forms and ceremonies, mournings, costumes, kneelings, knockings and salutations of all kinds as matters worthy of strict regulation by the state. It is difficult to perceive that any moral question is involved in religious ceremonial or the formalities of Chinese etiquette, though education and the general consensus of opinion may give them an artificial value hard to comprehend.

Except where limited by constitutional restrictions, as in the United States, the legislature is free to select its fields of activity, to choose the ends it will try to accomplish and the means it will employ for its purposes. It may deal with matters affecting the welfare of the individual only, with those relating to the intercourse of one with another, and with all forms of organization and combination of men, and it necessarily deals with the political organization. Viewing the limitless field of possible activity and the varied impulses that representatives from all parts of a great country bring together, it is not surprising that schemes in endless variety are presented for consideration. As a condition precedent to any improvement there must be a suggestion of something On the other hand, in order to proceed safely, it is necessary that a new rule of action, to be followed by many or all, should be well understood by those it affects. So, much discussion and consideration of new projects is indispensable. The reformer, imbued with the great value of his scheme is anxious to have it put into immediate operation, while the conservative objects, inquires and hesitates till thoroughly convinced that it is good. The friction caused by the ardor of those who propose and the immobility of those who resist often produces heat and sometimes conflagrations; yet the best results seem to call for something of this process, followed by a general agreement. Before any great change in the order of things can be of full benefit, it is necessary to prepare the public mind for it and educate the people to act

new.

in accordance with it. The French revolution clearly exhibits the force of habit and education in continuing bad systems in spite of sweeping reforms devised and put forth by the legislative power. Men who had been long accustomed to obey a master could not at once find prosperity in liberty. The laborer, who has always performed tasks under a master for wages, may be and often is incapable of conducting a business of his own with any degree of success. He may utterly fail to obtain the materials necessary for his employment at the only work he knows how to do. The greatest human achievements requiring the combined efforts of many are only possible of accomplishment by specialization and division of labor. To each participant some part must be assigned which he fully understands. There must be intelligent leadership, causing all to move harmoniously with strength united and not opposing the force of one to another. The distribution of the profits resulting from a great enterprise may be most unequal and unjust, so that those who furnish the capital or direct the operations receive grossly excessive shares, yet if the underpaid laborers are incapable of carrying on the business at all without the capital or supervision, there may be no other alternative but to continue in the service or starve. In all attempts to substitute a just for an unjust system it is indispensable that those who are to be benefited be educated to act according to the new plan.

In despotic countries every combination of the people not directly authorized by the government is looked on with suspicion as likely to breed resistance of arbitrary power. In the most advanced states the various forms of voluntary organization promoted by private citizens are almost innumerable. Their numbers and size bear evidence of the increasing confidence of man in his fellows, as well as of growing capacity for combined effort. The earliest charters in England and the American colonies were granted by the crown or act of Parliament or colonial legislature as a special favor. Now corporations may be formed under general laws for designated purposes, and in many states the only limitation of purposes is that it be to carry on a lawful business or for

social, religious or charitable purposes. In recent years vast fortunes have been accumulated by promoters and manipulators of corporations by more or less dishonest transactions in their stocks and bonds. The unscrupulous men and the immorality of their methods have been concealed behind the artificial structure of the corporation. The vast aggregation of capital and combination of men under the control of the managers of the great business corporations in the United States have given great influence to them in political and governmental affairs. All departments of the government have been more or less tainted by their insidious and often corrupt methods. One of the great problems now prominently before the people is that of correcting and prohibiting the abuses connected with these great business organizations without impairing their usefulness. This cannot be done by merely regulating the affairs of the corporation itself as an entirety. It seems more important just now to regulate the operations of the men who manipulate corporations and their stock and bonds, and by indirection fleece the general public and oppress the employees of the company. The immorality lies in the acquisition of unearned fortunes by cunning and fraud. Even when the people are fairly informed concerning the evils to be remedied, the practical difficulties to be encountered in devising remedies to overcome the most powerful and wealthy combinations in the country are very great. Inordinate private fortunes are unhealthy in their tendencies and influence on the body politic. The simple and direct method of dissipating them is by the use of the taxing power. Legislatures deal with existing conditions. It is idle to denounce penalties against crimes that no one commits, or that are so rare as to be negligible. Laws affecting property and contract rights must be adapted to needs either present or plainly foreseen. Men differ widely in their views on the abstract questions of ethics involved in the distribution of the proceeds of enterprises to which many persons contribute in various ways. One fundamental proposition seems to be commonly overlooked. A just claim to wealth in excess of a fair share of the face of the earth, its natural products and