The Government dealt liberally with all the companies; did not insist on the full deductions it thought it had a right to, preferring to come to an amicable agreement rather than enforce at law the full measure or strict letter of its rights. Moreover, the nation got possession of the roads at an earlier date than would have been possible without an agreement, owing to the time-limits fixed for purchase in the charters.

The title to the Central and the Northeast vested in the Government January 1, 1901. The former managers and employés were continued in place, and the roads were operated by the companies' staff on behalf of the State until January 1, 1902. Even when the State took the direct control as little change as possible was made in the staff or the ranks of employés. The Union was transferred January 1, 1902, and since then the Republic has operated directly the three systems: Central, Union, and Northeast. January 1, 1903, the Jura-Simplon passed into the possession of the State, and the four railway systems were coördinated into one, including nearly the whole of the primary railways in one Government system under direct management of the Republic.

The results of public ownership and operation have been most satisfactory to the Swiss people in general though not satisfactory in all respects to some corporation men and French, English and

*Although considerable economies were effected in some directions, the large expenses above indicated have prevented the balance-sheet from having a pleasing appearance to one who has a craving for immediate profits. After two or three years more of necessary improvements and extensions the roads may make a favorable showing to the commercial eye as well as to the human eye. The financial results are already satisfactory to one who is not burdened with an appetite for monopoly profits. Interest on the bonds has been provided and more than $330,000 has been set aside each year for the sinking fund that is to extinguish the capital in less than sixty years.

While discussing State railways a few months ago with Acworth, the great English railway writer, who is strongly opposed to public ownership, the conversation turned to Switzerland, and Acworth said: "Switzerland has made a mess of it."

American visitors who regard the matter from the corporation point-of-view and do not see anything much in a railway system but the dividends.*

The Swiss management has not aimed at dividends but at service. It made large expenditures to put the lines in good condition and make the needful extensions. Most of the roads were singletrack. The Government double-tracked all the important lines, rebuilt road-beds, tracks and stations, and put new cars and locomotives in place of a lot of old rolling-stock, which was sent to the junk heap.

Train service was increased, wages were raised and rates were reduced, the Government taking the lowest rate in force on any road and making that the standard rate for all the roads.

The service on the Swiss railways will not compare favorably with ours; neither will their stores, farms or factories for the most part; but the Government railway service is better than the company service was in Switzerland. I studied the railways on the ground before they were transferred to public management, and I have just been through the country again and can testify to the great improvement that has taken place through the unification of the railway systems and reorganization and development of the service.

Local conditions make rates high in Switzerland. They are not so high as they were under the company régime,

"What are your reasons for that conclusion?" I asked.

"She paid more for the roads than she expected to. Then she lowered rates, raised wages, shortened hours, extended the lines and increased the staff, and spent large amounts on improvements. The consequence is that the financial showing is not as good as that made by the companies."

This seemed to me a correct statement of the facts, but considering the reasons for the less favorable balance-sheet, which the famous Englishman stated so clearly and concisely, I am not able to follow him to his conclusion that "Switzerland has made a mess of it." If the sacrifice of profit for a few years in order to lower rates, extend lines, improve the service and elevate labor conditions, is 'making a mess of it," there are several people in America who would like to have a similar mess made in our railroad field.

but higher than the rates in most other countries because of the short hauls, high grades, light traffic and other adverse circumstances. The average tonmile freight rate was 2.84 cents under the companies just before the transfer. The rate just given me by the Railway Minister is 2.56 cents. These rates seem very high compared with our average ton-mile rate but it must be remembered that they include the express; that Switzerland is a nest of mountains; that the soil is poor, the resources small and the traffic light, and that there are no rebates or secret rates in Switzerland to cut down the average rate.

The average passenger rate was 1.54 cents a mile under company management and 1.35 cents under public management. The third-class rates, on which about nine-tenths of the people ride, average only a shade over a cent a mile (1.12 cents). Commutation tickets are sold for of a cent a mile third-class, and tickets for workingmen and school-children are of a cent a mile (1 cent a mile second-class and 1 cents if you want to go first-class, which is entirely unnecessary, as the other cars are very comfortable). Circular tickets are sold at low rates for touring the country. Monthly tickets can be had allowing you to travel without limit on any of the railways of Switzerland at $11 third-class, $15 second and $22 first. For a six months' ticket you pay $45, $59 or $104, according to class. If you used your ticket pretty steadily you could, on day-trips alone, travel for a tenth of a cent a mile on the monthly, and less than that on the semi-annual.

The principles followed in making rates are the same as those on which the best company systems base their rates except in one respect-the rates are made for public service, not for private profit. Distance and cost form the foundation of the rate system, upon which such special adaptations are erected as may be required to meet the needs of commerce, agriculture and industry, and con

form to the value, bulk and other conditions of the traffic, aid education and the working-classes, and facilitate social and business intercourse.

Perhaps the most interesting and important of all the changes made in connection with the nationalization of railways in Switzerland is the establishment of a system of administration that guarantees the independence of the roads and protects them from every political influence. For this purpose the railway management was placed in a general directory of five or seven members, and five circuit or division directories of three members each, and along with these executive bodies the law established deliberative councils representing general public and commercial interests. The "administrative council" is a national board of directors for the railways elected by the States, and the circuit councils represent agriculture, trade, and industry and the general public interest. This system has worked excellently. The railway administration is absolutely free from the taint of party politics, and the roads are operated on sound economic principles for the benefit of the whole community.

The people of Switzerland have the railways in their own hands in a triple way. 1. Through the operation of the roads by their own agents and managers. 2. Through the supervisory, advisory and regulative powers of the councils representing national and state interests, agriculture, commerce and manufactures. 3. Through the general supervision and legislative control of the regular Government elected by all the people. And back of it all is the splendid power afforded by the initiative and referendum which permits any question that may arise to be called before the people themselves for direct and final decision at the polls.

The leading lessons of Swiss railroad history are:

1. That it is entirely practicable to put the administration of the railroads above

party politics and secure their efficient management as coöperative business enterprises. The railways of the United States are private property and are in politics up to the neck. The railways of Switzerland are public property and are not in politics at all.

2. That there may be ample reason for the nationalization of railways, even

where there is no stock-watering or discrimination or railroad lobby.

3. That the extension to national affairs of the referendum principle which is the heart of our famous New England town-meeting system makes it very easy to nationalize the railways or accomplish any other purpose the people may desire. Boston, Mass. FRANK PARSONS.

́N THE University Library at Berkeley, California, is a piece of statuary representing Liberty breaking the chains that bind the limbs of a kneeling negro child. It is a striking thing, but I said as I stood looking at it the other day, "O, Liberty! you have not yet done all there is to do, while there are two million white children in the United States working in mines, mills, factories, stores, saloons, in every branch of trade, threading the streets through the long hours of the days and nights, and living under conditions that are foul, unsanitary and degrading, in a bondage more bitter, and fraught with far more baleful influences in the life of the nation than any black bondage that ever existed."

The life of the little negro children was free, and they were fed, housed, clothed, -there was for them no anxious care about to-morrow. The black children were never put out to work under such conditions as we find among the white children who toil in these mills, mines and factories, as is done with these children in the great cities of our christian land. This opening twentieth century, rich as it is in the heritage of the century just gone, finds us in the midst of the most abject slavery of white childrenslaves in the power of greed and selfishness intrenched in "Vested Rights," and exacting a blood tribute from the

weak and helpless. Call not one Lincoln, O, Liberty! but many Lincolns to your side to help all together to make this Union a true "union of all who love in the service of all who suffer," in the safeguarding of these little ones who are the future of our Country. Free the children with that freedom which is guaranteed to all, give them their rights to "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.'

A young man wrote to Lincoln asking for advice about organizing a political club. The answer which came back is exceedingly apropos to our own time and its needs. "All get together, let everyone do something-the thing he can do best. Some rent a hall, some attend to the lighting, some speak, some sing, and holler! everybody holler!" Here is the work all cut out-"Everybody holler!" It needs perhaps, but that the meanest of us should say, Either I must do this thing or none will," and the face of the world would be changed.

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Two causes are daily increasing the importance of the study of child-labor in the United States: one the growing number of children who work, beginning at the age of infancy, the other the growing conception of the value of the child as an individual. It was said during the Civil war that in order to swell the ranks of the army "they robbed the cradle and

the grave." It looks as though something of the same kind might be in operation to-day, in order to satisfy an unnatural greed, when one reads that in New York a child only eighteen months old has been found at work that its mother might add fifty cents more a week to her wages. (This was confirmed by Dr. Daniels, of the New York infirmary for women and children, who said that a child one year and a half old had been brought in for treatment.) After some days the mother came and took the child away, saying she needed it to help her in her work. She made passementerie trimmings, and the child rolled tiny balls of paste to which the mother attached the beads for a variety of trimmings used in the millinery and dressmaking trades.

The small hands of children who are only three, four and up to eight years of age, are making violets, roses and other artificial flowers, in places that are a constant menace to public health and this is also true in the manufacture of all kinds of articles from hair ornaments to baby clothes, in the same rooms with diphtheria, tuberculosis, small-pox, scarlet fever,―all contagious diseases. Tired children these, with weary bodies and aching heads-working far into the night, and all day on Saturday and Sunday! The result of this arrested development, incapacitated minds, diseased bodies,-bad morals: the gift of childlabor to our nation.

Women and children have been found living in basements, keeping soul and body together by folding paper-bags, from one hundred thousand to one hundred and fifty thousand a week, and the price for this work dropping from seven cents down to four cents a thousand! Little girls are at work in sweat-shops who ought to be in the kindergarten; they are pulling basting threads and sewing on buttons. Juliet Tompkins says that last summer a party of Americans traveling in Italy were aghast at the sight of a child of six, plodding steadily between a small quarry and an unfinished

house, bearing upon her head with each trip, a stone weighing not less than twenty-five pounds. The child could not lift it alone, but some one would poise it for her, and some one else would take it off at the other end of the line. The face under the stone was grave and uncomplaining, all expression of child-life was lacking; the back showed a deep incurve. The Americans exclaimed indignantly, and were full of protest. "You don't see such things as that in America, thank God! A child cannot be treated like that there!"

Not long ago a child of six walked down an avenue in one of our great cities, carrying on her head a load of sweat-shop pants weighing not less than twenty-five pounds. She had to walk a long distance to reach the tenement she called home, climb four flights of stairs, and then her work was just beginning, where the light was dim, and the poverty of her surroundings unspeakable. She trudged back and forth many times in the week, but no one had noticed her, no one had been horrified! There was no expression of public indignation. Children can be "treated like that in America" and the poor children are not complaining. To whom shall they complain? For it is only here and there that a heart is touched when it beholds the pathos, the tragedy of this waste of child-life, who see in these stunted, dwarfed, deformed “Images ye have made of me," a menace and a scourge ever more threatening,-dollars turned into disease and crime. Since 1903 there has been some attempt to stir public sentiment to secure better laws, or to enforce those already in existence, but every and any attempt for betterment finds the greatest obstacles in the indifference or ignorance of the public mind, or in the downright opposition of private interest, and the slow growth of civic consciousness to the extent of this evil system, built upon the shoulders of these little children.

The Federation of Women's Clubs has taken up child-labor. The Consumers'