having to fight the directors, with the possibility of an appeal to
the government, they now have to fight the government directly; and
experience does not lead to the view that a government department has
any special tenderness toward the claims of labor. If they strike,
they have to contend against the whole organized power of the state,
which they can only do successfully if they happen to have a strong
public opinion on their side. In view of the influence which the
state can always exercise on the press, public opinion is likely to be
biased against them, particularly when a nominally progressive
government is in power. There will no longer be the possibility of
divergences between the policies of different railways. Railway men
in England derived advantages for many years from the comparatively
liberal policy of the North Eastern Railway, which they were able to
use as an argument for a similar policy elsewhere. Such possibilities
are excluded by the dead uniformity of state administration.

And there is no real advance toward democracy. The administration of
the railways will be in the hands of officials whose bias and
associations separate them from labor, and who will develop an
autocratic temper through the habit of power. The democratic
machinery by which these officials are nominally controlled is
cumbrous and remote, and can only be brought into operation on
first-class issues which rouse the interest of the whole nation. Even
then it is very likely that the superior education of the officials
and the government, combined with the advantages of their position,
will enable them to mislead the public as to the issues, and alienate
the general sympathy even from the most excellent cause.

I do not deny that these evils exist at present; I say only that they
will not be remedied by such measures as the nationalization of