to put an end to exploitation while the primal causes—private capital and poverty, two-thirds of which are artificially created by the State—continue to exist.
As regards the complete harmony among railway companies, we expect them to say: "Do you not see railway companies oppress and ill-use their employers and their travellers! The State must intervene to protect the public!"
But have we not often repeated that as long as there are capitalists, this abuse of power will be perpetuated. It is precisely the State, the would-be benefactor, that has given to the companies that monopoly which they possess to-day. Has it not created concessions, guarantees? Has it not sent its soldiers against railwaymen on strike? And during the first trials (we see it in Russia), has it not extended the privilege to forbidding the Press mentioning railway accidents, so as not to depreciate the shares it guaranteed? Has it not favoured the monopoly which has anointed the Vanderbilts and the Polyakoffs, the directors of the P.L.M., the C.P.R., the St. Gothard, "the kings of the times"?
Therefore, if we give as an example the tacit agreement come to between railway companies, it is by no means as an ideal of economical management, nor even an ideal of technical organization. It is to show that if capitalists, without any other aim than that of augmenting their dividends at other people's expense, can exploit railways
