edifices of theory. But there is also scope for useful action on the part of the Executive Government, whose officers can investigate and report, both generally and when their attention is specifically directed to alleged abuses. In this manner the public will gradually be educated to form an intelligent judgement, and the railway companies will be kept on their good behaviour. Such is the railway creed which I would put forward as suitable for adoption, not semper, ubique, ab omnibus, but by Englishmen in England at the present day. If it be objected that it is mainly negative, that it amounts to little more than dotting the 'i's and crossing the 't's of the existing system, I venture to reply that therein lies its greatest recommendation. In the dark it behoves us to feel our way cautiously; and our legislators, with all respect be it said, are really very much in the dark as to the economics of transportation. To begin to run, as some distinguished persons are urging at this moment, when we are not certain that we have started in the right direction, and have no idea what obstacles there may be across the road, may be human nature, but is certainly not philosophic. Besides, simple publicity is an instrument whose value cannot be exaggerated, and it is a weapon which has hitherto been used, where used at all, only in the most hesitating and half-hearted manner. Given the right men as Government inspectors, with full access to facts and documents, and the power to publish the conclusions which they draw from them, powers of compulsion will be not merely superfluous but actually a hindrance. For, in England as in Massachusetts, 'the eventual supremacy of an enlightened public opinion' is matter of certainty. In our present temper, however, 'eventual supremacy' is not enough for us; we are all for reaching immediate supremacy by the short cut of compulsion. In the words of a distinguished railway authority, Professor H. C. Adams, of the Interstate Commerce Commission, there is danger lest the quietness with which the principle of publicity works should deprive it of the confidence which it deserves.' The more reason, therefore, to press home the point that the nearest approach to success in P the very difficult task of controlling without fettering the commercial management of railways has been attained by a system which, refusing altogether the assistance of the constable, relies on the support of public opinion for its sole sanction. W. M. ACWORTH. VII. THE INTEREST OF THE WORKING CLASS IN FREE EXCHANGE. THE property which every man has in his own labour, as it is the original foundation of all other property, so it is the most sacred and inviolable.' Such is the axiom in which Adam Smith proclaims the charter of human freedom. It is a pregnant phrase, and the corollaries which follow from it are far-reaching and important. A man's property in himself gives him a right of exclusive use in his own labour, and, as under the present subdivision of labour its principal use will consist in being exchanged for wages, it gives him also a right of Free Exchange. To argue that exchange should be other than free is to countenance slavery. This monopoly, or exclusive power of sale over his own labour, is sacred and inviolable. It can only be exercised by the free will of the seller, that is to say, in Free Exchange. This universal right vested in every seller of labour does not confer on any one man a right to compel others to purchase his labour, for such a forced exchange would be a violation of our axiom, in that it compelled other men to part with their labour, or the results of their labour, against their will. The axiom gives, therefore, no guarantee of employment, no droit au travail; it merely affirms each man's exclusive right to take his own labour and services to market. Further, if the greater may be held to include the less, each man has the same right of property over all that he obtains in exchange for his labour. In other words, within the limits set by an enlightened jurisprudence, a man is entitled to dispose of his wages as he thinks fit. In the infinite series of exchanges here foreshadowed, labour is 'the original foundation of all other |