right to construct and operate. If abutting property owners feel aggrieved on account of the construction, their claim should be against the government that granted the right to erect the construction, not against the corporation that exercises the right. When this requirement is recognized by law the spectacle of some obstinate property owner blocking the construction of an improvement serviceable to all the people, as these public services always are, will no longer be witnessed. The burden of securing consent from abutting property owners to exercise a right granted by a municipality or a state, blackmailing exactions for mythical damages, and demands for the rare cases of real damage will cease to fall upon corporations. This will reduce the cost of construction and will open the way for lower prices for all services rendered by making a special use of public rights-of-way. In this way the public welfare will be correctly served. It cannot be served by sustaining the right of abutting property owners to demand compensation for every or any form of construction passing their property for the purpose of rendering a service to the whole community.

A general law should be enacted by the state declaring that all grants of right-of-way for any construction to be used for the purpose of rendering a public service, made by municipalities, townships, counties and the state, shall be made free of encumbrance from claims by abutting property owners of

every kind and nature; and that all claims for damages by reason of any such construction, or of its operation, shall fall upon the government granting the right and not upon the corporation exercising the right granted. Such a law will recognize the rights of all of the people as against the rights of a few. It will facilitate the construction of lines of service following the most direct routes. It will reduce investments on account of, and, therefore, the price of the service. It will recognize the right of the state to control all public rights-of-way and to cause them to serve all of the people in the best possible manner. Every facility that can be added to those originally known when the right-of-way was dedicated to the public, will be welcomed as a step in advance broadening the sphere of usefulness and tending to develop social, industrial and commercial well-being and prosperity.

It is the exclusive right and duty of the state to assume the responsibility of dealing with property owners on the one hand, and with corporations on the other hand. The true function of the state is properly performed only when it regulates the constructions and operations of public service utilities so as to secure for the benefit of all of the people every advantage that can be obtained, new and old, on terms designed to make them of the greatest service to the largest number. This is the spirit of democracy. It is correct economic and sound public policy.

A SOUND ACTION.

The Taxpayers' Association of Cincinnati is to be congratulated upon its attitude toward the lessees of the Southern road. A new lease of the Southern road is pending. A committee of the Taxpayers' Association, having the terms of the lease under consideration, approved the lease with the exception of a provision that the lessees should pay 10 per cent of the gross earnings in excess of $4,500,000 per annum. They recommended that this be stricken out. They give the following reasons:

"Because we believe it to pe essential to the commercial interests of our city that all possible inducements should be given the lessee company to further develop and increase the business of the road.

"For this reason we believe it would be unwise to name such terms and conditions as would partly deprive it of the fruits caused mainly by the lessee company improving the property.

"We further believe that $1,200,000 annual rental, well secured, would be a reasonable consideration for this property."

This action is in marked contrast with the unwise demand for more compensation from public service corporations, which is heard in almost every city in the country. The greatest public benefits that can be obtained from the operation of public service industries, small or great, must come through improved

facilities and lower charges for service. Compensation can be paid, but it can never be paid without injury to the people who use the service. Improvements must be neglected or charges must be held up sufficiently to create the revenue out of which compensation payments must be made.

A NEW WAY IN WHICH TO SETTLE THE PUBLIC SERVICE FRANCHISE

QUESTION.

While thoroughly saturated with Mr. Marcus Lane's conceptions of the wrongs the people have suffered at the hands of public service corporations, Mr. Lane affirms his desire to be entirely just to invested interests and gives evidence of this desire in the proposals he makes. For this reason, as well as many others, his proposals should be carefully studied by corporation managers, those who have investments in public service corporation property, and honest, intelligent, thinking people who want only to have the right thing done in the wisest possible way. If this study of the subject does nothing more than direct discussion on the lines of determining what is fair to the corporations and what is fair to the people, it will result in a great good.

Mr. Lane recognizes the fact that much of the existing discontent results from conditions created by unwise legislation. To change these conditions he advocates new legislation of the character he defines.

One point made by him is undoubtedly sound. It is this: The remedy must be by general state and national laws, not by special legislation, making a crazy quilt of statute books in a vain endeavor to deal with each specific case as it may arise. We do not agree with him, however, in making a remedial general law mandatory. It should be entirely permissive. That "iron wall of court decisions against the people and in favor of the corporations" behind which they are now sheltering themselves can be rendered entirely useless. or harmless by creating new conditions which will draw the corporations from behind the wall to occupy a new position in the open. This can be done by the enactment of the law which the Ohio Legislature had under consideration during its last session to permit municipalities and corporations to contract with each other on the terms therein specified. A study of the provisions contained in that measure, in comparison with the proposal made by Mr. Lane, will be the best use any corporation manager or investor can make of the time necessary to do it thoroughly.

The objective point of both remedies for evils complained of in the existing conditions under which public industrial services are rendered-the Ohio measure and Mr. Lane's proposals-is to secure the best service for the least pay for public and private users. To do this Mr. Lane would have the municipality become a partner in the business of every corporation. He would have the business managed honestly, and