correct moral and economic principles. Being practical men, engaged in the management of practical affairs, politicians and corporation managers disdain to be guided by the theories of those who seek neither political nor commercial success, but devote themselves to searching out routes to better conditions under which all of the people shall enjoy peace, happiness and prosperity.

Have a care! Honesty and intelligence are the only foundations on which political power and commercial success can be permanently based. If the people are not properly taught political power and commercial gains will some day, as during the French Revolution, be the only evidence demanded in proof of treason to the cause of humanity.

Honesty is the image of God in the soul of man. Intelligence is a condition of mind development. If the people are not correctly taught, if principles known. to be right and just are deliberately sacrificed for power or profits, injustice to the people and to corporations will be done. In a final analysis no man can be a gainer by his own injustice. "By such acts he trades in unequal exchange character for power or property. 'What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?' How infinitely unintelligent all transactions are by which men seek to gain power or property through violating the true spirit and meaning of the law of natural justice! The product of life is character. The product of labor is

property. If life is eternal, so is character. Labor is perishable, so is property.'

Every success of dishonesty and of ignorance is a recorded failure in the annals of history. There is a power that works for good all through the life of humanity. Its tendency has ever been, and must always be, to develop the image of God in the soul, to enlighten the mind, to perfect human nature, to render men masters of liberty. Liberty and justice are inseparable. Every act that tends to efface the image of God, or to miseducate the mind, tends to destroy liberty, to dethrone justice. Those guilty of such acts are the people's enemies.

REGULATION OF PUBLIC SERVICE CORPORATIONS BY COMMISSIONS.

Mr. Forstall's paper on "Governmental Control of the Price of Gas," and a bill to create a State Board of Gas and Electric Lighting Commissioners for the state of Illinois, ought to induce a very careful consideration of the causes of the ill success of the Massachusetts commission, as set forth in an article by Prof. John H. Gray in the Quarterly Journal of Economics. We think such an examination will lead the investigator to the conclusion that the cause of ill success is to be found in the unscientific character of the legal conditions under which the commissioners have been required to administer their office. At the time these laws were enacted, and we think it is still true, public

opinion was not sufficiently educated to require the enactment of a law that will render the administration of the office of State Gas and Electric Lighting Commissioners entirely successful. Evidence of this is afforded by the text of the proposed law on this subject for the state of Illinois. That bill enacted into law will be no more successful than the Massachusetts law. In this connection we must refer to the contract law proposed to the Ohio Legislature at its last session. In our judgment, the conditions in a contract drawn in conformity with that bill will overcome all of the defects pointed out by Prof. Gray.

ULATE

THE DUTY OF THE STATE TO REGULATE PRICES FOR SERVICES RENDERED BY

MUNICIPALITIES AND PUBLIC

SERVICE CORPORATIONS.

A very carefully prepared paper by Mr. Alfred E. Forstall, secretary of the American Gas Light Association, was read at its twenty-eighth annual meeting at Denver, October 19, 1900, under the title of "Governmental Control of the Price of Gas."

A fitting appendix to Mr. Forstall's paper, with an introductory letter from Alderman Butler of Chicago, is the full text of a measure of which he is the author, to create a state Board of Gas and Electric Light Commissioners. This measure has been proposed in the city council of Chicago, and by it referred

to its committee on state legislation. The object of this measure is to provide proper administrative machinery by means of which the state can exercise its right to regulate the prices charged for gas and electric lighting by all public service corporations supplying such services in the state.

It is altogether unlikely that Alderman Butler was aware, when he drew this measure, that a committee of the Western Gas Association, appointed to investigate the question of gas commissions in 1886, made a majority report in favor of the formation of such commissions. It is also unlikely that Mr. Forstall was aware, when writing into his paper a very judicious criticism of the policy of inaction, and saying, "Whatever our policy may be, the question is being, and will continue to be, agitated by others," that Alderman Butler was engaged in preparing a measure providing for "governmental control of the price of gas."

The right of the state to regulate the price of gas is conceded, and, as Mr. Forstall points out, has been exercised in numerous cases. If there is a logical reason why the state should regulate the price of gas, the same reasoning will apply to any public service. If there is a logical reason why the state should regulate the price of any public service when rendered by a private corporation, the same reasoning will require it to regulate the price of all public services rendered by municipalities. The function of the state in this

behalf is to hold the scales of justice in even balance between the apparently conflicting interests of users and corporation stockholders on the one hand and users and municipal taxpayers on the other hand. Justice in one case requires that so long as stockholders' money is used for the purpose of rendering a service the users of the service must be required to pay a price for the service used, sufficient to cover fully all costs of ownership and operation and a reasonable profit on the investment, but no more. Deficits, created by the municipal ownership and operation of the means for supplying a public service, must be paid by taxpayers. Justice demands, therefore, that the users of the service must also be required to pay a price for the service used. This should be sufficient to cover fully all costs of ownership and operation, to provide a fund for the final payment of all bonds issued or other municipal indebtedness created on account of the service, and to prevent the service from being sold for any less.

The correct regulation of prices for public services by authority of the state will promote the welfare of every person residing in, doing business in, or owning property in, every municipality in which such services are rendered. No question of public policy now before the people is pregnant with greater possibilities for good, if rightly settled, or for evil if incorrectly settled. It is the part of wisdom on the part of those who have expert knowledge of these subjects to guide the action of lawmakers to correct conclu