shippers and carriers alike and would subject to governmental control the question of what the citizens of the country shall be allowed to earn by the use of their constitutional rights of liberty and property.

These considerations establish that such a system would be full of danger, the extent of which can scarcely be judged.

The substantial usefulness of the Commission has been in the way of settling controversies without litigation. In that way apparently about ninety per cent. of the complaints filed with it have been adjusted. This method is very useful and should be continued.

The question now is as to the remaining ten per cent. which constitute the contested cases. The delay in disposing of them has been due to the proceedings before the Commission. These consist in admitting all sorts of matter presented, irrespective of the rules of evidence (194 U. S., 25), followed by long arguments, opinions by the Commission, and ultimately an order. As the Commission has itself said, these proceedings "bind nobody and go for nothing" (Annual Report for 1897, pp. 31, 33). The Supreme Court has decided that an order of the Commission, under the terms of the Constitution, can have no force as an adjudication (154 U. S., 485, 489). These proceedings before the Commission are, therefore, merely dilatory and serve no useful ригрове.

In the courts there is no delay in enforcing any meritorious claim. As already pointed out, less than two cases a year have gone to final judgment since the Commission was organized, and, with two exceptions, they have all ended in defeat of the claims asserted. In addition, the provisions as to procedure in the courts expedite these cases in every possible way. The courts act on as short notice as possible, without formal pleadings or proceedings; the constitutional protection from self-crimination has been removed by statute so that any one can be compelled to testify; cases arising under the statute have preference over everything save criminal cases; individuals or corporations violating the act are subject, whether shippers or carriers, to heavy fines, and the provisions of the act may also be enforced by decree in equity, with subsequent contempt proceedings in case of disobedience, and appeal lies directly to the Su

preme Court in all cases. It is clear, therefore, that there can be no delay in the courts. The proper course would be for the Commission, when it is satisfied that a case cannot be settled, to resort directly to the courts. This is the procedure under the Elkins Act which has proved successful.

The difficulty at present is that the Commission attempts to act both as prosecutor and judge. It has defined itself as a special tribunal engaged in an administrative and semi-judicial capacity investigating railway rates and practices" (Annual Report for 1896, p. 71). To these functions it is now sought to add the legislative function of making future rates. It is one of the most fundamental principles of the American constitutional system that the functions of government are divided into three departments, the executive, the legislative and the judicial; and that these functions must be exercised by different public servants. The attempt is to endow the Commission with powers of each of these departments. In that case it would occupy the unique position of exercising all three of the powers of government. With the comparatively simple powers which it now possesses the Commission's administration has been generally unsatisfactory, largely on account of the inherent difficulties of the matter. With a large addition to those powers, utter failure seems almost certain.

The remedy lies in the vigorous enforcement of existing statutes, which prohibit rebates and discriminations; and resort by the Commission directly to the courts without dilatory preliminaries, so as to secure expeditious action by the only branch of the Government which is qualified to administer justice and determine rights of property. This will prevent unjust discriminations and undue or unreasonable preferences. So far as concerns reasonableness of the rates, it is obvious that the present method under which the Commission has power to pass upon existing rates has been effectual. But governmental future rate-making would play havoc generally, and "business by lawsuit" would be intolerable.

DAVID WILLCOX.

PASSIVE RESISTANCE
RESISTANCE IN ENGLAND

AND WALES.

BY THE REV. JOHN CLIFFORD, D.D.

It is difficult to believe that, at the beginning of the twentieth century, Englishmen of high character and indisputable loyalty are being sent to prison for exactly the same reasons as those which were urged for committing John Bunyan to Bedford Gaol; for exposing Richard Baxter to the browbeating of Judge Jeffreys and a sentence of eighteen months incarceration; and for sending George Fox to the noisome dungeons of Carlisle and Derby, Lancaster and London. Americans cannot credit it. The Colonists of Canada and Australia say, "Can these things be?"; and even Englishmen would never accept the humiliating conclusion, if they were not confronted with the undeniable fact.

The fact is that nearly one hundred freemen of England, respectable and God-fearing citizens, have been sentenced to different periods of imprisonment since November, 1903. One of the first "criminals was an old and feeble man who had served in the ministry of the Primitive Methodist Church for nearly forty years. His reputation was without a stain; and he was loved by those who knew him as a saint; but he refused to pay the "Poor Rate," or, more accurately, the rate for the maintenance and up-keep of sectarian schools, and therefore he was sent to prison, "weighed and stripped, put on prison fare, and sent to a plank bed "; and, as he bade farewell to a group of friends who were at the doors of his prison-house, he said, "I hope this will be the last time any man will be imprisoned for conscience' sake."

He was the first, or second, to appear at the gates of the gaol "for conscience' sake," but the "last" is still to appear. His sentence was only for six days; but the spirit of persecution expressed in, and liberated by, the Education Acts could not be content with

so slight a penalty. It asked for more. Hence, a young Christian Endeavorer was committed to gaol for a month because he would not pay four shillings and sixpence; and when Alderman O'Connor appeared on the charge that he withheld half-a-crown, one of the gentlemen authorized to administer justice in the King's name called out, "Give him three months," and told the culprit to "put his conscience in his pocket." More recently, the magisterial Bench at Camberwell "decided to double previous sentences," and ordered a fortnight in gaol for a refusal to pay eightpence. Nor do age and long service of the State make any difference. The Rev. Thomas Champness, one of the most distinguished preachers of the Wesleyan Methodist Church, and one of the most successful workers in the villages of England, has been sent to Leicester Gaol twice; and, though he is a very old man, the indignities were increased on his second visit. Nearly all the Free Churches have had their representatives in gaol; and arrangements are being made by others (who feel that, after all, they are made to pay, when their goods are taken from them and sold) to rid themselves of all property, so that they may be in a position to pay with their persons.

Imprisonment is only one phase of this advancing cause; another is that of the public sale of the furniture, pictures and books of those who refuse to submit. The first sale was at Wirksworth, in Derbyshire, on June 26th, 1903; and it has been followed by about 1,600 more, in different towns and villages, all over England. Sometimes as many as 150 "lots" have been offered at one auction. Men and women have suffered gladly the spoiling of their goods, knowing that, in the future of English liberty and English education, they had a better inheritance, although the proceedings have often been most costly. Men earning a pound or twenty-five shillings a week have refused ninepence or a shilling or one shilling and threepence, and found themselves mulcted of seventeen shillings or one pound or even thirty shillings, because they would not be parties to the perpetration and perpetuation of what they regarded as a gross injustice. In one extremely flagrant instance, one hundred pounds' worth of goods were taken for the sum of fifteen shillings, and in many cases fidelity to conscience has meant loss of trade and of position. The resisting farmer is refused the renewal of the lease of his farm. The tailor who has become obnoxious by his witness to the

authority of conviction is told that he cannot be trusted to make a clerical coat, unless he will help keep up the clerical school. The gardener is dismissed, though admittedly trustworthy in every way. A recent letter from the south of England says:

"Boycotting goes merrily on. In one village near here, a Resister has lost a customer of ten pounds a year. In another a tradesman has had to put up his shutters for the offence of opening a Gospel hall in a private preserve of the Church. A few more turns of the screw andone of my friends who has lost Church custom tells me—he will have to do the same. This man declares that, if it does come to that, he will follow the Pilgrim Fathers to a freer land. Another shows me a letter from a clerical customer stating bluntly that he will deal no more with him. I prefer a man who minds his own business.' None of the Resisters are men of hot speech. Still, the resistance grows, and grows most in the realms of the 'boycott.""

At a cost unimaginable by dwellers in the crowded towns the people of the villages have borne their witness, confronted the scorn and opposition of those who knew them best, and whom they had to face day by day, content to suffer so that they might be true. Sieyes said in a dark day, "The title deeds of a man's rights are not lost. They are preserved in his reason." The villagers of England have affirmed the indefeasible rights of the human spirit. The harvests of conscience increase. Each sale is followed by a public meeting of indignant protest, and fuel is added to the white-hot fires of resistance.

Nor does this show the entire range of our agitation. No less than 40,000 summonses have been sent forth by the overseers to compel recalcitrant rate-payers to appear before the magistrates and "show cause" why they will not pay. These summonses are annual in some cases, in others half-yearly, and in others quarterly; clearly, they are sufficiently frequent to keep the movement before the public. But what has aided the cause most, and made its advance independent of organization (though we have a Central Committee in London and over 600 Passive Resistance Leagues in the country), is the action of the magistrates. Some of them, it must be stated first, have been Passive Resisters themselves, and have again and again left the Bench to stand in the dock of the "criminal"; others, though they have remained on the Bench, have expressed their opposition to the Act, their desire for its speedy alteration, and their sympathy with those who