rates, even in a well consolidated district, are not inconsiderable. They result, in the first place, from the rooted habits of our railway freight men, and from the imperfect control that the owners of the roads have of the actions of that class of employees. Grant, for the present, that it is easy for the general office to raise class rates on paper, and even easier to reclassify goods so that articles which used to go fourth class at sixteen cents are put in the third class at twenty; it does not follow that revenue from shipments of the article in question will increase proportionately. Local agents know a hundred devices of underweighing and false billing, difficult for the office to detect. And to raise rates is to tempt them strongly to put their knowledge into practice. For higher rates mean a shifting of traffic, and to allow traffic to shift away from his lines is contrary to all the lessons of the freight-man's life-long education in "getting tonnage” and “making a record." So far, therefore, as liberty is still left him, in law or in fact, the hustling freight solicitor of the Q. E. D. R. R., however busy his lines may be, will not allow tonnage to fall off for want of a reasonable concession. His motto is, "make rates to get business," and in slack times he is doubly active in holding traffic. It is, too, at least partly a matter of pride with him to show large shipments, and the consequent rivalry between the employees of different lines will not cease to show itself merely because the same names are written in a thick bunch of the stock certificates of each road. In the second place, since the present boom cannot last forever, there will still be roads here and there that look forward with apprehension to the next interest period, roads to which a present ten looks bigger than a future twenty. By such roads concessions will be made to large shippers with prompt cash.

The policy of Community of Interest, however, may be counted upon gradually to overcome both of these forces adverse to the advance of rates. As for the energetic traffic man, the liberty allowed him will be less-is, in fact, already less-than recently it was. And for transgressing his instructions he can be more effectively disciplined than heretofore, since the road

against which he has offended need no longer fear to reprove him, lest he transfer his hustling abilities to its willing rival. Meanwhile the new generation, as it comes on, will be educated in a stricter school. Weak roads, too, will be taken care of. By direct subvention, or, more probably, in the disguised form of a lease, the stronger lines will allow them, out of the receipts that steady rates afford, as much as they could obtain if forced to fight for it.

On the whole, then, it appears that Community of Interest may enable the affiliated roads, at least in years of general prosperity, to advance rates within the various districts as consolidation by trade areas proceeds. In periods of depression, however, the demand for reductions will be strong and persistent. It may not force recognition for itself in the old ways. But in some quarters it must be heard and heeded. If general freight agents are all obdurate, and the notorious cutters all absorbed, it may invoke the effective aid of railway commissions and state legislatures.

As to through rates, the conditions are somewhat different. Having built up a satisfactory class of long-distance shippers at its stations, a road may squeeze them sharply for a time, but only for a time. They can bear, as a rule, no higher rates than those to which they are accustomed. Double the freight upon export wheat, for example, and next year more acres will be sown in Cordoba and Bessarabia, fewer in Dakota. The reason we have already seen: it is another example of the rivalry between various producing points, lying in different districts and seeking to supply the same market. And in spite of picturesque talk about a Vanderbilt "transcontinental line from Hamburg to Hong Kong," it must be a long time still before consolidation will eliminate that sort of competition from the world at large.

In the light of these considerations, it is not difficult to guess at the probable effects of the new consolidations upon the financial position of American railroads. Consolidation, in and of itself, does not increase traffic. But it may enable the roads to raise rates within the consolidated districts, and if they do so,

they will presumably increase their net earnings. If, on the other hand, either in hope of avoiding legislative interference, or for the other reasons which have restrained some of the most successful industrial trusts from charging greatly advanced prices, the railroads shall decide to leave rates in general upon the present basis, there are still two main sources from which their net earnings may be expected gradually to increase. First, the roads, as a rule, will be able to reap the advantage of future economies, instead of handing that advantage over to the public, as in the past. Second, the country will gradually grow up to the railroads, and their net earnings will swell with the progress of the trade districts which they drain.

THE LITERATURE OF EXPANSION

CHARLES A. CONANT, Boston.

The recent appearance of the United States in the ranks of colonial powers, and the interest awakened in the opportunities for trade with undeveloped countries, have left their impress strongly upon current literature. A demand has sprung up for a knowledge of foreign countries, especially of their economic and colonial policies, which is bearing fruit in nearly every class of publications. From the newspapers the discussion of these new problems spread quickly to the weeklies and the monthly magazines, and thence has broadened into a flood of books which threatens to submerge even the most industrious student. It is not a new phenomenon that the awakening of an aggressive national spirit in the field of commerce and of arms, should be accompanied by a like awakening in the field of letters. The stimulus of eager ambitions, the struggle for supremacy on the battlefield and in the workshop, are sometimes suspected of absorbing the energy of a people in sordid things, at the expense of the finer achievements of the intellect; but at least a share of this vigorous national impulse is usually communicated to the few who labor in the higher realms of art and life. This was preeminently the case in the age of Augustus, when the success of the Roman arms on every field and the consciousness of the Roman citizen that he belonged to the greatest Empire in the world, awoke an outburst of literary genius second only to that witnessed under like conditions in Greece, the incomparable mother of philosophy and art. It was the same in the England of Elizabeth, and, to some extent, even in the France of a century ago, when the acclamations which accompanied the

triumphs of the armies of Napoleon seemed to kindle a divine flame around the cradles of Balzac, Chateaubriand, Michelet, Hugo, Lamartine, and the many others whose names have shed lustre on the literature of France in the nineteenth century.

The objection may be truly made to much recent writing on our new national problems that it falls far below the standard of permanent literature, or even of skilful handiwork. It cannot be denied, however, that a quickening has been given to literary activity which was lacking up to the outbreak of the Spanish War. For a few years, literature and life in the United States seemed to be growing sterile. Literature was becoming only the echo of an idle dilettantism, and even political life was degenerating into sham battles over issues which were personal or fictitious or of little real importance. But with the raising of vital new problems has come an overwhelming demand for information about the new dependencies, about the Orient, about trade conditions throughout the world, about the methods by which dependencies are governed, and about the ultimate ends of national life. All history has taken on a new meaning. The stories of Constantinople, of the Middle Ages, of the Italian cities, of the portentous rise of the Russian Empire, have become instinct with new life, since the light they shed on the economic struggle for the survival of the fittest has made them applicable to the modern contest for world markets and opportunities for investment.

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Whatever criticism may be truthfully pronounced upon the new literature it is at least virile with the life of the times. A demand is growing up for literary men who are at the same time practical men,-for writers who can discuss living problems, instead of raking the smouldering ashes of dead literary controversies. Out of this awakened intellectual activity will undoubtedly come books worthy of the twentieth century, and conforming to the best models of classic art. Homer, Herodotus, Xenophon, wrote out of the fulness of the events of their time. If their work conforms to the highest canons of art, it is in a measure the unconscious conformity which comes from the inb re of their race. Conditions of artistic