chapter I

have shown how the overcapitalization of our railroads has caused a false and unjust distribution of wealth, and burdened our industries with transportation charges which are a serious obstacle to our national progress. The tendency above delineated shows how seriously the natural laws governing the distribution of wealth provide an ultimate remedy for such violations of these laws. The railroad capitalists who have made their millions by providing railroads at such an inflated cost are now faced with the certain prospect of a loss of one-third of their income from their investments; and that deduction will have to be distributed among the community at large in the form of cheaper carriage.

This is but a repetition of what we find so many times in the history of nations, that when any important class exacts, by some artificial process, a vast amount of wealth that does not naturally and justly belong to it, it ultimately finds the earning capacity of its accumulations declining. This is one among the many reasons why a low rate of interest is apt to prevail in countries where privileged or aristocratic classes have absorbed an undue proportion of the national wealth.

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