trict. Underground construction is unquestionably liable to be overdone in American cities; there is a question whether any community can afford as many subways as have been projected for New York and Boston. Most of the large European cities thus far are certainly under-subwayed.

On the mechanical side of traction European novelties are generally not particularly adaptable to American conditions. The tourists of the Chamber of Commerce party entertained themselves by riding in the suspended monorail at Elberfeld-Barmen. This scheme is interesting. Conceivably it might be worth the attention of an American community, if there is such, with a geographical situation similar to that of the adjacent cities named; where, that is to say, only a single line between cities is required. Where elevated lines, after the more comprehensive American plan, are required to converge and to be connected "in town" with a subway system and at the outlying termini with radiating surface lines, the Elberfeld operation would fall down badly. The Swiss traction and tunneling operations greatly fascinate the tourist of a mechanical turn of mind, but these of course were devised simply to meet extraordinary situations in a mountainous country which entertains millions of visitors.

To sum up these impressions of transit abroad, life is lived at so different a pace on the two continents that differences in both the extent and the quality of the traction service are inevitable. For that reason the lessons which the most open-minded American transportation man can learn from his European fellow professionals are comparatively few. The resulting conclusion is that for the conditions of requirement in the United States, we can learn little or nothing from the traction systems as used in Europe.

treal

Editorial

AN ELECTRIC MEETING.

(Boston Herald.)

A HOPEFUL sign appears in meetings like that held in Atlantic City by the American Electric Railway Association.

Our street railway officers face a different problem from that of the European cities. We pay the even nickel for a ride in most of our cities, and the street cars are carrying passengers many miles for that sum. In some instances certain passengers are carried 10 or 12 miles. World-wide experience shows that the average passenger cannot be carried for a fare which returns less than a cent a mile travelled, and in our American cities those who ride short distances are supporting their suburban friends. The general use of zone fares in European cities, with zones of three-quarters of a mile to a mile and a half between fare limits, changes the aspect there, and the short-haul passengers obtain their transportation for smaller fares than is possible here with our universal nickel charge.

The areas comprised within the corporation limits of the large American cities are continuing to increase so rapidly that the practicable end for the electric railways can not be foreseen. Suburban patrons wish to retain the longest possible haul for the nickel. This uniform rate has done much for the cities by making the suburbs accessible, but the five-cent fare is high enough to be a factor in keeping the tenement-house dwellers living in over-peopled and sordid quarters close to their places of employment. Still the inelastic charge is the American way, and it is useless to propose to change it.

In American cities the accident list is larger than in Europe. Here the passengers insist on the faster transportation which is a prolific cause of the accidents. Our cars are also larger, and the propelling motors more powerful. Electric traction for city streets is an American invention, but its adoption in foreign cities has been accompanied with modifications that American citizens would not brook.

OUR NATIONAL PROBLEMS. —

THE APPLICATION OF A CONSTITUTIONAL AND SCIENTIFIC SOLUTION.

BY EDWARD STERN.

"WE MUST NOT USE FORCE TILL JUST LAWS ARE DEFIED."

"EVERY LAW NOT BASED ON WISDOM IS A MENACE TO THE STATE."

These sentences are chiseled upon the exterior of the Supreme Court Building in New York City.

"A free government can not long endure where the tendency of the laws is to concentrate the wealth of the country in the hands of the few and to render the masses poor and dependent."

DANIEL WEBSTER.

OUR problems of abject poverty amongst the unemployed, of dissatisfied, underpaid and overworked toilers, of frivolous depraved and scheming idle rich, of perverted court procedure, of venal politicians and corrupt government, of worried producers and harassed business men, of vicious business centralization, of socialistic class hatred, of sexual perversion and debasing liquor traffic, of artificial, ineffective and often destructive educational methods persist and become more and more threatening.

The foregoing and all allied problems can be at once ameliorated and quickly solved if we will but discard partisanship and cultivate resolute sincerity.

"Knowledge is power." Possessing scientific knowledge we can readily draft a few specific national laws, constitutional in character and evolutionary in their provisions, which enacted into law, will immediately usher in that longed-for era of nobler social, economic and political association.

It is imperative that all desire for vengeance be cast out. Past