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THE  A  B  C  OF  TAXATION

to-day  towers  above  all  the  rest,  it  is  the  problem  of
railway  regulation.  The  avowed  aim  of  what  is  known
as  the  New  York  Ford  Amendment  is  to  facilitate
the  raising  of  revenue.  It  contains  no  suggestion  of
possible  extension  to  include  the  far  higher  and  more
difficult  function  of  regulation.  There  are  those  who
believe  that  the  vexatious  perplexities  of  this,  as  of  all
other  public  franchise  problems,  will  prove  more
amenable  to  the  correcting  tendencies  of  taxation  than
to  any  other  agency.  Legislative  regulation  is,  at  best,
clumsy  and  intermittent,  often  amounting  to  a  weak
confession  that  hostility  of  interests  cannot  be  converted ­
  into  harmony.  Taxation  is  neither  of  these,
but  is  elastic,  self-adjustable,  and  self-operative.  The
best  hope  of  any  graft  extermination  must  reside  in
taxation  —  the  taxation  of  special  privilege.  Would
any  one  maintain  that  change  for  the  worse  is  possible
in  American  graft  of  to-day?  Is  the  public  graft  of  a
corporate  city  worse  than  the  private  graft  of  all  its
constituent  citizens?  Are  not  the  people  the  victims
in  either  case,  and  cannot  graft  be  resisted  more  concretely ­
  and  thus  more  effectively  by  the  arm  of  a  strong
individual  executive  than  by  the  slower  instrumentalities ­
  of  public  administration?
It  will  be  profitable,  in  approaching  the  problem,  to
analyse  in  our  own  minds  what  is  meant  by  the  phrases
public  utilities,  quasi-public  corporations,  semi-public
functions.  We  mean,  do  we  not,  that  a  part  is  public
business  and  a  part  is  private  business;  that  one  part
of  their  capital  is  public,  another  part  private:  that
one  part  of  their  function  is  public  and  one  part
individual;  that  one  part  of  their  value  rests  on  franchise, ­
  the  other  part  on  equipment  and  operation?