p. 16 | The World Drift by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, Cal. · Feb 6, 1912

The World Drift

By Editor

The World Drift.— A few years ago, when Mr. Bryan came from his world trip, he suggested that the country ought to own its own railways. Government ownership of railways was suggested in a speech that he made on landing in New York, if we remember rightly, but it evidently had a tremendous influence in killing Mr. Bryan for the next campaign for presidency. The idea was denounced as Socialistic; but since that time the trend has been growing so that any utterance that Mr. Bryan might then have made is far behind the times. The drift the world over is toward the government ownership of public utilities. Thirty-eight cities in Germany, for instance, including Berlin and Frankfort, own municipal street railways. Large cities in India own their municipal electric plants; Tokyo, Japan, is taking over its street railways; and Osaka, in the same empire, has controlled its railways for years. Russia owns and operates its steam railways, and many of the largest towns in that empire own their street railway, electric, and gas plants. South Africa owns its steam railways, and its cities their public utilities largely. In Australia, all steam railways are owned by the various divisions of the Australasian commonwealth, and the cities generally own their public utility plants. Germany, Norway, Sweden, France, Austria, Italy, Switzerland, Great Britain are all falling into line. Canada operates 2,000 miles of steam railroad; and in the United States all the cities of over 300,000 population, except San Francisco, own and operate their own water supply. Postmaster-General Hitchcock advises Government ownership of telegraph lines. These things show the drift of the world toward Socialism governmentally, and the Initiative, the Referendum, and the Recall are all along the same line.