Government ownership and reduced rates are popularly assumed to be synonymous. But it may work the other way, says the "Railway Age." After years of increasingly unprofitable operation of the Intercolonial Railway, the Canadian Government has been compelled to announce an increase of freight rates. In 1904 every dollar of earnings cost $1.14 in operating and maintenance expenses alone, with no interest charges on the heavy investment, and for 1905 the excess of expenses over receipts will be still larger. The taxpayers are tired, and an influential journal notifies the prime minister that "the people of the country will not much longer continue to pay from four to six millions a year out of their taxes to keep in operation a railway that has cost 80 millions of dollars for the benefit of the political machines." Per contra, the unhappy ministry will be denounced still more roundly along the lines of the Intercolonial for raising the rates. It is the popular assumption in this country that railway charges are unnecessarily high, and that government ownership would mean far lower rates for transportation, and also large returns on the public capital invested. But suppose the Government roads were unprofitable ? Even with the rates which are declared to be excessive a majority of the roads in this country have been bankrupted ; a fractional decrease in rates - so small as not to be felt by shipper or consumer - applied to the principal articles of freight - might bankrupt many roads now. If Government owned the roads, sweeping reductions would be demanded by every locality and interest, and when the earnings got below expenses the experiences of Canada with its unprofitable railway, would probably be repeated, on a vastly greater scale. The country that has all the benefits with none of the risks and losses of railway ownership, may consider itself fortunate.