774 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION F. 



Tlie Belgian railways have belonged to tlie State from the outset, because 

 they were constructed just after Belgium separated from Holland, and (the 

 available private capital being in Holland and not in Belgium) King Leopold and 

 his Ministers felt that, if the railways were in private hands, that would mean in 

 Dutch hands, and the newly acquired independence of Belgium would be thereby 

 jeopardised. Within the last few years this history has repeated itself, and the 

 fact that the bulk of the Swiss railway capital was held in France and Germany 

 was one main reason, if not the main reason, which induced the Swiss people to 

 nationalise their railways. 



In Germany seventy years ago the smaller States were regarded as the 

 personal property of their respective Sovereigns, almost as definitely as Suther- 

 landshire is the property of the Duke of Sutherland. And it was therefore as 

 natural that the Dukes of Oldenburg or Mecklenburg should make railroads 

 for the development of their estates as that the Duke of Sutherland should build a 

 railway in Sutherland. 



Take, again, Australasia. In that region the whole of the railways, with 

 negligible exceptions, now belong to the different State Governments, and the 

 public sentiment that railways ought to be public property is to-day so strong 

 that it is impossible to imagine any serious development of private lines. But at 

 the outset the traditional English preference for private enterprise was just as 

 strong there as it was at home, and it was only the fact that the whole of the 

 available private capital was absorbed in the development of the goldfields and 

 that, therefore, if railways were to be built at all, public credit must be pledged 

 and English capital must be obtained, that caused the State to go into the 

 railway business. 



Take, once more, the case of Italy. In the days when Italy was only a 

 geographical expression, the various Italian States experimented with railway 

 management of all sorts and kinds. AVhen, after 1870, Italy was unified, it was 

 necessary to adopt a national railway policy, and the Italian Government instituted 

 an inquiry whose exhaustiveness has not since been approached. The force of cir- 

 cumstances had indeed already compelled the Government to acquire the ownership 

 of the railways, but the Commission reported that it was not desirable that the 

 Government should work them. The railways were accordingly leased for a 

 period of sixty years, running from 1884, to three operating companies, and it was 

 provided that the leases might be broken at the end of the twentieth or the 

 fortieth year. From the very outset a condition of things developed which had 

 not been contemplated when the leases were granted, and for which the leases 

 made no provision. Constant disputes took place between the Government and 

 their lessees. Capital for extensions and improvements was urgently needed ; 

 neither party was bound to find it ; and agreement for finding it on terms mutually 

 acceptable was impossible of attainment. In the end the Government has been 

 forced to cut the knot, to break the lease at the end of the first twenty years' 

 period, and for the last two years the Italian Government has operated its own 

 railways. But it is safe to say that an a priori preference for State management 

 over private management played but scant part in the ultimate decision. 



It is impossible to review, even in the merest outline, the railway history of 

 all the countries in tlje world, but the instances already given will serve to 

 illustrate my proposition that the position in each country depends not on 

 abstract considerations, but on the practical facts of the local situation. Yet 

 one cannot look round the world and fail to recognise that the connection be- 

 tween the railways and the State is everywhere becoming more intimate year 

 by year. Whatever have been the causes, the fact remains that Italy and 

 Switzerland have converted their railways from private to public. In Germany 

 the few remaining private lines are becoming still fewer. In Belgium the process 

 is practically completed. In Austria it is moving steadily in the same direction : 

 four-fifths of the total mileage is now operated by the State. In Russia the 

 story would have been the same, had it not been for the war with Japan. Even 

 in France, whose railways have a very definite local and national history of their 

 own, an Act for the purchase of the Western Baih.vay by the State was passed 



