776 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION F. 



which are worked at a loss. Guatemala had a railway till 1904, when it was 

 transferred to a priv.ate company. Nicaragua has also leased its lines. Colombia 

 owns and works at a piOJt, all of which is said to he devoted to betterment, 

 twenty-four miles of line. 



In South America, Peru and Argentina own, as far as I am aware, no rail- 

 ways. The Chilian Government owns about 1,600 miles out of the 3,000 miles in 

 the country. Needless to say private capital has secured the most profitable lines. 

 The Government railway receipts hardly cover the working expenses. The 

 Brazilian Government formerly owned a considerable proportion of its railway 

 network of nearly 11,000 miles. Financial straits forced it some years ago to 

 dispose of a large part to private companies, to the apparent advantage at once of 

 the taxpayer, the shareholder, and the railway customer. About 1,800 miles 

 of line are still operated by the Government, the receipts of which, roughly 

 speaking, do a little more than balance working expenses. But it may be broadly 

 said that the present Brazilian policy is adverse to State ownership and in favour 

 of the development of the railway system by private enterprise. 



The question of public ownership and operation was, however, raised very 

 definitely in the United States only two years ago, when Mr. Bryan made a 

 speech stating that his European experience had convinced him that it was 

 desirable to nationalise the railways of the United States. For many weeks 

 after, Mr. Bryan's pronouncement was discussed in every newspaper and on every 

 platform, from Maine to California. Practically, Mr. Bryan found no followers ; 

 and to-day, though he is the accepted candidate of the Democratic party for the 

 Presidency, the subject has been tacitly shelved. To some extent this may have 

 been due to the ludicrous impossibility, if I may say so with all respect for a 

 possible President, of Mr. Bryan's proposals. In order, presumably, not to offend 

 his own Democratic party, the traditional upholders of the rights of the several 

 States, he seriously suggested that the Federal Government should work the 

 trunk lines, and the respective State Governments the branches. Even if anybody 

 knew in every case what is a trunk line and what is a branch, the result would be 

 to create an organism about as useful for practical purposes as would be a human 

 body in which the spinal cord was severed from the brain. Mr. Bryan's proposal 

 was never discussed in detail : public sentiment throughout the Union was unex- 

 pectedly unanimous against it, and it is safe to say that the nationalisation of the 

 railways of the United States is not in sight at present. 



But though nationalisation is nowhere in America a practical issue, everj*- 

 where in America the relations between the railways and the State have become 

 much closer within the last few years. Canada a few years ago consolidated its 

 railway laws and established a Railway Commission, to which was given very 

 wide powers of control both over railway construction and operation and over 

 rates and fares for goods and passengers. Argentina has also moved in the same 

 direction. In the United States, not only has there been the passage by the 

 Federal Congress at Washington of the law amending the original Act to Uegulate 

 Commerce and giving much increased powers to the Inter-State Commerce Com- 

 mission, besides various other Acts dealing with subsidiary points, such as hours 

 of railway employes, but scores, if not hundreds, of Acts have been passed by the 

 various State Legislatures. With these it is quite impossible to deal in detail ; 

 many of them impose new pecuniary burdens upon the railway companies, as, for 

 instance, the obligation to carry passengers at the maximum rate of a penny per 

 mile. All of them, speaking broadly, impose new obligations and new restrictions 

 upon the railway companies. Not a few have already been declared unconstitu- 

 tional, and therefore invalid, by the Law Courts. And when the mills of American 

 legal procedure shall at length have finished their exceedingly slow grinding, it is 

 safe to prophesy that a good many more will have ceased to operate. But for all 

 that, the net result of State and Federal legislation in the Sessions of 1906 and 

 1907 will unquestionably be that even after the reaction and repeal, which, thanks 

 to the Wall Street panic of last year, is now in progress, the railways of the 

 United States will in the future be subject to much more rigid and detailed 

 control by public authority than there has been in the past. The reign of railway 



