RAILWAYS. 
—— 
TEN YEARS AFTER. 
By A MEMBER OF THE RatLwAy JOINT COMMITTER. 
I may begin by saying that the Committee is in no way responsible for this 
article and that I have consulted none of my colleagues in its preparation. 
I withhold my name to secure a free discussion without the intervention of 
any personal element and for no other reason. In a short survey of 
the railway problem of the colony in his Address in 1911 the Presi- 
dent referred to the paper read by his predecessor, Mr. Luke M. Hill, on 
the same subject in 1902 and suggested that the Society should republish it 
along with a report of the discussion it aroused. It has been decided to adopt 
the suggestion, all the more readily inasmuch as the problem is again ripe for 
discussion and as contributions to its solution from any authoritative source 
in the interval have been astonishingly rare. 
Tt is well known that various parties have approached the Government 
for railway concessions but that their proposals have not been entertained. 
None of these appear to have had any substantial financial backing except 
the late Colonel J. W. Link, whose proposal, advanced in April, 1908, contem- 
plated a trunk route intended to connect with Manaos, the rising capital of the 
Amazon Valley. He asked fora land grant with mineral rights and for a 
guarantee of interest at 34 per cent. for ten years (subject to any earned profits 
being deducted) on the cost of construction, the amount of which was to be 
agreed upon between his principals and the Government. He acted for the 
Colonial Rail and Tramway Syndicate, a somewhat amorphous body but 
containing some well-reputed English financial names. The consideration of 
this particular scheme no doubt sufiered to some extent from the fact that 
Colonel Link was a company promoter by profession and that he had recently 
been engaged in litigation with the Colonial Government over a rubber 
lease on behalf of a corporation of a somewhat speculative character 
financed by an cutside broker. The rubber boom had not yet come to 
accustom us to the methods of rubber companies and the operations of 
outside brokers. Since then the iron has entered our souls. The Colonel 
was an incurable optimist with some of the defects of the type and 
with others almost incidental to his profession, but his power to influence 
considerable bodies of capital was made manifest by the flotation of the 
Consolidated Balata and Rubber Estates, Ltd. and the Amsterdam Balata 
Company and by the progress made by other projects at the date of his death. 
He cannot, moreover, be held responsible for the appalling mismanagement 
and demoralization which have brought the balata industry to the verge of ruin 
nor for the criminal abuse of the colony’s good name in worthless flotations 
from which some drastic legislative measures should in future protect us. 
Although a company promoter he supported no worthless schemes so far as 
my knowledge extends, introduced a large amount of liquid capital at a time of 
