Railways ; Ten Years After. 31 
Whether the requisite capital could actually have been raised on Colonel 
Link’s terms in 1908, the date of the proposal from this source, it is 
now difficult to say. The writer is inclined to doubt it unlecs full 
advantage could have been taken of the iubber boom then impending. 
The terms were denounced by some at the time asextravagant, but the 
denunciations displayed no expert knowledge and the belief in many quarters 
that the colony could not afford them was the chief cause of their rejection. 
They were never submitted to independent actuaries. In fact they were 
never tested at all by any expert investigation. The late Governor thought 
the project had no foundation ; the Colonial Office could only acquiesce in 
the conclusions of the man 9n the spot and the people of the colony quietly 
accepted the decision. There was no evidence “rather the contrary.” Water 
Street in face of the agitation, 
Bowed low before the blast 
In patient deep disdain ; 
She let the legions thunder past 
Then sunk in thought again.” 
It is at all events certain that no future proposals, if emanating from 
any financiers of standing, are likely to make smaller demands upon 
the colony’s confidence in its own resources. Indeed the indications 
all point to the fact that if the railway into the interior is to be under- 
taken by independent capitalists, they will share the scepticism of the leading 
colonists so far as to require the securing of a sufficient rate of interest for a 
much longer period. The rate guaranteed by the other South American 
Goyerments is five per cent. for twenty-five years. On the other hand 
capital has been found for considerable enterprises within the bound- 
aries of the British Empire at a lower rate. The Colonial Office has 
in the present year guaranteed four per cent. for ten years to Messrs. 
Pauling, the contractors for the Cape to Cairo Railway, for the exten- 
sion of the Shire Highlands (Nyasaland) railway across the Zambesi, 
to linkup Nyasaland with the South African railway system and to give 
it access to a suitable ocean port at Beira. The land grant on which the original 
line was built from Port Herald to Blantyre has been at the same time 
redeemed by the Government for £180,000. In this case, however, the native 
population along the route is large and the possibilities of Nyasaland, owing to 
the success of tobacco and cotton growing in that Protectorate, have been 
found to be considerable. In the case of British Guiana we have an unpeopled 
wilderness and the decline of the gold and diamond and the demoralization of 
the balata industries have destroyed, in the most sanguine, any hopes of the 
untold riches of Eldorade. 
All such speculations will be unnecessary should the new Governor, whese 
experience of railway construction in Southern Nigeria and the Straits 
Settlements has been great, decide that a Government railway is within the 
resources of the colony to undertake. No doubt such a conclusion will only 
be arrived at after a careful consideration of the whole situation and no 
policy will be adopted without reasons which are likely to satisfy the Com- 
