Irish Railways and the State, 57 



could not trust the State to do. The purchase of Irish rail- 

 ways would be a financial impossibility for Ireland itself to 

 stand. England would scarcely contribute. Although nation- 

 alisation is inadvisable, the relations between the State and 

 Irish railways may be improved. At present the Board of 

 Trade compels a Hne in Connemara to be as substantially con- 

 structed as a line in London, without regard to the probable 

 traffic. So, too, with regard to safety appliances, a line in 

 Galway must be as perfectly signalled and equipped as a line in 

 England with heavy traffic. This all involves a heavy sinking 

 of unremunerative capital, and is not business. ' As thettaffic, 

 so the road,' the principle in America, is founded on common 

 sense. The procedure for acquiring land for railways is more 

 expensive in Ireland than in England. A landowner in Eng- 

 land gets one hearing before an arbitrator or a jury ; in Ireland 

 he gets three. The costs on acquiring a single acre often 

 amount to two or three times the value of the land. The State 

 should perfect their present system of control by cheapening 

 the procedure of the Railway and Canal Commission Court, 

 entirely out of the reach at present of humble litigants. 



Future railway extension in Ireland must depend on the 

 State, which in the past has adopted a restrictive policy. 

 Baronial guarantees are wrong. If a district cannot support a 

 railway, to tax it for the support will be a burden. Free grants 

 or cheap loans to judiciously located lines — not to lines con- 

 structed merely to give employment — would promote railway 

 extension. Railways the subject of State aid at present are 

 limited to light railways, but the construction of light railways 

 has shown how much the State can do to open up and develop 

 Ireland. 



Mr. Isaac J. Murphy said he had very seldom heard a lecture 

 of the kind with the leading ideas of which he was in such 

 absolute agreement. This was a subject on which he had a 

 considerable amount of information, and, in these days when 

 the old principles of Cobden and Bright on free trade and pri- 

 vate^enterprise were supposed to be exploded, he was glad t3 



