XX 
THE UGANDA RAILWAY 
195 
to a figure below which they cannot be carried at a 
profit. 
It is a truism to say that the success of the railway 
has altogether exceeded the most sanguine expecta¬ 
tions of its projectors ; while the opinions of the great 
majority who condemned it as a regular money-sink 
have been quickly revolutionised. 
Before April, 1903, most of the goods carried con¬ 
sisted of railway material. In 1903-4 the total 
earnings of trains and steamers were .£131,567, and 
the years balance sheet showed a deficit of more than 
,£60,000. This deficit was decreased during 1904-5 
to some ,£3,000. 
In 1905-6 the receipts were in excess of the 
expenditure by more than £"42,000. At this figure 
they more or less remained till 1910-11 when they 
were increased to more than £73,800. During this 
year the total tonnage carried increased to more than 
77,000, being an advance of more than 17,000 on the 
previous year, which was in itself a record. 
This sudden advance, so far from dropping, looks 
like being increased at an almost more rapid rate 
during the present year. 
Pleased though the average settler is at this sudden 
access of prosperity to the line, he is even more 
delighted with the concessions granted to him in the 
reduced export freights of certain staple crops, namely, 
maize, beans, and wheat. 
During the early days of the railway, and of litera¬ 
ture connected with the same, it would seem to have 
been inseparably connected with lions. Everyone knows 
that man-eaters held up the construction, terrorised 
the coolies, and enabled Colonel Patterson to write an 
intensely interesting book. It is a matter of common 
o 2 
