_ railway companies
within such moderate bounds. Ireland does not show so well, and England
relatively is almost as bad as Ireland, yet England might well have shown
the path of prudence to her poorer sister by greater adventure herself in
the sensible domain of railway amalgamation. Much undeserved censure has
been heaped upon the Irish lines; sins have been assumed from which they
are free, and their virtues have ever been ignored. John Bright once
said that "Railways have rendered more service and received less
gratitude than any institution in the land." This is certainly true of
Ireland, for nothing has ever conferred such benefit upon that country as
its railways, and nothing, except perhaps the Government, has received so
much abuse. On this I shall have more to say when I reach the period of
the Vice-Regal Commission on Irish Railways, appointed in 1906.

The average number of miles _operated_ per working railway company in
Scotland compared with England and Wales and Ireland, are:--

Scotland 477
England and Wales 156
Ireland 121

and the mileage, capital, revenue, expenditure, interest and dividends
for 1912, the latest year of which the figures, owing to the war, are
published by the Board of Trade, are as follows:--

Average rate
of interest
and dividend.
Per cent.
Miles. Capital. Revenue. Expenditure.
Pounds Pounds Pounds
England
and Wales 16,223 1,103,310,000 110,499,000 70,499,000 3-58
Scotland 3,815 186,304,000 13,508,000 7,882,000 3-07
Ireland 3,403 45,349,000 4,545,000 2,842,000 3-83

The General Manager of the Glasgow and South-Western Railway and his
office I have described, but I have not spoken, except in a general way,
of the other principal officers, with whom, as Mr. Wainwright's
assistant, I came into close and intimate relationship. They, alas! are
no more. I have outlived them all. Each has played his part, and made,
as we all must do, his exit from the stage of life.

Prominent amongst these officers was John Mathieson, Superintendent of
the Line, who was only twenty-nine when appo