land was 29 per cent. In the same period the increase in
the number of engines and vehicles in Ireland was 22, in England 30, and
Scotland 33 per cent., whilst the number of train miles run (which is the
real measure of the usefulness of railways to the public) had advanced 27
per cent. in Ireland, compared with 28 in England, and 30 in Scotland.

These figures indicate what Irish railways had accomplished in the decade
ending with December, 1900, and betoken, I venture to affirm, a keen
spirit of enterprise. These ten years had witnessed the introduction of
breakfast and dining cars on the trains, of parlour cars, long bogie
corridor carriages, the lighting of carriages by electricity, the
building of railway hotels in tourist districts, the establishment of
numerous coach and steamboat tours, the quickening of tourist traffic
generally, the adoption of larger locomotives of greatly increased power,
the acceleration of the train service, the laying of heavier and smoother
permanent way, and a widespread extension of cheap fares--tourist,
excursion, week-end, etc. It was a period of great activity and progress
in the Irish railway world, with which I was proud and happy to be
intimately connected. But what a return for all this effort and
enterprise the Irish railway companies received--3 pounds 17s. 10d. per
cent. on the whole capital expended, plus a liberal amount of abuse from
the Press and politicians, neither of whom ever paused to consider what
Ireland owed to her railways, which, perhaps, all things considered, was
the best conducted business in the country. It, however, became the
vogue to decry Irish lines as inefficient and extortionate, and a fashion
once started, however ridiculous, never lacks supporters. The public,
like sheep, are easily led. In England the average return on capital
expended was 4 pounds 0s. 5d., and in Scotland 4 pounds 2s. 2d.

In the spring of 1901, Mr. W. H. Mills, the Engineer of the Great
Northern Railway of Ireland, and I were entrusted by the Board of Works
with an investigation into the circumstances of the Cork, Blackrock and
Passage Railway in regard to a proposed Government loan to enable the
Company to discharge its liabilities and complete an extension of its
railway to Crosshaven. It was an interesting inquiry, comprising a
broken contract, the cost of completing unfinished works, the financial
prospects of the line when such works were completed, and other cognate