nstruction has ceased in Connecticut? Iowa has one mile of railroad
for every 227 inhabitants, and Connecticut has one for every 741
inhabitants, although the per capita valuation is $473 in the latter,
and only $273 in the former State. Nor have other Eastern States done
much better than Connecticut. During the three years 1888-1891 there
were built 74 miles of railroad in New Hampshire, 50 in Vermont, 23 in
Massachusetts and 9 in Rhode Island. Iowa has an area of 56,000 square
miles and a population of 1,911,896, an assessed valuation of
$520,000,000; New England has an area of 66,400 square miles, a
population of 4,700,745, and an assessed valuation of $3,500,000,000.
Yet Iowa has 1,576 miles of railroad more than all the New England
States together. She has a railroad net as close as that of the Empire
State, having one mile of road to about 6-1/2 miles of territory,
although the population of that State is three times as dense as hers.
Nevertheless, railroad construction is at present active in Iowa,
several lines of road are in the process of construction at the present
writing, and there is every indication of still greater activity in the
near future. The _Railway Age_ of March 17, 1893, in a detailed list of
new lines projected or under construction in the United States, gives
for Connecticut only 32 miles, while it gives for Iowa 930 miles.

Mr. Hadley continues:

"It is seen to some extent in the Northwest as a whole. At
the close of the year 1887 the States included by Henry V.
Poor in the Central, Northern and Northwestern groups had
25,040 miles of road, while those of the South Atlantic,
Gulf and Mississippi Valley had but 24,567. To-day this
relation is reversed: the Northwest has but 27,294 miles,
while the South has 30,696."

Had Mr. Hadley taken the pains to look up the population of these groups
he would have found that the "South" is fully three times as populous as
the "Northwest," and that therefore his figures prove nothing beyond the
fact that at the present rate of gain the railroad facilities of the
South will in a quarter of a century be equal to those of the Northwest
to-day.

But the argument is weak in another respect. The State in the Southern
group that made by far the greatest gain in railroad mileage during the
period mentioned by Mr. Hadley is Georgia, which gained about 1,000
miles in three years, yet that State prescribed rates for railr