t.; the fourth-class ticket, nothing. Crowded and
uncomfortable travelling in Germany is cheap; comfortable travelling
in Germany is very dear indeed. The herding of people in the fourth-
class carriages in Germany resembles our cattle-cars rather than
transportation for human beings. Such conditions would not be
tolerated in America, but against these state-owned railways there is
no redress. No luggage, except hand luggage, is carried free. Not
once, but many times in Germany, my first-class ticket found me no
accommodation, and often in changing from the main line to a branch
line not even a first-class compartment. Shippers in the coal and iron
districts, when I was there, complained bitterly that there were not
enough freight-cars, that their complaints were smothered in
bureaucratic portfolios, and that private enterprise in the shape of
proposals to build new lines was disregarded. The tyranny of Prussia
extends even into the railway field. The Oderberg-Wien line was built
to avoid using the Saxon state railway lines, was a spite railway in
fact. Here again there was no redress, no one to appeal to against the
autocrat.

In a debate in the Reichstag, in January, 1913, there was much
complaint that the Prussian government was conducting the railways
with the least possible outlay, thus saving money for the state, but
hampering the industrial interests of the country. It was stated that
there were not enough engines or freight-cars, there was an inadequate
staff, and that as a consequence, the loss to the coal industry had
been $11,500,000 and to the coal-miners $3,375,000.

On the state-owned
railways of the west of France the break-down is ludicrously complete,
and the people are staggered by the official estimates that it will
require at least $100,000,000 to put them in decent running order.

In twenty years the American railways have practically been rebuilt,
with heavier rails, better bridges, more permanent stations, and so
on; while twenty years ago it cost a passenger 2.165 cents to travel a
mile, to-day it costs him 1.916 cents. We need a lot of bustling about
abroad before we realize how much we have to be grateful for at home!

Probably the most costly and the most troublesome of Germany's
problems is her conquered provinces: Hanover, Schleswig-Holstein,
Alsace-Lorraine, and Poland. Hanover, which was taken by Prussia and
her king deposed, is nowadays a minor matter of the relations between
courts,