rivileges as are usually conferred upon or granted to railways and
railway companies for the purposes of their business."

Such, in barest outline, was the proposal of which Mr Chamberlain was
informed by Governor Murray. It certainly involved a sacrifice
incalculably grave of the colony's prospects, but those who brought it
forward no doubt reflected on the truism that he who has expectations,
but neither assets nor credit, must reinforce the latter by drawing in
some degree upon the former. In fact, it seems to have been doubtful
whether, at the time, the colony could by any device meet its
obligations as they became due. The force of these observations must
be frankly conceded; but it may still be doubted whether a less
desperate remedy was not within the grasp of resourceful
statesmanship. In his first telegram, sent on March 2nd, 1898, Mr
Chamberlain called attention to the more apparent objections:

"The future of the colony will be placed entirely in the hands of the
contractor by the railway contract, which appears highly improvident.
As there seems to be no penalty provided for failure to operate the
railways, the contract is essentially the sale of a million and a
quarter acres for a million dollars."

From the legal point of view the contract was a very singular one. The
Government of Newfoundland, in fact, assumed to bind its successors by
a partial abdication of sovereign power. Yet the same capacity which
enabled the then Government to bind itself would equally and evidently
inhere in its successors to revoke the obligation. Those who are
struck by the conscientious obligation which the then Government could
no doubt bequeath, may ask themselves how long a democratically
governed country would tolerate corruption or ineptitude in the public
service on the ground that the monopolist worker of them had inherited
a franchise from an ancestor who had known how to exploit the public
necessities. The virtual expropriation of the Irish landlords, which
was in progress in the United Kingdom, may have been right or it may
have been wrong; it is at least a far more startling interference with
vested interest than would be the resumption by a State of control
over heedlessly aliened public services.

Whatever be the force of these observations, the disadvantages of the
Newfoundland Government's specific proposals were patent enough. Nor
were they unperceived in the colony, and in particular by the enemies
of the