Comparisons with other countries may be misleading unless we remember that published statistics as to the cost of construction of the world's railways apply to route mileage--or, otherwise, "length of line"--and that the English lines have a large proportion of double, treble and other multiple track, while in more sparsely populated countries the railways, except in and around the large towns, consist to a far larger extent of single track. The actual position is not, therefore, quite so bad as the comparative figures appear to show. But, even allowing for these considerations, the following table--which {293}I compile from data published in the "Bulletin of the International Railway Congress Association" for February, 1911--may be regarded as conveying the moral of the story I have here been seeking to tell:-- CONSTRUCTION COST OF THE RAILWAYS OF DIFFERENT COUNTRIES. CONSTRUCTION CAPITAL COUNTRY. SYSTEM. YEAR. MILES. TOTAL. PER MILE. Great Britain £ £ and Ireland Entire 1905 22,843 1,272,600,000 55,712 Germany " 1908 35,639 813,300,000 22,821 France Main lines 1906 24,701 706,700,000 28,611 Belgium State lines 1907 2,523 93,600,000 37,088 Netherlands Entire 1897 1,653 28,700,000 17,350 Denmark State 1909 1,218 13,250,000 10,884 United States of America -- 1908 233,632 3,521,200,000 15,071 Canada -- 1907 22,447 269,850,000 12,022 {294}CHAPTER XXII DECLINE OF CANALS Considering that, in spite of the unreasonableness, the exactions and the large profits of many of the canal companies in the later days of their prosperous monopoly, the canals themselves had rendered such invaluable service to the trade, commerce and industry of the country, the question may well have arisen why they were not allowed, or enabled to a greater extent than was actually the case, to continue their career of usefulness. There has, indeed, for some years been in the United Kingdom a canal-revival party which favours the idea that either the State or the local authorities should acquire and improve the canals with a view to enabling them better to compete with the railways--which, as the story of the Liverpool and Manchester line shows, were at one time expressly designed as competitors of and alternatives to the canals.