Railways in Brazil have thus chiefly served the settled sea ports, penetrating the producing agricultural areas behind them; coastwise linking from town to town has been an afterthought, and has not been greatly needed with the maintenance of good shipping service. The Brazilian lines have been criticized for lack of coherence, but the fact is that no other plan could have been followed at the time when Brazilian building began; mileage may appear small in relation to the republic’s 3,300,000 square miles of territory, but it is not poor in regard to the great centres of population, all of which are grouped upon sea or river borders and possess ample shipping facilities. At the beginning of 1922, according to the calculations of _Brazil-Ferro-Carril_, there were twenty-one thousand miles of railways in operation in Brazil, with three thousand under construction and twenty thousand miles projected; as we have seen, today a great deal of interstate linking has been accomplished, as well as junction with sister republics. Lack of coherence in operation is perhaps more open to criticism than any other point in connection with Brazilian railroads. Certain lines are owned and operated by States; others are owned by States but leased to private foreign or Brazilian companies; again there are groups of lines built, owned and operated by private foreign or Brazilian companies, and there are lines owned by the Federal Government some of which are leased to private operating companies and some operated by the Government itself. The building of the lines was extremely cosmopolitan, lines having been built preponderantly by the British but also by French, Belgian, German and, in the case of the Madeira-Mamoré, American, companies: this entailed remarkable variety in equipment—for instance, when taken over by the Great Western in 1901 the little São Francisco line had a gauge of five feet three inches. As some other strips then acquired were narrow gauge much work had to be done before a uniform width of one meter was created. At the beginning of the present century the Federal Government determined upon a plan of ownership of lines which has been followed as far as finances would permit; a large sum of money, of which £12,935,480 is outstanding, was borrowed in London at four per cent interest and with the proceeds many railroads were bought up. In most cases the Government decided not to operate the lines acquired, and leased them to foreign companies. As a result of the concession system Brazilian Federal accounts show the curious financial anomaly of the Government paying out sums to railroads because interest had been guaranteed on the foreign capital invested, while the same road is paying rent to the Government.