Passing from commercial and geographical to political conditions, we find that in Germany the State owns or controls alike railways and waterways. Prussia bought up most of the former, partly with the idea of safeguarding the protective policy of the country (endangered by the low rates charged on imports by independent railway companies), and partly in order that the Government could secure, in the profits on railway operation, a source of income independent of Parliamentary votes. So well has the latter aim been achieved that a contribution to the Exchequer of from £10,000,000 to £15,000,000 a year has been obtained, and, rather than allow this source of income to be checked by heavy expenditure, the Prussian Government have refrained from carrying out such widenings and improvements of their State system of railways as a British or an American railway company would certainly have adopted in like circumstances, and have left the traders to find relief in the waterways instead. The increased traffic the waterways of Germany are actually getting is mainly traffic which has either been diverted from the railways, or would have been handled by the railways in other countries in the natural course of their expansion. Whatever may be the case with the waterways, the railways of Prussia, especially, are comparatively unprogressive, and, instead of developing through traffic at competitive rates, they are reverting more and more to the original position of railways as feeders to the waterways. They get a short haul from place of origin to the waterway, and another short haul, perhaps, from waterway again to final destination; but the greater part of the journey is done by water. These conditions represent one very material factor in the substantial expansion of water-borne traffic in Germany--and most of that traffic, be it remembered, has been on great rivers rather than on artificial canals. The latter are certainly being increased in number, especially, as I have said, where they connect the rivers; and the Government are the more inclined that the waterways should be developed because then there will be less need for spending money on the railways, and for any interference with the "revenue-producing machine" which those railways represent.