There are as well a number of smaller railways, and also a number of lines (1,308 miles in length in 1912) in which electricity is the motive power. Many of these are, of course, the street railways of cities and towns. There is much of human interest connected with a great railway, dissipater of romance, destroyer of the picturesque, as it is generally asserted to be. Consider it from the large point of view of its inception, its planning, its organization; the political fight to gain for it a legalized existence and the support of public funds and grants of land. It may be that Canada has time and again been recklessly generous in the price she has given for her transportation schemes, and that she has paid too highly for the services of the forceful men able to overcome the difficulties of such enterprises—but railways and yet more railways is still her cry; and the Napoleon of finance who can organize the company to build them is counted worthy of a reward so rich that he and his associates may be tempted to grasp at more than their share of the good things that their line opens to the world, and to use their power not always for the public good. Canada needs the great organizers of industry and more of them; but she needs, too, statesmen ever watchful of the public interests, who shall know how to economize as well as how to spend, and shall be strong enough to keep control over, and use for the good of all the people, the different human forces which are engaged, blindly or wisely, selfishly or nobly, in making out of several comparatively weak provinces a big nation, which patriots hope and trust may be also a great nation. From the other point of view, the subject of railways—as it touches the life and well-being of individuals in Canada—is also intensely interesting. Not long ago I talked with a man who had done well in the West, but had gone into a district ahead of the railway, expecting it to be made in a year. With this hope he had settled forty miles from his next neighbour, seventy-five miles from a post office, and fifty miles from the point where he had to market his grain; but instead of one year he had to wait ten for the promised line. No wonder that the dweller in the country places loves to see the train pass by. It means in illness, possibility of getting skilled help of doctor and nurse, in health, opportunity of intercourse with friends and neighbours; for the young and old, a fuller social life; for the farmer, access to markets and oftentimes prosperity instead of failure. In one word, it means opportunity in a thousand ways.