The financial position of the Dominion is also relatively good, for although New Zealand's public debt bears a proportion to its population not far different from the corresponding proportion in England, there are two factors which make the situation of the Dominion definitely more favourable. One of these is the larger potential margin of taxability in New Zealand, owing to the greater individual prosperity of its inhabitants and the extent of its still undeveloped resources. The other is that so much of New Zealand's public debt has been invested in remunerative public works. Out of a total debt of £194,000,000 no less than £40,000,000 has been put into the acquisition or construction of the three thousand five hundred miles of railway existing in the country, an investment which itself pays the whole of the interest charges concerned. Indeed, at present rates for labour and materials, this happy country possesses a property worth probably more than twice what it has cost to obtain. The railway factor in New Zealand is thus a very important one. It is one also of special interest, as the New Zealand Government not only owns but manages the whole of the lines, an arrangement not found in other parts of the world to conduce to either efficiency or economy in working. It seemed so impossible to believe that a democracy could be keeping politics out of business that I fear I asked a great many very impertinent questions on the subject of political graft in connexion with railways. The map of New Zealand offered an invitation to inquisitiveness. It showed that the country possesses a remarkably large number of small unconnected railway lines running inland from the various ports. Even to-day there is no complete through line in the South Island, though progress is being made in linking up branches to obtain it. One was at first inclined to attribute this state of things to political pressure brought to bear upon the Government to supply individual political constituents with more than their share of transport facilities at the expense of the general traffic requirements of the country. On going over the ground, however, two perfectly innocent reasons leapt to defend the lines. The first is that in a country as well supplied as is New Zealand with harbours round the coasts, the natural main artery of traffic is by sea and not overland. The second is that the mountain backbone of New Zealand is so tremendous that the cost of through railways which, owing to the lie of the land, must necessarily cross this backbone is enormous. This is exemplified by the stupendous works, culminating in a five-mile tunnel, now under construction to link the west coast with the east in the South Island. The same applies to the North Island, it being impossible to traverse the central railway from Auckland to Wellington without being impressed by the difficulties that have had to be overcome, alike on the Raurimu