Labour being scarce, a number of French-Canadians were, at Mr. Brassey's suggestion, brought up in organized gangs, each having an Englishman or an American as their leader. We are told, however, that they proved useless except for very light work. "They could ballast, but they could not excavate. They could not even ballast as the English navvy does, continuously working at filling for the whole day. The only way in which they could be useful was by allowing them to fill the waggons, and then ride out with the ballast train to the place where the ballast was tipped, giving them an opportunity of resting. Then the empty waggon went back again to be filled and so alternately resting during the work; in that way, they did very much more. They would work fast for ten minutes and then they were 'done.' This was not through idleness but physical weakness. They are small men, and they are a class who are not well fed. They live entirely on vegetable food, and they scarcely ever taste meat." It is natural to suppose that the want of meat is the cause of their inefficiency. Yet the common farm labourer in England, who does a very hard and long day's work, hardly tastes meat, in many counties, the year round. In the case of the Crimean railway, private enterprise came, in a memorable manner, to the assistance of a government overwhelmed by administrative difficulties. A forty years peace had rusted the machinery of the war department, while the machinery of railway construction was in the highest working order. Sir John Burgoyne, the chief of the engineering staff, testified that it was impossible to overrate the services rendered by the railway, or its effects in shortening the time of the siege, and alleviating the fatigues and sufferings of the troops. The disorganization of the government department was accidental and temporary, as was subsequently proved by the success of the Abyssinian expedition, and, indeed, by the closing period of the Crimean war itself, when the British army was well supplied, while the French administration broke down. On the other hand the resources of private industry, on which the embarrassed government drew, are always there; and their immense auxiliary power would be at once manifested if England should become involved in a dangerous war. It should be remembered, too, that the crushing war expenditure in time of peace, which alarmists always advocate, would prevent the growth of those resources, and deprive England of the "sinews of war."