receipts of the railway should do no more than maintain the current expenses. It is in this way that the thousands of miles of American railroads have been opened; and here again must be seen the immense advantages which the States as a new country have enjoyed. With us the purchase of valuable land for railways, together with the legal expenses which those compulsory purchases entailed, have been so great that with all our traffic railways are not remunerative. But in the States the railways have created the value of the land. The States have been able to begin at the right end, and to arrange that the districts which are benefited shall themselves pay for the benefit they receive. The Government price of land is 125 cents, or about five shillings an acre; and even this need not be paid at once if the settler purchase directly from the Government. He must begin by making certain improvements on the selected land,--clearing and cultivating some small portion, building a hut, and probably sinking a well. When this has been done,--when he has thus given a pledge of his intentions by depositing on the land the value of a certain amount of labour, he cannot be removed. He cannot be removed for a term of years, and then if he pays the price of the land it becomes his own with an indefeasible title. Many such settlements are made on the purchase of warrants for land. Soldiers returning from the Mexican wars were donated with warrants for land,--the amount being 160 acres, or the quarter of a section. The localities of such lands were not specified, but the privilege granted was that of occupying any quarter-section not hitherto tenanted. It will of course be understood that lands favourably situated would be tenanted. Those contiguous to railways were of course so occupied, seeing that the lines were not made till the lands were in the hands of the companies. It may therefore be understood of what nature would be the traffic in these warrants. The owner of a single warrant might find it of no value to him. To go back utterly into the woods, away from river or road, and there to commence with 160 acres of forest, or even of prairie, would be a hopeless task even to an American settler. Some mode of transport for his produce must be found before his produce would be of value,--before indeed he could find the means of living. But a company buying up a large aggregate of such warrants would possess the means of making such allotments valuable and of reselling them at greatly increased prices.