It is a curious circumstance that in the discussion of the problem of railway rates on the Continent, wholly different language is employed with reference to English railways. Here, it is common to hold up foreign railways as models of cheapness and efficiency; there, in the discussions which have taken place in France and Italy on the same subject, the opposite course has been pursued. English railways have been extolled as worthy of imitation; they have often been praised for the very qualities in which it has been alleged in recent discussions that they are wanting. Can both views be right? Is not this deprecation of home railways, this vague praise of foreign lines, sometimes an example of a common artifice of controversy? Is it not often an illustration of the tendency to treat _omne ignotum pro magnifico_? Very different from this loose, unverified deprecation is the opinion of those foreign observers who have carefully examined the question. This might be illustrated by many official documents; but the following quotation from a report of M. Richard Waddington to the Chamber of Deputies may suffice:-- “Comparison between the French and foreign rates has often been made in Parliament, and the defenders of our tariff have presented it as favourable to our French companies; but this comparison can only justly be made, provided the conditions of delay and distance are taken into consideration. Now, in England, the delays are extremely short, merchandise which leaves Manchester in the evening being delivered in London next day, slow goods trains hardly existing, and the consignee placed rapidly in possession of his goods, avoiding the loss of interest which, under the French system, tends to increase the amount of charges. On the other hand, in view of a well-known principle, the longer the distance the lower the charge per kilometre, but the average distance of 135 kilometres (84 miles) in the French system is greater than the average distance travelled on the railways of Great Britain, of Belgium, and of Alsace-Lorraine. From the figures which have been already quoted, and the documentary evidence which we attach, we are led to conclude that the conditions and rate of carriage of merchandise in France are less favourable than those by which our nearest neighbours are benefited; therefore, far from being able to share the optimist view to which we have already alluded, we fear that we can only report that the comparison is really unfavourable.”[89] [89] _Appendix 31 to Report from Select Committee on Railways (Rates and Fares), 1881-2, Vol. II._