But the benefits, such as they are, of the Continental system cannot be fairly claimed without bearing the cost. Other countries, having in view advantages from railways, have paid for them with public money, and are prepared to pay still further for them at the expense of the taxpayer; it would be an unreasonable and scarcely honest policy to try to get indirectly the same rights and advantages without payment. Our Government have been called upon to reduce the rates of the railway companies upon the complaint of traders that they have to compete with French, German, and Belgian traders, who are served by what, speaking generally, may be termed “subsidised lines.” To such an application the answer of the Government of this country, who have hitherto declined to aid the sugar manufacturers in their competition with those in France, supported though the latter are by State bounties, cannot be doubtful. Nor would purchase by the State remove all the differences which have been mentioned. Some of them cannot now be overcome. If the Government did purchase the railways, and by reducing the accommodation to something like that given on the Continent, were enabled to diminish the working expenses; if they placed the railways on the same footing as regards duties and taxes as the Government lines in Germany, the fact would remain that the railways in this country have cost from 45 to 120 per cent. more than those on the Continent, and that in wages alone there is a disparity which they would not be able materially to alter. The volume of trade in England, it may be said, is greater in proportion to that of other countries; this should be considered, it may be argued, as an equivalent for the greater cost of construction and working of the railways. The fact that the average dividend is only 4·02 per cent.--that is, two-fifths of the dividend which in 1844 it was considered the railways should pay--is one of several answers to this contention. A few remarks may be made with respect to the second class of complaints--those which relate to the mode of fixing rates.