In the meantime coal from Labuan and from Australia are in course of being tried. Much must not be expected from the former; but there are great hopes that the latter will be largely available for India. But all persons who have written upon, or are interested in, the subject, come to the same conclusion, which is that the railways must mainly look to wood for their fuel. We are happy to perceive that the subject is engaging the most serious attention of the Governments both at home and in India; and there is no doubt but that an extensive system of planting timber suitable for fuel purposes will be immediately carried into operation, all the more necessary when it is borne in mind that a plantation of twenty acres will be the average proportion necessary for the requirements of every mile of railway. The working expenses of the railways exhibit very great differences both as respects actual amounts and their per centage proportions to traffic. Thus, for instance, on the Great Southern of India Line they were for the year 1865 2s. 7½d. a mile, and only 2s. 3d. a mile in 1866; yet the fuel cost was £2. 18s. a ton; exactly the same price as on the Bombay and Baroda line, the working expenses of which were 8s. 1¾d. in 1865 per train mile. In 1866 they had fallen to 6s. 8d.; so that the _difference_ between these two amounts is exactly two-thirds of the _total_ working cost per train mile of the Great Southern Company. The East Indian was 3s. 8d. per train mile in both 1865 and 1866. But the Madras cost was only 2s. 10¾d. per train mile in 1865. It went up, however, 3¼d. in 1866, being 3s. 2d. Yet the average price it pays for coal is the same as that paid by the Great Indian Peninsular, the cost per train mile of which in 1865 was 6s. 2d., in 1866, 6s. 4½d. No doubt the two Ghaut inclines add heavily both to locomotive and to permanent way charges, but they do not explain why the working cost per train mile should be double that on the Madras Line. It is a remarkable fact also, and it is one which should be recorded to the honour of the Madras management, that, although its traffic receipts per mile are almost the lowest on the whole system of East Indian railways—£13 a mile a week—its per centage of working expenses is actually the lowest, 43½.[104] The per centage of the East Indian, with a weekly mileage receipt of £43, is 44½. The Great Indian Peninsular, the weekly receipt per mile of which is £48, is 59¾; and on the Bombay and Baroda the weekly receipt per mile is £29, the working expenses being 64½ per cent. The Scinde working expenses were 85½ per cent. of the receipts; but the unlucky Calcutta and South-Eastern spends £109. 10s. for every £100 it earns.