If, in those days, they had advertised for tenders from stage coach proprietors, for the performance of a duty such as they now exact from railway companies, subject to arbitration as to the sum that should be paid for its performance, how many tenders is it likely they would have obtained? On the other hand, I ask you to look at the treatment the railways are receiving from the Government. I will take the case of their own selection—the case of the Chester and Holyhead Railway—in which they make a merit of paying at least double what would have been awarded by arbitrators. Look at the route to Ireland before the Holyhead Railway was constructed. No less than thirty-six hours were occupied in getting from London to Dublin. But this was regarded as great expedition, and it was most munificently paid for by the Government. They spent, as I have told you, nearly a million of money in making the road. They lost on the Irish steamers more than £100,000 a-year, to say nothing of their contract for the coach, and upwards of £3,000 a-year remitted on the tolls. This was the state of things before railways were established. The work is now done, not in thirty-six, but in fifteen hours.[157] The whole mail service now, with this increased expedition, costs the Government no more than £65,000 a-year.[158] Thus the Government save, upon this route alone, twenty-one hours in every journey, and nearly £40,000 a-year in expenditure. But in the face of this, what has been the conduct of the Government to the Chester and Holyhead Railway Company? In the first place, it imposed conditions which greatly enhanced the cost of the Britannia Bridge. Then observe how it treated that line with reference to other matters. The Holyhead road runs for about half-a-mile near Conway upon an embankment constructed on the sea-shore. The Holyhead Company proposed to form its railway outside that embankment, thereby, in fact, widening the embankment and affording it protection from the sea. The same state of things occurred in the Isle of Anglesea, at an inlet known as the Stanley Sands. In both cases the railway rested on the slope of the Government embankment, and for this “privilege,” as it is called, the Government to this day charges the railway an annual rental! Such is one illustration (among many) of the treatment of the railway companies by the Government departments. They have aggravated the expenses and difficulties of a line which has helped to save them, as I said before, twenty-one hours in every journey between London and Dublin, and no less than £40,000 a year in money outlay. At the present time, the Post Office Report tells us, that the department is paying double what it ought for conveying the mails over this railway, and that “the law officers of the Crown have given an opinion,” that Government can claim the right to pass over it, in common with all others, without paying any toll at all!