acres.[9] Certainly the profits of this class from railways have not exceeded the gains which have accrued from the selling or leasing of other property for building purposes. The railway interest, then, as a phrase scarcely points to the existence of railway shareholders as a caste or even a separate class. Railway shares, as the statistics above quoted show, are distributed in fairly equal proportions through all classes of the community. The learned professions, especially the Church, are represented as well as the State or capital in these proprietorial bodies. In the great majority of instances, the separate sums held are small. Thus, ten years ago, the London and North Western Railway with its ninety millions of capital had about thirty thousand debenture and stock holders. Three thousand pounds scarcely represent what could be regarded as a plutocratic investment. As for the men who were the early captains of railway industry, they none of them secured more than modest competences. Vignoles, Stephenson, Brunel, Hackworth, Allport, Cawkwell, Grierson; none of these founded, none of their descendants are likely to found, territorial families. Sir Daniel Gooch, so long the chairman of the Great Western, left six hundred thousand pounds to his posterity. The greater portion of this sum was made, not in railways, but in coal and in telegraphs. Sir Edward Watkin, who is still with us, and to whose enterprise neither the mountain precipice nor the realm of air is inaccessible, has perhaps been not less prospered. It would not however be easy to multiply instances of railway opulence like these. On the other hand Arkwright of the spinning jenny has founded two rich county families. His rival, Hargreaves, established another. The true conclusion on this subject seems to be that the wealth invested in our railways is only one, if the most conspicuous manifestation of the wealth of the community. No better summary of the facts could be found than the shrewd phrase into which George Stephenson condensed the whole subject. 'The country made the railways, and in return the railways made the country.' The prosperity of the manufacturing classes which has coincided with the Victorian era provided the money that built the railways. In return the early development of our railway system enabled us to get so far in advance of Continental nations as merchants and manufacturers that our rivals have not yet caught us up, and perhaps never will.