For, first, few new railways would be in direct competition with the old. The old lines have level roads; they can run quicker and with less wear and tear than the new ones, which would generally have steeper gradients. The new Free Trade lines would be in the main a network in the interstices of the present lines. By this the existing companies would gain enormously; they would be the trunk lines which the network would feed. It is true that there would soon be a second line to Brighton; the present Brighton Company would possibly pay as good a dividend then as they do now. But if they did not, it would only show how they tax the public now as well as hinder trade. I am not bound to show that the monopolists would profit by Free Trade; I deny that the monopolists have any vested interest in their monopoly, or that Parliament, i.e. the nation, has made any covenant with them that their monopoly shall never be invaded. I have suggested three great changes: (1) Perfect Free Trade at all our ports; (2) The exploitation of the land through the National Rate Book machinery; (3) Free Trade in Railways. Of these the last is clearly advisable, nor is there anything (in my opinion) to be urged on the other side. At the same time it is not less important than either of the two other suggestions. But the three would work best together--each aiding and reacting on the other; they would thus provide "progress" (which means comfort to all classes) in England for at least two generations of men. If there was no National Rate Book, the new railways would have to pay exorbitantly for the land they took up under the existing arbitration system; they would be relieved merely from the parliamentary opposition of other companies and of private individuals. The private owner must be deprived of his present privilege of parliamentary opposition, which gives him the power to extort an exorbitant price for his land--because a company can always oppose in the garb of some private owner whom they have hired.