The third cause is the prevalence of that feeling which, for want of a better name, I will call district jealousy. The competition of privately-owned railways undoubtedly does create inequalities. It would be mere affectation to pretend that the railway accommodation and facilities afforded to all places and all districts are equal in merit and value. The less favored districts see other districts enjoying superior facilities. They do not allow for differences in conditions which, in some cases, explain and justify the differences of service. I say in some cases, because it would be impossible to deny that in other cases the comparative inferiority of railway facilities cannot be explained away by inevitable determining conditions. Hence district jealousy arises and a desire for uniformity, such uniformity as it is hoped a State system of railways would give. The fourth cause I would name is the example of other countries. This is affecting men's judgments with great force. We are slow to be moved by foreign example. But there is an increasing tendency to submit to international influences, and foreign example in this matter does, on the whole, point to national railways becoming the generally accepted system. The fifth cause is the one which, I think, has more to do with the initiation of the discussion of nationalization schemes than any other cause. This is the general tendency of the time to Socialistic experiments. If there were no Socialists, and no Socialism in the thought of the age, there would, we may safely conclude, be no talk of nationalization of railways. It is the Socialistic propaganda, and the influence which that propaganda has had on many minds, which more than anything else has brought the question of the nationalization of railways within the range of practical discussion. The sixth cause is the anxious search for more revenue for the State. National expenditure has grown to such enormous and alarming dimensions that the provision of revenue to meet it has become a serious and urgent difficulty. A Chancellor of the Exchequer on the lookout for cash has not been able to resist the attraction of railways as a source of revenue for the State. He has noted the various influences at work which are tending to bring the question of railway nationalization to the front, has looked with envy at the large revenue which Prussian railways yield to the State, and has at least gone the length of asking himself the question, within the hearing of reporters, whether he ought not to encourage and to take advantage of a state of opinion which might conceivably be worked upon so as to create a majority prepared to approve the principle of State ownership of what might be a highly lucrative State monopoly. The mileage of railways open for traffic in the United Kingdom at the end of each of the last four decades up to 1907 is shown in the following table: