After this study of conditions as they were, and of the opportunities that invited the railway pioneers of 1848, it is instructive to read the utterances of the latest of our empire builders, whose foresight and indomitable will anticipated the development of our Pacific Northwest with railway facilities that already lag behind the necessities of its amazing growth. Of the other addresses and papers it is unnecessary to say more than that they reflect the prevailing sentiments of all thoughtful railway officials respecting conditions of the gravest import to the great industry upon which the entire fabric of our national prosperity and well-being depends. Only the shallowest student of our social, economic and political system can view the persistent attacks upon the American system of transportation without serious alarm for the results. This alarm is the prevailing note of these papers and it comes from men who are at the helm and who see the financial breakers upon which the fierce blasts of political exigency are driving the railways. The papers by Sir George S. Gibbs and Mr. A. M. Acworth, the leading authorities on British railways, discuss the alternative to wisely regulated railways--nationalization of railways. With a continuance of unwise and burdensome regulation of railways, which strips responsibility of all discretion, nationalization is inevitable. The Bureau's statistics of American railways for the year ending June 30, 1909, is included in THE RAILWAY LIBRARY because it affords the latest data not only as to the railways of the United States but for the world. Acknowledgments are made to the authors and publishers of the various papers, and especially to the publishers of the two works from which important chapters have been extracted by their courteous permission, as well as that of their authors. If this publication fulfils the purpose of its compilation, it will be succeeded by annual volumes of like character under the same title. S. T. Chicago, June 1, 1910. PRE-RAILWAY ERA IN AMERICA From Chapters I and II of "Railroad Promotion and Capitalization in the United States," by F. A. CLEVELAND and E. W. POWELL. Longmans, Green & Co., 1909. (By permission of the authors.)