No doubt there may be much in connection with railway management in the past (and for that matter at the present time as well) to criticise; but please tell me what line of human undertaking since the world began, be it industrial, educational or religious, has been free from criticism; and, granting all that is said against the railroads, then what? This is what we find: That the railroad rates in this country are the lowest in the world, with few minor exceptions not worth considering; that the wages paid railroad employes in the United States are higher than anywhere else in the world, and that the capitalization of American railroads per mile, as reported by the Interstate Commerce Commission, is but one-fourth as much as that of English railroads, and one-half that of the railroads of Germany and France, and one-third that of Belgium; and this has all been accomplished in a country where a high protective tariff obtains, and where everything the railroad uses costs more on that account. It is claimed that our manufacturers must have the protection of a high tariff in order to enable them to meet the prices of their foreign competitors and pay American wages; but the American railroad sells its product, that is, transportation, for less than any other nation and still pays higher wages. A locomotive engineer, for instance, receives $4.01 per day here as against $1.62 per day in England, and $1.01 per day in Belgium. It is sometimes said that railroads have received great help from the people in the shape of land grants, and on that account should give much in return. Let me give one instance of how this has worked with the Burlington Company. In order to induce the original projectors of this line to extend the road through Iowa, this Company was given 359,000 acres of government land in that state, selling at that time at $1.25 per acre, amounting to less than $450,000 cash value. By an act of Congress, passed over thirty-two years ago, a reduction is made of 20 per cent from the mail pay on all land grant roads. At the present time the amount so deducted from the Burlington, because of the Iowa grant, amounts to over $65,000 a year, and since the law was passed has amounted in the aggregate to over $1,500,000, or more than three times the original value of the entire grant. Not only that, but it goes on without end. Do you think that is fair?