There is in my possession an interesting document, being one of the (I think) two original manuscript copies of the famous "Gentleman's Agreement," bearing the signatures of the parties thereto, which was entered into by the Presidents or Chairmen of a number of railway companies at Mr. Pierpont Morgan's house in New York in 1891. In the year following the signing of the Agreement, I was in London in connection with affairs which necessitated rather prolonged interviews with many of the Chairmen or General Managers of the British railways,--Sir George Findlay, Sir Edward Watkin, Mr. J. Staats Forbes, and others. With all of them the mutual relations existing between railway companies in the two countries respectively formed one of the chief topics of our conversations, and that at that time the good faith and loyalty of attitude of one company towards another were much greater in England than in America it is not possible to question. British companies are subject to a restraining influence which does not exist in the United States, in the parliamentary control which is exercised over them. Every company of any size has, with more or less frequency, to go to Parliament for new powers or privileges, and any Chairman or Board of Directors which established a reputation for untrustworthiness in dealings with other companies would probably be able to expect few favours from the next Parliamentary Committee. But (although the two last of the gentlemen whose names I have mentioned were notoriously parties to a peculiarly bitter railway war) I believe that the motives which have chiefly operated to make the managers of English companies observe faith with each other better than the American have ever succeeded in doing, are chiefly the traditional motives of a high sense of personal honour--the fact that they were gentlemen first and business men afterwards.