A railway officer, like the centurion who, being under authority, had soldiers under him, may wire two or three thousand miles to a subordinate and know that his directions will be obeyed. Perhaps there is no more potent inducer of a sense of authority than this ability to command, at long range, by the invisible messenger. It sometimes produces in a railway official, to whom the wires are free, a rather morbid pride in keeping in touch with his office when he is away, by making his office keep constantly in touch with him. An old colleague used to say that if he could edit the departmental telegrams of any leading railway system on this continent, and be paid a cent a word for prevented verbiage, he would become disgracefully rich in five years. The admirable tendency in executive efficiency--the encouragement of initiative--is represented by the practice of the departmental head whose duty carried him often and far afield--frequently for weeks at a time he would be absent from his office. He secured the ablest assistance his appropriation afforded; and when he went away his instruction to his deputy was:--“Don’t bother me with telegrams, unless it is absolutely necessary--I assume you are equal to your job. Whatever comes up, don’t be afraid to deal with it, according to your best judgment. Always have a clear reason for whatever action you take, and when I come back I will back you up, even if I don’t agree with all you have done.” It is rather a tempting excursus--this discussion of the discovery and use of executive ability; but it must be passed by, with the further remark that, on the whole, railways, as I have known them, are staffed by able, conscientious men, in all ranks; and that, while our twenty years of phenomenal expansion cannot recur, and the scope for promotions will be limited, compared with what it was, railway service will always be a great arena for the use of talents of the highest order, even though they may first be exercised in the most unlikely-looking corners of a great system. Railway rivalry is as keen as any other rivalry in business or politics, though I think it is healthier than what one sometimes sees in the political sphere, where ultimate rewards and punishments lie with electorates who may have given no study to the affairs they judge. Human nature being human nature, the personal equation sometimes enters prejudicially into the larger responsibilities confided to individuals.