RAILWAYS. Germany has the largest railway system in Europe, the total length in 1900 ex ceeding 30,447 miles, as against 21,748 in the United Kingdom and 26,222 in France, its rail way density being second to that of the United Kingdom. The railroad industry is among the most important in Germany, employing half a million persons and representing a capital in vestment of over $3,000,000,000. The first rail way built in Germany was the Ludwigsbahn, con necting the cities of Nuremberg and Furth in Bavaria (a distance of about four miles), and opened for traffic in December, 1835. Trains began running on the Leipzig-Dresden line in 1837, and Prussia built the Berlin-Potsdam line in 1838. By 1846 only the minor States had no lines. The railways at that time were, how railways from the year of their inception until the end of the century: The table shows the growth of the railway system as a whole, and of the Government lines in particular. It will be seen that railway con struction, which was pushed with great vigor until 1880, went on with a slackened pace after that year, for the great trunk lines of the country had been laid and railway-builders turned to ex tending the existing systems by means of branch lines to outlying territory. The other interest ing fact brought out by the table is the increas ing activity of the State in German railway' industry. The German Empire as such does not' own, however, any railways outside of the Im perial Province of Alsace-Lorraine, the rest of the State lines being owned separately by the various States. (For more detailed information on this point, see the articles on the separate countries, especially Prussia.) Attempts to put the Im
perial Government in possession of the entire railway system have not been lacking, but thus far they have all failed because of the separatist sentiment, especially in the smaller southern States. The last attempt made by Bismarck in 1874, in the shape of a bill introduced in the Im perial Parliament, failed. After that the Prus sians took the initiative by passing a bill in the Prussian Legislature offering to turn over their entire railway system to the Imperial Govern ment. As the acceptance of the offer would have necessarily required a similar procedure on the part of the other German States, no action was taken. At present each of the twenty-six Ger man States has a railway system of its own, largely owned and operated by the respective governments, a small portion remaining in pri vate hands. Prussia is the most important rail way owner; besides the Kingdom of Prussia only seven other States own more than 1000 kilo meters (621 miles), their respective lengths in the closing year of the century being as follows: Prussia, 17,990 miles; Bavaria, 4013 miles; Saxony, 1497 miles; Baden, 1081 miles; Alsace Lorraine, 989 miles; Wurttemberg, 979 miles; Hesse, 705 miles; Mecklenburg-Schwerin, 700 miles. Thus Prussia controls the railway situa tion by holding three-fifths of the entire sys tem, and the eight largest States of the country have more than 93 per cent. of all the railway lines.