STATE RAILWAYS IN ITALY.
[TO THY EDITOR Or TEM "SPECTATOR.".1 SIR,—In your article on "State Railways" in last week's issue I notice the following amazing statement :—" In Italy the State acquisition of the railways has been followed by a scandalous deterioration of the whole service." As one who has just returned from Italy after nearly a year's residence there, I am in a position to answer that statement with a direct negative. Some six or seven years ago I travelled over a good deal of Italy, and at that time no condemnation of the railways could have been too severe. On revisiting the country last year, the first impression I received was of the immense improvements which have been made for the comfort and convenience of passengers, and subsequent experience has only served to confirm that impression. I have also on more than one occasion been assured by men engaged in business in the country that so far from "a bad system having become worse in almost every direction," in one direction at least— the traffic of goods—the old system will not bear com- parison with the new. Railway travelling and railway management in Italy still leave much to be desired. But it must be remembered that for five years before the rail- ways were taken over by the State, the companies, aware of their approaching dissolution, made no efforts whatever towards keeping their lines in a state of efficiency, with the result that the Government received a legacy of deteriorated rolling-stock, decrepit engines, and ill-repaired lines. This leeway the Government is steadily making up. The carriage manufactory at, Reggio is being considerably enlarged, so that the deficiency of rolling-stock, which is the chief difficulty in the way of improvement, will in a few years be supplied; the system of block-signals is being gradually introduced ; corridor carriages are being attached even to slow local trains; only last month an express was put on which does the journey from Milan to Naples in a little over seventeen hours ; and there are projects on foot for building new lines from Genoa to Milan, and from Bologna to Florence, which, by avoiding the climb over the hills, will considerably shorten the journey. I may add, in conclusion, that the cost of travelling has been lessened, and that the standard of punctuality observed is a good deal higher than I remember it to have been under the old companies.—I am, Sir, &c., STANLEY WENT. Birstall, Leicester.
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