British 65 Basi Africaj RAILWAYS (FINANCE ) ments annualinterest charges, amounting to more than £21,000, are met not from railway receipts but from the general revenue of the country, which, on the other hand, receives the whole of the net earnings of the railway.

Tables I and II (Appendix, pp. 106-7) show that for the six years ending March 1917 the average annual profits have been in excess of £ 228,000; during three years of war the figures had risen to £273,000 from £ 184,000, the average for the preceding trien nium . While the returns for the last three years are abnormal, and influenced largely by special war con ditions, the net earnings haverisen since 1905 propor tionately faster than either revenue or expenditure, in creasing from a •ratio of three-tenths to one of four tenths of the revenue, and from two -fifths to more than two-thirds of expenditure. At the sametime the earn ings of the tonnage carried have fallen from £134 to £ 107 per 100 tons, a drop due in part to a decrease in the average distance of carriage, but very largely to the concessions made for certain classes of freight, whose import or export is economically advantageous to the country.

The railway tariffs are fixed on a sliding scale on the principle that the cheapest rates are allowed for articles of prime importance for the development of agricul ture and industries within the Protectorates , while the heavier charges are imposed for the carriage ofarticles of luxury. Thus, over the 330milesbetweenMombasa and Nairobi , agricultural implements are conveyed for 1s. 3d. (93 cents) per 100-lb . weight; china , glass, and electric goods for 4s. 5d . (330 cents); and ivory, per fumery, and champagne for 24s. 2d. ( 1,815 cents).

To encourage export trade, very light rates are charged on country produce such as potatoes, beans, peas, grain of various sorts, and wattle-bark , when these are forwarded to the coast in bulk for export ; the relatively valuable consignments of fibre, flax or hemp , and of cocoa and coffee beans bear slightly heavier charges. Over the same distance of 330 miles the rates for the former varieties of produce are only 6d. (37 to