The Law Relating to Light Railways

("Société Nationale des Chemins-de-fer Vicinaux "). See Report of Major Addison to the Board of Trade of December 4th, 1894.

In our own country the local councils will, from the success which has attended the management of tramways in the hands of municipal authorities, and from the course of legislation, which has lately been in the direction of granting to such authorities powers to construct and lease or work the tramways within their areas where the circumstances appear to require it, be, doubtless, encouraged in some localities to avail themselves of the opportunity afforded by the Act of constructing and controlling the working of the light lines for the benefit of the districts over which they have jurisdiction. And where this is not the case, they will generally be so far interested in the proposals made by others as to find it necessary to consider, and, perhaps, either to oppose or support the application to the Commissioners.

With regard to the general utility of such lines, we may usefully quote from a circular issued in Belgium by the Société Nationale des Chemins-de-fer Vicinaux, and adopted by the Prussian Minister of Public Works, in moving the third reading of the Light Railway Law, 1892:

Light railways will furnish the people with the means of transporting their products at the lowest possible price. They will assist communication from village to village, and from the village to the adjacent station.

They will render access to the main lines more con

venient.

They will call into being new industries, and increase the prosperity of existing industries, by affording them new outlets for their products.

They will enable the farmer to procure at a cheap rate the fertilisers necessary to enable him to face foreign

competition, and by the low cost of carriage will open to him the markets of his own country, as well as those abroad.

Journal No. 20, Royal Agricultural Society of England, p. 649.

With regard to the general value of the Act, much must undoubtedly depend upon the action of the Commissioners appointed, although the powers afforded by the Act itself of making railways of a cheaper class, and with less elaborate provision for the safety of the general public, than in the case of the existing standard lines, coupled with the provisions cheapening the cost of taking land, cannot, in any case, fail to be of use in many districts.

If the Act should be applied to tramways of every description, a very large use will undoubtedly be made of the Act. That the Act is capable of an interpretation wide enough to include all kinds of tramways can hardly be doubted; but the Authors would suppose that the Commissioners, with the sanction of the Board of Trade, will be disposed, in general, to limit the use of the Act to tramways worked by steam or electricity, or other similar means and which are in their nature equivalent to railways as now existing, rather than to extend it to horse lines acting as mere omnibuses. In the case of ordinary tramways in the streets of populous towns it is probable that promoters will still be left to the provisions of the Tramway Acts.

The Commissioners are "themselves, by local inquiry, and such other means as they think necessary," to "possess themselves of all such information as they may consider material or useful for determining the expediency" of granting the applications made to them for Orders under the Act (see section 7 of the Act, post, p. 64). The practical working of the Act depends largely upon the manner in which this requirement is carried out. The rules, which have been published by the Board of Trade, make

no regulation for, and contain no provisions in regard to, the mode in which it is proposed to fulfil this requirement of the Act, a requirement which is intended to be a cheaper and more expeditious method of acquiring the information needed than an inquiry before a Parliamentary Select Committee. It is presumed that the Commissioners will, in general publicly, though not necessarily so, hold an inquiry at some place within the area intended to be served by the proposed railway, and confine the investigation at such place to those matters which they deem of use to enable them to form a reliable judgment on the application before them, and to hearing such objectors or dealing with such objections as may be conveniently dealt with locally. And that they will not permit, under the above enactment, lengthy local trials involving all the questions that ingenuity can raise in regard to light railways, supported by numerous witnesses. The matter is, however, in their hands, and if it is permissible to the Authors to predict, they would say that the Commission is not likely to treat the language of this section as a direction compelling them to investigate locally any thing that can be better inquired into at the office of the Commission in London, or to receive in the shape of formal evidence, at cost to the parties, matter which needs no proof, or which can be furnished to them inexpensively in writing at their offices for their consideration. Their statutory functions would appear to present many points of difference from those of a judicial tribunal appointed to decide between opposing parties, and, subject to the special provisions of the Light Railways Act, 1896, to resemble to a considerable extent those in general of a Parliamentary Committee. Their exact description is that of a Commission appointed by the statute.

TEMPLE,

November, 1896.

C. D.

C. E. A.