especially in agricultural and rural districts, had helped to further concentrate public opinion on the question; that a conference had been held at the Board of Trade and a Committee appointed to investigate the subject; that this Committee, after various sittings, had reported in favour of legislation, and that the result had been that the Light Railway Act of 1896 had come into being.  My paper also dealt with this Act, explaining its scope, its limitations and what its effect had been during the comparatively short time (only four years) it had been in force; and my conclusion was that in Great Britain no further facilities were at that time required for encouraging the building of light railways, the best policy in my judgment being, to give the Act a fair trial, as time only could show to what extent the railways to be made in virtue of its provisions would fulfil the objects for which it had been passed.

Mr. Acworth did not tackle the question as affecting other countries.  He reported that he had no special knowledge which would entitle him to say how light railway enterprise could best be developed in countries other than his own, and that as my Report “sufficiently set out the present position of affairs in reference to light railways in the United Kingdom,” he thought the most useful contribution he could offer to the discussion of the question would be “a short criticism of the working, both from a legal or administrative and also from a practical point of view, of our English Act of 1896.”

The Act of 1896 was one of considerable importance to British Railways and, therefore, merits a few words.  It established three Commissioners who were empowered to make Orders authorising the construction of Light Railways, including powers for the compulsory acquisition of land; authorised the granting of Government loans and, under special circumstances, free grants of money.  The Board of Trade might require any project brought forward under the Act to be submitted to Parliament, if they considered its magnitude, or the effect it might have on any existing railway, demanded such a course.  The Act simplified and cheapened the process for the acquisition of land, and ordained that in fixing the price the consequent betterment of other lands held by the same owner should be taken into account.  It imparted considerable power to dispense with certain expensive conditions and regulations in working railways constructed under its authority.  Though it was intended primarily to benefit agriculture, it was capable of an interpretation wide enough to include all kinds of tramways, and it has been extensively used for that purpose, sometimes, I fear, to the detriment of existing railways.