Prefatory Note vii 



In commenting on the former of the announcements here in 

 question, " The Times Engineering Supplement " of Novem- 

 ber 22, 1911, observes: 



It is of importance to realise what this decision portends. The 

 history of the matter is that the steam railways were inadequate to 

 fulfil the requirements of the suburbs, and that an opening was 

 thus afforded to municipalities to provide tramways of their own. 

 It was a crude method of dealing with the problem ; it robbed the 

 main roads of every vestige of rural character, and it added new 

 dangers and checks to street traffic. Nevertheless it was a 

 necessity, and it served its purpose, first, by providing facilities 

 that were always cheap to the travellers, even if they were occasion- 

 ally dear to the taxpayers ; and, secondly, by stimulating the rail- 

 way companies to adopt means to get back their lost traffic. Now 

 that the railway companies are fully alive to the opportunities 

 offered to them by electrification, the general aspect of the problem 

 is changed, and additional support is given to the belief that 

 electric railways and motor-omnibuses will carry an increasing 

 proportion of London traffic, and that from some roads at least 

 tramways may even disappear altogether. 



In other directions there are reports of individual agricul- 

 turists who are constructing light railways of their own to 

 secure direct communication between their farms and the 

 nearest main line railway, sympathetic local authorities having 

 offered them practical encouragement by making only a 

 nominal charge for the privilege of crossing the public roads 

 where this is necessary. A new era in agricultural transport 

 and cultivation is further foreshadowed in the announcement 

 that it is quite reasonable to believe that resort to rail-less 

 electric traction will serve as a means of introducing electrical 

 supply into rural areas for agricultural purposes ; while in the 

 House of Lords on November 22, 1911, Lord Lucas, replying 

 for the Government to some comments made by Lord Montagu 

 of Beaulieu on the first report of the Road Board (dealt with 

 on page 481), said that body considered the most important 

 thing at present was to improve the surface of the roads ; but 



