The Railway System To-day 371 



it is a railway company that will pay most of the cost, the 

 proportion thereof falling on the great bulk of the individual 

 ratepayers in the parish being thus inconsiderable. Social 

 reformers tell us of the improvements they find proceeding 

 to-day in village life in England. What is happening to a large 

 extent is that rural centres are providing themselves with 

 urban luxuries at the cost of the railway companies that is 

 to say, at the cost either of the railway shareholders or of the 

 railway users or both together. 



The same tendency may, however, be carried further still. 



On the occasion of the coronation of King George and 

 Queen Mary, various local authorities had the less hesitation 

 in voting supplies to defray the cost of festivities out of the 

 rates because they knew that most of the money so voted 

 would have to be paid by a railway company. In a letter 

 to " The Times " of June 3, 1911, on this subject, Mr James 

 E. Freeman, of Darlington, says : 



" The village of Carlton Miniott, near Thirsk, lately held a 

 parish meeting to consider whether the 30 or so that will be 

 spent in local festivities in connexion with the Coronation 

 should be raised by means of private subscriptions or from 

 the rates. It was decided to levy a penny rate, with the 

 result that the North-Eastern Railway Company, which had 

 and could have no voice in the decision, will pay 21 133. 4d., 

 and the loyal residents, who receive the whole of the benefit, 

 will pay g us. 8d. towards the 31 53. that is to be expended. 

 At the neighbouring village of South Otterington the keen- 

 witted Yorkshiremen have profited even more from the law's 

 absurdities. They have voted a precept of 30 on the overseers 

 for their merry-making, and of this amount the North-Eastern 

 Railway Company will have the satisfaction of paying a 

 little over 25." 



The " Great Western Railway Magazine" for July, 1911, 

 in referring to the same subject, tells of " a parish having the 

 good fortune to have a railway running through one end of it, 

 in which a rate of threepence in the has been imposed. 

 This has produced ^200, all of which has been spent on eating 

 and drinking in a population of less than 2000, while the 

 governing idea in raising the rate appears to have been that 

 the railway company would have to pay some 70." 



Without stopping to discuss the question as to the exact 



