Tramways, Motor-buses, etc. 461 



improved transport facilities. Instead of being satisfied, 

 the local authorities made demands which would have in- 

 volved the company in a further expenditure of 642,630, 

 making a total of 860,562. One urban district council 

 included in its demands the construction by the tramway 

 company of public lavatories and a subway. In a district 

 where the company were prepared to spend 30,000 on road 

 improvements the county council demanded a carriage- 

 way of forty feet and wood paving throughout six and a half 

 miles of country roads, involving the expenditure of a further 

 30,000. 



Rather than submit to all these exactions the company 

 abandoned their Bill. They had already abandoned sixty 

 miles of proposed tramway extensions " owing," said Sir 

 Clifton, " to the demands or the uncompromising attitude of 

 the local authorities," although many of these lines would have 

 been valuable connections with the existing tramway system, 

 and would have served in no small degree the traffic needs of the 

 districts concerned. 



" It is not too much to say," added Sir Clifton Robinson, 

 in concluding his statement, " that instead of giving such 

 proposals sympathetic consideration, if not practical en- 

 couragement, the attitude assumed by the average local 

 authority of to-day is one of hostility, inspired by a desire 

 to extort the uttermost farthing from promoters." 



In the face of experiences, or the prospect of experiences, 

 such as these, many would-be promoters of tramway enter- 

 prise developed a natural reluctance to put their own money, 

 or to try to induce other people to put theirs, into the business ; 

 and even some American financiers, who thought we were 

 much too slow in tramway matters in this country, and came 

 over here with the combined idea of showing us how to do 

 things and of exploiting us to their own advantage, abandoned 

 their plans and went home again when they got to understand 

 the bearing of our legislative enactments on the situation. 



So, as time went on, the local authorities had greater 

 excuse than ever for constructing the tramways themselves ; 

 and most of the principal urban centres built lines of their own, 

 sooner or later. 



That there have been certain resemblances between State 

 policy towards the railways and State policy towards the 



