464 History of Inland Transport 



but, in the circumstances already narrated, the cause for 

 surprise is, rather, that private companies should have been 

 sufficiently bold or enterprising to do as much in the way of 

 tramway construction as they have. 



To the tramway patron it may seem to be a matter of no 

 great concern whether the tramways are owned and operated 

 by local authorities or by companies, provided they are 

 satisfactory ; and there may even appear to be various 

 advantages on the side of public ownership of what, since the 

 public streets and roads are used, may be regarded as essen- 

 tially a public service. 



There have, however, been many suggestions that municipal 

 tramways are too often managed on lines involving a disregard 

 of commercial principles, and that much of the financial 

 success claimed for them is due less to real " profits " than to 

 the omission from the expenditure side of their accounts of 

 inconvenient items which, if included therein, would show 

 much less favourable results than those desired. Thus it has 

 been represented from time to time by opponents of " muni- 

 cipal trading " who have advanced many facts and figures 

 in proof of their assertions that large sums of money spent on 

 street widenings for tramway purposes that is to say, sums 

 which a tramway company would pay from its capital account, 

 and put down as costs of construction are omitted from the 

 municipal tramway accounts and classed under the head of 

 " public improvements," to be covered out of the local rates. 

 The general practice is to debit a third of such expenditure 

 to the tramway, the other two-thirds coming out of the rates ; 

 but the critics allege that, in some instances, a far greater 

 proportion even than the two-thirds has been left to be 

 defrayed by the general ratepayer. * It is further alleged that 

 inadequate amounts are set aside for depreciation, and that 

 the sums allowed for the use of the central office and the 

 services of the central staff may be considerably less than 

 the figures which ought to be allocated thereto, if the 

 municipal tramway business were really conducted on 

 business lines. 



1 See R. P. Porter's "Dangers of Municipal Trading," pp. 174-5, 

 where it is stated that of over ,4,000,000 spent by the London County 

 Council on street widenings for tramway extensions only ^377,oco was 

 debited to the tramway undertaking. 



