Light Hallways 
653 
rate of interest, on the average something like 3 per cent. 
But Holland is the only country where the thing has been done 
by private enterprise. The Belgian Vicinal Company is practi- 
cally, though not nominally, a State organisation ; but it is 
worked in a commercial spirit, and attains a fair measure of com- 
mercial success. Recent dividends have been at the rate of 
about 3 per cent, per annum. The light lines in Germany 
have a very varied history : some of them, the little Felda line, for 
instance, or the lines in the Grand Duchy of Hesse, pay hand- 
somely ; others barely pay their working expenses ; and lines 
may be found at all intermediate points between these two ex- 
tremes. The same is the case in both portions of the Austrian 
Monarchy. In France the light railways are a heavy tax on the 
public funds of the districts and of the State. The same is 
notoriously true in Ireland. The French failure to earn a satis- 
factory income is, however, easily accounted for by special circum- 
stances, more especially the extravagant prices that have been 
paid for land, and the unthrifty bargains that have been made 
with the operating companies. The Irish conditions must not 
be touched here, for it would be necessary to occupy space out 
of all proportion to the importance of Ireland as an economic 
example, and it would not be easy to avoid trenching on matters 
of current political controversy. 
It will be seen, therefore, that experience shows that light 
railways may pay in the commercial sense ; but it is on the whole 
more probable that they will not do so, and it is well to put this 
point in the plainest possible language as a difficulty which has 
got to be faced by those who advocate an active light-railway 
policy. When it is faced fairly the difficulty in great measure 
disappears, for even the countries where as dividend-paying 
undertakings the light railways do worst are still going steadily 
forward in the construction of new lines. One is therefore en- 
titled to say, with some certainty, that public opinion in these 
countries regards the construction of such lines as a thing so 
desirable as to be worth some financial sacrifice. Put in another 
way, Continental public opinion is decided in holding that the 
indirect gain more than balances the direct loss. One of these 
indirect gains, not perhaps one of the most important, is so 
easily recognised that it should be mentioned at once. Perhaps 
it might almost be called a direct gain. It is in the economy of 
road maintenance when the bulk of the heavy traffic is diverted 
on to a railway or tramway alongside. Some of the Irish high- 
way authorities have given figures showing that for a road which 
cost 6s. per rod for maintenance before the railway came, the 
cost is now at Is. Id. 
VOL. v. T. s. — 20 
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