654 
Light Railways. 
But, even if we admit the necessity of facing the fact that 
light railways may not be paying enterprises in the ordinary 
sense of the word, yet the financial position requires the most 
serious consideration. There are all degrees of unprofitableness, 
just as there are all degrees of financial success. If we look at 
Ireland, for example, some of the light lines built under the 
Tramways and Public Companies Act of 1883 only make a very 
small claim on the guarantee, as they earn from their traffic 
sufficient to pay almost the whole of the interest on the capital 
involved. Others do not even earn enough to pay their work- 
ing expenses, and the public authorities have not only to pay 
out of rates and taxes the whole of the interest on capital, but 
also to make up a considerable deficiency under the head of 
working expenses. Such a result as this is obviously a serious 
reflection on those who are responsible for the lines in question ; 
either they are being badly worked, in other words are spending 
more or earning less (more probably both) than they ought to be 
doing, or it may be that the capital cost of construction was 
unduly inflated ; or, again — which is also more than probable — 
the prospects of the line at the outset were so bad that it ought 
really never to have been built at all. The first thing then re- 
quisite is to see that no lines are built without reasonable pro- 
spects of being, if not quite, at least very nearly, self-supporting. 
Probably, on the whole, the best way to secure this result is to 
demand that the local population which asks for the line shall 
take a serious, not necessarily a preponderating, share in the risk. 
Another safeguard would be a careful report made on the 
authority of a Government Department, presumably the Board 
of Trade, in which the traffic potentialities of the district should 
be estimated exhaustively and in detail from the fullest data 
available. 
Another thing of at least equal importance is that both the 
capital cost and the working expenses of the new lines should 
be rigidly kept down to the reducible minimum. Probably one 
would be justified, on the basis of all the statistics available 
both on the Continent and in this country, in putting this point 
in outline, somewhat as follows. Assume that the line can be 
made for 5,000L per mile. Assume, further, that it earns 10 1. 
per mile per week, or, say, 500 1. per mile per annum. Assume, 
again, that it can be worked at 65 per cent, of the gross receipts. 
This will leave a surplus of 1 75 A per mile per annum, or in other 
words 3£ per cent, interest on the capital involved. Now it is 
perfectly obvious that outside capital will not go into the ven- 
ture on the basis of a prospectus only promising 3^ per cent. ; 
but it is equally obvious that a County Council could raise the 
