Light Railways. 
659 
and around Westminster. It has never been reduced to writing, 
but exists in floating shape in the heads of railway managers, 
engineers, Parliamentary agents, and especially the Private Bill 
authorities of the two Houses and a few habitual and experienced 
chairmen of Parliamentary Committees. To start out on a new 
development of a subject such as light railways, and commence 
by refusing to utilise the whole of this accumulated information 
and experience, would be nothing short of disastrous, even were 
it not for the fact that uniformity by itself is a thing much to 
be desired, and that uniformity cannot possibly be preserved if 
one locality is to go ahead in one direction, and another locality 
in quite another. 
Assuming it, therefore, to be necessary to retain the control 
of light-railway undertakings at Westminster, as at present, 
what seems to be requisite is to simplify and cheapen, as far as 
possible, the method of procedure. A great deal in this direction 
can undoubtedly be done by a relaxation for the benefit of light 
lines of the very stringent and costly requirements of the 
Standing Orders in reference to advertisements, notices, the 
deposit of plans and sections, the preparation of books of refer- 
ence, printing minutes of proceedings, &c. A great deal more can 
be done by the reduction of the quite unjustifiably heavy House 
fees. At the present moment the promoters of enterprises which 
need for their initiation the sanction of a Private Bill are fined 
in a sum, I believe, of something like 100,000L per annum for 
the relief of the general taxation of the country. It needs no 
argument to show that it would be absurd, in the case of light 
railways, for the State with one hand to impose a heavy tax on 
the initiation of the enterprise, and with the other hand to sub- 
scribe to its funds because it did not show a prospect of ordinary 
commercial success. That the House fees should be either 
abolished or very largely reduced in the case of these light lines 
goes, therefore, without saying. Again, we have had a good 
deal of experience recently of Bills referred to a joint Committee 
of the two Houses, and needing, therefore, one inquiry instead of 
two. Light Railway Bills might unquestionably with great ad- 
vantage be referred to such a joint Committee. If this Com- 
mittee were fortunate enough to have a practically permanent 
chairman, and in great degree a permanent panel of members, 
there would undoubtedly be a great curtailment both in the length 
of the inquiries and in the expenses consequent thereon. 
A further point may be taken. A “ model ” Light Railway 
Bill might well be put forward with Board of Trade authority, and 
only the special circumstances of each individual case considered 
separately. It would even be possible to treat the preamble 
