664 
Light Railivays. 
Society does not as a rule work its own lines, but leases the 
working under carefully drawn contracts to private individuals 
or subordinate companies. In France, on the other hand, the 
light lines are mainly worked by two large companies, each of 
which has railways or groups of railways scattered all over the 
face of the country. A [third way, of course, is to entrust the 
working to the great railway company with whose lines the 
light railway connects. There is a great deal to be said for all 
three methods, and also, it must be confessed, a great deal to 
be said against each of them. The subject is, however, too 
technical for discussion here. 
Two or three main desiderata must, however, be just alluded to. 
In the first place, by some means or other, the services of first- 
class experts, whether as lawyers, as engineers, or as traffic man- 
agers, must be secured to each new line, however small, and, at 
the same time, at a cost which to the individual small undertaking 
shall not be prohibitory. This can, it seems evident, only be 
done by means of some central organisation. Then, further, the 
company or individual working the local lines must have an inter- 
est in the development of the traffic ; and this in the main depends 
on the form in which the contract between owners and workers — 
supposing them to be different — is drawn up. In the case of 
many of the Irish light lines, it is not too much to say that those 
responsible for the working have no interest whatever in 
developing the traffic of the district. In France one may go 
further, and say, without fear of contradiction, that in many 
cases the interest of the working company is to reduce the 
traffic to the smallest possible dimensions. Now this state of 
things must be avoided here at all hazards. It might be 
thought, perhaps, that the persons on the whole most interested 
in the development of the traffic would be the main-line 
companies, to whose railways the new light lines should 
naturally act as feeders. And this would be so, undoubtedly, if 
it were not that in the past a policy of starving a small branch 
to death, and then buying the carcass at knacker’s prices, has 
in some cases been practised with considerable success. Against 
this risk, too, security will need to be taken. 
One point, and a most important one, which has been 
suggested, rather than positively raised in the preceding pages, 
must be dealt with in conclusion. A hard-headed man of 
business having read this article carefully might very naturally 
speak somewhat as follows : “ You tell us that these new lines 
must be in all respects inferior to the railways to which we 
have hitherto been accustomed. Their accommodation and their 
speed will be inferior — even safety will be less absolutely 
