CHAPTER IX.

LIGHT RAILWAYS IN IRELAND.

CONTENTS.-Irish railways assisted by Treasury loans-Baronial guaranteesTramways Acts of 1860, 1881, and 1883-Light railways constructed under these Acts-Too expensively constructed and worked-Not controlled by local authorities who had to bear the losses-Light Railways Act of 1889 a boon to main line companies and the people-Light railways constructed with State assistance under the Act of 1889 and 1890–Railways Act of 1896 compared with the English Act of 1896.

Light Railways Constructed under the Acts prior to 1889.— Ireland, in the development of her railway systems, has never been. able to preserve the same independence of State aid which has hitherto been so remarkable in England and Scotland. From the very first, the Treasury has advanced money to railway companies, usually on the security of a mortgage on the undertaking, and the Government has not claimed, in consequence of affording this assistance, to exercise any more control over the details of working, rates, etc., than in the case of other railways. Up to 1888, according to returns submitted to the Royal Commission held in that year, as much as £4,101,401 had been thus advanced; of this amount £2,921,414 had been repaid by the railways, £37,772 had been remitted by the Imperial Government, and the remainder was outstanding. Up to 1893, the Treasury loans had reached £4,197,746, of which the railways had paid back £3,383,278.

The railways also received public assistance in the form of guarantees of interest, secured upon the rates, by the baronies or local authorities of the districts traversed by the railways; and here, again, the public bodies assisting did not, therefore, interfere with the service or rates, although they were generally represented by one or more members of the Board of Directors nominated by them.

To such aid from the State and local authorities must be added, in many instances, the private aid of landed proprietors in the form of subscriptions of capital or guarantees of interest.

In the poorer districts, however, when railways were often urgently required, there was little to attract capital, and legislation had not been favourable to the construction of light lines.

By the Tramways Act of 1860, the compulsory acquisition of land was provided for, but projects had first to be submitted to the Grand Jury, then to the Lord-Lieutenant in Council, and finally to Parlia

ment for confirmation by an Act. The last formality was dispensed with in the following year. By the Tramways Amendment Act of 1871, mechanical traction at a maximum speed of six miles per hour on roads and of three miles per hour in towns was permitted, and the maximum speed on roads was increased to ten miles per hour in 1881. But much more important than all these was the Tramways and Public Companies Act of 1883, the intention of which was, first of all, to throw the responsibility of railway development in poor districts upon the local baronies, and then, perhaps, to share it with the Imperial Government. Thus promoters would submit a project for a light railway to the Grand Jury, and the ratepayers might oppose it. The approval of the Grand Jury would throw upon the rates of the whole country, or of so many baronies, charges, not for the interest only, but for deficits on working expenses, and even the obligation of working the line if it was abandoned by the promoters. On the other hand, although the Grand Jury might nominate a director or appoint an auditor, it had no real control over the railway, so long as it was run by the promoters. The project further required the acceptance of the Privy Council, and, if opposition was still maintained, the confirmation of an Act of Parliament. The last carried with it the obligation to repay the Grand Jury, either (a) interest on capital to the extent of 2 per cent., or (b) half the difference between the net receipts and the total guaranteed interest required, whichever might be smaller.

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Under the Tramways (Ireland) Acts, 1860 to 1883, have been constructed (excluding three or four lines worked by one or other of the great railway companies) 230 miles of light railways. They show total receipts of £55,625 (about £240 per mile), a total working expenditure of £57,856 (about £252 per mile, or 104 per cent. of receipts), and a deficiency of £2231 (or £9.7 per mile) by way of net receipts. The local ratepayers (with the exception of about £25,000 per annum falling to the charge of the Imperial Government) have to make good this deficit, and the whole of the interest on capital. If we look up the Mitchelstown and Fermoy Light Railway in the returns, we find that, of a 5 per cent. rate of dividend, 2 per cent. is guaranteed by the Imperial Government and 3 per cent. by the baronies of Condons and Clongibbons. The total capital of all these light railways (including those worked by the great companies) is £1,310,905, of which no less than £1,199,175 is guaranteed, either at 4 or 5 per cent.

The following have been quoted as the more favourable in their results of these light railways, and figures relating to them are given in the table below, -the Clogher Valley, Cork and Muskerry, Schull and Skibbereen, and the Tralee and Dingle.

The Clogher Valley, 37 miles long, cost £3286 per mile, and shows receipts of £6850, against an expenditure of £6889. The Cork and Muskerry, 18 miles long, cost £4167 per mile, and shows receipts of Railway Returns, 1896.

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£9472, against an expenditure of £7866. The Schull and Skibbereen, 15 miles long, cost £3800 per mile, and shows receipts of £2306, against an expenditure of £3368. The Tralee and Dingle, 37 miles long, cost £4054 per mile, and shows receipts of £5891, against an expenditure of £9341. Thus, the proportions per cent. of expenditure to receipts on these four lines are 104, 83, 146, and

159, and the Cork and Muskerry Light Railway is the only one that can boast of net receipts in the returns for the year 1896.

The cost per mile of the four lines mentioned is in each case much less than the average cost per mile of all these light railways, which is about £5700, a heavy price to pay for a 3 ft. gauge line. They are too substantially built and too expensively worked, in accordance with Board of Trade traditions, for lines with such poor average traffic

receipts as £239 per mile. The heavy expenses, due to the complicated preliminary procedure and the purchase of land, absorbed so much capital that none was left for profitable expenditure on purposes absolutely necessary to the development of traffic. The administration of small lines as separate concerns is always expensive, and the Act of 1883 had expressly ignored the great railway companies. Above all, the local authorities, who had to stand all risks and bear all losses, had no proper control over the petty companies who constructed and worked the lines; the baronies were saddled with all the liabilities, but were armed with none of those powers which should accompany responsibility.

Accordingly, the Royal Commission on Irish Public Works-to which reference has already been made-in 1888 reported that the preliminary procedure was expensive and complicated, that the local. authorities ought not to be liable for working expenses as well as interest on capital, that the ability to promote such lines should be extended to existing railway companies, that the adoption of a narrow gauge was unduly encouraged, and that the tendency should rather be to develop light railways on the standard gauge.

Light Railways Constructed under the Acts of 1889, 1890, and 1896. While the Act of 1883 expressly ignored the great railway companies in relation to tramways or light railways, the Light Railways (Ireland) Act, 1889 [52 & 53 Vict.], applies most particularly to them. The promoters (a) may be an Irish railway company having a railway open for traffic, or (b) may have an agreement approved by the Treasury for the working of the light railway by such a railway company, or (c) may apply, under the provisions of the Act of 1883, for a baronial guarantee on a portion of the paid-up capital of the light railway. The Treasury might aid such an undertaking either with a free grant or a loan, but would not pay in the aggregate more than £20,000 a year in addition to the residue, if any, remaining unappropriated of the £40,000 a year mentioned in the Act of 1883; nor should any capital sums granted exceed £600,000 in the aggregate; annual grants, moreover, should be reduced in limit by 3 per cent. on any capital grants; and capital grants would be similarly reduced by any excess of annual grant, over and above the £42,000 a year mentioned above, capitalised at 3 per cent. It lay with the Lord-Lieutenant in Council to declare that a light railway should be constructed between certain places for the development of fisheries or other industries, that special assistance from the State was required, and that the application of the Act should cease if the light railway were not constructed within a certain period.

No doubt this Act, followed by the Railways (Ireland) Act, 1890, and the Transfer of Railways (Ireland) Act, 1890-the last of which enabled existing companies to take over a light railway company, with the baronial guarantee-were exceedingly favourable to the main line companies. The latter made extensions to their own lines upon the easiest terms under these Acts. Of twelve light railways aggre

gating 237 miles, towards the construction of which State assistance has been given in the form of free grants unaccompanied by any embarrassing conditions, all but one-the Donegal and Killybegs, a 3 ft. gauge line have been constructed on the normal Irish gauge, 5′ 3′′, and nearly all are worked by such railway companies as the Midland Great Western, the Great Southern and Western, the Cork, Bandon, and South Coast, etc. But they reach important fishing grounds, more especially on the west coast; they penetrate to the poorest districts in Donegal, Mayo, Galway, Kerry, Cork, Down, and Sligo; and, if the main lines profit by the contributive traffic of lines for which the State and the baronies have provided the capital, the people of these districts reap also the full advantages of long-needed railways under the efficient management of the great railway companies. That the latter are fairly prosperous may be conceded, seeing that their average return on all descriptions of capital was 4:30 per cent., as compared with 3.87 per cent. in the United Kingdom in 1894. That they could-or, as a matter of business, would-build, either on their own standard or as light railways, the lines we are discussing, is not so certain; or, rather, this much is certain, that without the freely-given help of the State, these lines would not have been constructed at the very time when they were most wanted. Mr A. J. Balfour's Railway Act of 1889 was, in fact, the sufficient means not only of dealing with an immediate and pressing distress, but also of extending the lasting benefits of railway communication to poor and isolated districts.

The following is a list of these light railways:†

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Irish Railways and their Purchase by the State,"-The Railway World, Feb. 1896.

+ Railway Returns, 1896.