! Said
the Government to themselves, "'Tis time we saw to this," and accordingly
they passed the _Railway Regulation Act_ of 1844. This Act provided that
if at any time, after twenty-one years, the dividend of any railway
should exceed ten per cent., the Treasury might revise the rates and
fares so as to reduce the profits to not more than ten per cent. This
expectation of high dividends, I need hardly say, has not been realised,
and the Act in this respect has been a dead letter. The Act also
conferred an option on the Treasury to acquire future railways at twenty-
five years purchase of the annual profits; or, if such profits were less
than ten per cent., the price was to be left to arbitration.
It is interesting now, when, owing to the war, the railways of the land
are under temporary Government control, and their future all uncertain,
to remember that, on the Statute Book to-day, there is an Act which
provides for State purchase of the railways of the country. Whether a
solution of the difficulty will be found in State purchase or in State
control it is hard to say, but it is clear that some solution of the
problem will become imperative when the war is ended and normal
conditions return.
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