Crowded it was almost to suffocation, for 1900 was the Great
Exhibition year, and all the world and his wife were there. The Railway
Congress took place in September. The business part of the proceedings
came first, and I did not stay for the festivities. When my Report was
made and discussed (a reporter was not allowed to read his paper, but was
required to speak from notes), I made, with three railway friends from
Dublin, tracks for Switzerland. It had been a strenuous year and
mountain air and exercise were needed to restore one's physical strength
and jaded faculties.
"_Means of developing light railways. What are the best means of
encouraging the building of light railways_?" This was the text for my
paper, as sent to me by the Congress, and my Report, I was told, should
be confined to the United Kingdom, Mr. W. M. Acworth having undertaken a
report on the subject for other countries.
In my Report I first disposed of Ireland, concerning which and its light
railways I have already written with some fullness in these pages; and my
readers, I am sure, will not be surprised to hear that, as regards that
country I answered the question remitted to me by saying that the only
practical means I could see of further encouraging the construction of
light railways in Ireland was by the wise expenditure of additional
Government Grants, while as regards England, I pointed out that she had
for long preferred to dispense with light railways, that, as forcibly
expressed in _The Times_, she alone of civilised countries had but one
standard for her railways, that is "the best that money could buy"; that
times had changed, and in 1894 and 1895 much discussion and investigation
on the subject had taken place, brought about chiefly, I thought, by
depression in agriculture; that the energy which France, Germany, Sweden,
Belgium and Italy had expended on their light railway systems, especially
in agricultural and rural districts, had helped to further concentrate
public opinion on the question; that a conference had been held at the
Board of Trade and a Committee appointed to investigate the subject; that
this Committee, after various sittings, had reported in favour of
legislation, and that the result had been that the _Light Railway Act_ of
1896 had come into being.
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