My paper also dealt with this Act, explaining
its scope, its limitations and what its effect had been during the
comparatively short time (only four years) it had been in force; and my
conclusion was that in Great Britain no further facilities were at that
time required for encouraging the building of light railways, the best
policy in my judgment being, to give the Act a fair trial, as time only
could show to what extent the railways to be made in virtue of its
provisions would fulfil the objects for which it had been passed.
Mr. Acworth did not tackle the question as affecting other countries. He
reported that he had no special knowledge which would entitle him to say
how light railway enterprise could best be developed in countries other
than his own, and that as my Report "sufficiently set out the present
position of affairs in reference to light railways in the United
Kingdom," he thought the most useful contribution he could offer to the
discussion of the question would be "a short criticism of the working,
both from a legal or administrative and also from a practical point of
view, of our English Act of 1896.
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