The ultimate effect was that the actual cost of electric tramways exceeded the estimates prepared on the basis of Continental and American experience. The more prolonged and difficult the negotiations preliminary to a scheme became, the greater the expense. And the conditions imposed by local authorities as the price of their consent loaded the capital account of electric tramway undertakings with items which had no direct concern with the tramway. The Board of Trade assisted the increase in cost by prescribing a standard of construction which was higher than that allowed in other countries. The net result has been that while electric tramways were expected to cost about £9500 per mile, they have actually cost over £12,000 per mile. The revenue side of the account has also been affected by the power of veto. A local authority has no hesitation in imposing low fares and long stages (with high wages and short hours for employees) upon a tramway company seeking its consent. The standard usually adopted is that of large urban systems with dense traffic, so that systems in scattered districts are often unfairly treated. In municipal systems themselves the fares are apt to be determined by the promises of councillors at election times rather than by the simple consideration of a fair price for improved traffic facilities. Workmen's fares, for instance, are a dead loss on practically every tramway system. Every now and again there is an agitation for halfpenny fares, for the extension of stages, for cheap rates for school children, for free transport for the blind, and so on. A leading municipal tramway manager once remarked that it was almost impossible for men in his position to resist the pressure for such concessions, especially at local election periods. The chairman of the Highways Committee of the London County Council recently stated that never a day passes without some appeal for concessions in tramway fares. Most of the large urban systems are under municipal control, and therefore they have the rates in reserve, as well as the most favourable traffic conditions, to encourage them in giving the public more and more for less money. But the tramway companies, working for the greater part in less thickly populated areas, with no extraneous means of making up losses, are put in a difficult position when similar concessions are forced upon them. The upshot is that the average return on the capital of electric traction companies amounts to only 3·41 per cent. Better profits were, in fact, made in the horse tramway days; and the electric traction industry is a fine example of the way in which the enterprise of engineers and capitalists may bring little comfort to themselves but enormous benefit to the public, which shows its gratitude by asking for greater blessings at their expense. CHAPTER VIII ELECTRIC TRAMWAY STAGNATION. THE TROLLEY OMNIBUS