However, after every allowance is made for such local excesses of enthusiasm, the under-developed condition of electric traction in Great Britain remains conspicuous enough. A sensible relaxation of legislative restrictions would go a long way to improve matters--if, that is to say, financiers could be induced to re-enter a field in which they have had many disappointments. Great hopes of improvement were entertained when the Light Railways Act, 1896, was passed. The primary object of this Act was to encourage the building of cheap railways for agricultural and fishery purposes, but it was drafted on lines broad enough to include electric tramways. Arrangements were made for State and local contributions to the cost of such schemes, in cases where subsidies appeared to be justifiable. The procedure in obtaining powers was made as simple and as economical as possible. Applications for 'Light Railway Orders' had to be made to the Light Railway Commission, one of whose members then arranged to hold a local inquiry into the proposal. If sanctioned, the scheme was passed on to the Board of Trade for approval, and the Order, if confirmed, thus secured the validity of a Private Act of Parliament. Nothing was said in this Act about the consent of local authorities, or about limited tenure, or about expropriation upon scrap-iron terms. But the Light Railway Commissioners chose to interpret the Act in terms of the Tramways Act, with the result that, when there was any opposition on the part of local authorities, the tramway promoter using the Light Railways Act was not much better off than before. He had to face a new difficulty in a clause of the Light Railways Act, which provided that when the proposed light railway was of sufficient magnitude and in such a position that it offered competition with an existing railway, the scheme should be submitted to Parliament as a Private Bill--that is to say, should face the most costly and cumbersome procedure of all. The Light Railways Act thus proved a great disappointment. Its failure to afford relief seems to have taken away the tramway promoter's last hope of genuine legislative betterment. He has resigned himself to things as they are; and the utmost he does is to assert, when occasion offers, that there are many districts which might enjoy the benefits of electric traction if means were provided for bringing every scheme directly before an independent tribunal for consideration on its merits alone; if arrangements were made for obtaining wayleaves and land on favourable terms, and if he were allowed to construct and equip the line on a less costly basis than the Board of Trade now demands, even in rural districts.