To return to the Majority Report.  The Commissioners who signed it were of opinion that Ireland needed special treatment in regard to her railways and that public acquisition (not State acquisition) and public control of a unified railway system was the consummation to be desired.  In their view, if only this were accomplished blessings innumerable would ensue and all complaints would for ever cease.  As to the way in which this unification and public control were to be carried out, they recommended that an Irish Authority should be instituted to acquire the Irish Railways and work them as a single system, that this Authority should be a railway Board of twenty Directors, four nominated and sixteen elected; that the general terms of purchase be those prescribed by the Regulation of Railways Act of 1844; that the financial medium be a Railway Stock; and that such Stock be charged upon (1) The Consolidated Fund; (2) the net revenues of the unified railway system; (3) an annual grant from the Imperial Exchequer; and (4) a general rate to be struck by the Irish Railway Authority if and when required.

The Commissioners who signed the Minority Report said the evidence, as a whole, had not produced the same general effect upon their minds as upon the minds of their colleagues, and they were inclined to attach less importance than their colleagues did to the evidence given against the Irish Railway Companies, and more importance to the evidence given in their favour.  In their opinion the result of the evidence was, that if the Companies were to be considered as having been on their trial, they were entitled to a verdict of acquittal, and that no case had been made out for the reversal of railway policy which their colleagues advocated.  They added that it would hardly be disputed that the Railways had on the whole conferred great benefits upon Ireland.

On the question of reductions in rates (reductions which the Majority Report strongly urged as necessary), they did not think that reductions were more likely to occur under public than under private ownership.  They suggested, further, that the official statistics of various countries showed that the fall in the average rate had been much greater on the privately owned railways of France and the United States than on the State-owned railways of Prussia, which were universally accepted as the most favourable example of State managed railways in the world.  They came to the conclusion, after hearing all the evidence, that the management of the principal Irish Companies was not inferior to that of similar companies in England and Scotland.  They narrated the many improvements (with which they seemed much impressed) that Irish Companies had in recent years effected for the benefit of the public and the good of the country, and said “they had spent money, and not always profitably, in endeavouring to promote the development of new industries.”  They considered the principle of private ownership should be maintained, believing that railways are better and more economically managed by directors responsible to their own shareholders than they would be under any form of State or popular control, and that administration on commercial principles was the best in the public interest.