In the year 1913 a new form of Railway Accounts came into operation.  This new form became compulsory for all railways by the passing, in 1911, of the Railway Companies (Accounts and Returns) Act.  This Act is the last general railway enactment that I shall have to mention, for no legislation of importance affecting railways was passed between 1911 and 1913; and since the war began no such legislation has even been attempted, excepting always the Ways and Communications Bill which, as I write, is pursuing its course through the House of Commons.

The form of half-yearly accounts prescribed by the Regulation of Railways Act, 1868, admirable as they were, in course of time were found to be insufficient and unsatisfactory.  They failed to secure, in practice, such uniformity as was necessary to enable comparisons to be made between the various companies, and in 1903 a Committee of Railway Accountants was appointed by the Railway Companies’ Association to study the subject, with the view of securing uniformity of practice amongst British railways in preparing and publishing their accounts.  This Committee, after an expenditure of much time and trouble, prepared a revised form, but the companies failed to agree to their general adoption, and without legislation, compulsion could not of course be applied.  This led to the Board of Trade, who were keen on uniformity, appointing, in 1906, a Departmental Committee on the subject.  On this Committee sat my friend Walter Bailey.  The Committee heard much evidence, considered the subject very thoroughly, and recommended new forms of Accounts and Statistical Returns, which were (practically as drawn up) embodied in the Act of 1911, and are now the law of the land.  From the shareholders’ point of view the most important changes are the substitution of annual accounts for half-yearly ones, and the adoption of a uniform date for the close of the financial year.  In addition to the many improvements in the direction of clearness and simplicity which the new form of accounts effected, the following two important changes were made:—­

(1) All information relating to the subsidiary enterprises of a company to be shown separately to that relating to the railway itself

(2) A strict separation to be made of the financial statements from those which were of a purely statistical character

The first of these alterations had become desirable from the fact that practically all the larger railway companies had, in the course of years, added to their railway business proper such outside enterprises as steamships, docks, wharves, harbours, hotels, etc.