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33

LOCAL TAXATION IN COPENHAGEN.

car mile. Some inquiries as to cost of maintenance of the battenes show that maintenance and renewal is contracted for at a rate which works out at somewhat below one-quarter the oost of ourrent. A new contract b>day would, howevear, 1 am told, probably be arrangéd at a reduction on these rates. For comparison it may be added that in Berlin the same con- sumption of current for accumulator cars has been found, and that the consumption is only ‘72 Board of Trade unit for over- head wiree, and 1*04 unit for a mixed service. At 2d. per unit thø car mile cost for current would be l"44d. for overhead, or 2*08d. for the mixed service. The accumulator car certainly oosts more than the trolley-wire car under this head. In faet, the cost works out at nearly double that of the overhead wire for current and maintenance together. It is, however, a tenable proposition that the cost, even. so, is not so high as to outweigh all other considerations. The total income of the whole system of tramways in Copen- hagen was £81,500 during the first half of this year, which may be compared with the £298,000 recently reported as the total receipts of our Tramways and Carriage Company during the half year preceding the shareholders’ meeting of last month, which figure, however, includes more than mere tram-fares. The takings of 1898, on which the inereases of the present year have been shown, were fairly representative of the previous cordition of affairs. That the old receipts gave a satisfactory excess over working costs is shown by reference to the dividends paid and. the market value of the shares of the cornpanies. now Consolidated. The line now worked by accumulator cars gave a return of 17 per cent to its shareholders in each of the last four years of the old system, while the regular return of the largest of the old cornpanies was 7| per cent, interrupted in 1896 by a temporary fail to 6 per cent. A third of the lines now incor- porated in the one company gave a 16 per cent dividend under the old regime. T ie car-mile return then secured was clearly profitable, and at this early stage of the experiment it is perhaps the beet indication of whether the new und reduced 3