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56. Mr. Swan.] Does the objection to'the single trolly apply to the double trolly also ?—No ; the double trolly is not in connection with the earth. The single-trolly system makes the earth the medium for return, and the electricity spreads over the whole ground. Knapp, in his " Electric Transmission of Energy," page 290, says, in reference to this question of conductor : " Mr. Holroyd Smith has overcome the difficulty by placing the conductor underground. Where batteries are used each car is perfectly independent from all the other cars, and this is a great advantage in working over a complicated net of tram-roads. After this rapid comparison between the two systems, we may sum up by saying that the conductor system is better for lines running across country where the overhead conductor and high electric pressure can be used without difficulty, and the battery system is better for tramways within the crowded streets of a city." There is no doubt that they will perfect this battery system and you will get 60 per cent, or 70 per cent, of the cost back. We are using dry batteries now in the telegraph. We have batteries now set up that have been two and three years in use, which is a great saving. There are not at present any perfect accumulators. The accumulator will in time play a very important part. At present you spend £100 and only get £25 back from it.

Tuesday, 12th Septembeb, 1893. Mr. Suckling-Bakon re-examined. 1. The Chairman.] The Committee are now prepared to hear you, if you wish to make any further statement ?—Since I last gave evidence before you the report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons and the House of Lords on the question under discussion has been printed. This report, in the first place, opens up the way to the more rapid and more reasonable development of the methods of traction by electricity along our streets and roads than has hitherto been possible. In the second place, it practically compels the telephone service, whenever disturbances arise from an electric tramway, to rearrange its system within two years on a plan which is confessedly the only one .which gives complete satisfaction; which ought to have been adopted at the outset, and which, even now, at certain points, is in process of reluctant installation at the instance of outraged and long-suffering subscribers. The report recommends that tramway companies should either use the insulated return, or the uninsulated return of low resistance. Uninsulated metallic returns of low resistance are practically in use to-day on the majority of successful lines. It is obviously in the interest of an electric tramway to have the return circuit of as low a resistance as possible. It is clearly in the interest of the station manager, who is responsible for the working of the line, that this should be the case. In order to obtain a really low resistance it is necessary to have proper " bonding." The present mode of bonding is to connect every length of rail by a copper wire of a certain cross section. There was some difficulty at first in getting an effective bonding. This difficulty has now been got over. If a bond of larger cross-section than has hitherto been used is insisted on, there should be practically no resistance in the bond itself. The bonding should be carried out well in the first instance, and properly maintained afterwards. Mr. Swinburne, in the report, made a very common-sense remark that " the streets of our cities and towns were primarily laid out for traffic, and not for talking through." The discussion results in this question : " Shall we have cheap traction or defective telephones." If we are to have cheap traction we must have the single trolly, for that is the cheapest and the most efficient system of electric traction there is. If we are to have the best telephone system, the telephone companies must use the metallic-return. Either cheap traction or bad telephony—there is no other alternative. In a case at Folkstone, where the cost of insulating the tramway system was discussed, the decision of the Committee on the subject was that if the Telephone Company required this done they must themselves pay for it. The Telephone Company refused the clause suggested by the Committee, and allowed the Bill to pass without any protection to themselves, and, as a consequence, had to pay the promoters' costs. On the 7th of May a Committee of the House of Lords, appointed to inquire into the merits of a Bill promoted by the Dublin Southern District Company to empower them to acquire the lines of the Blackrock and Kingstown Tramway Company, and to use electric power on the entire system, reported in favour of the third reading of the Bill. This was a case where the single trolly was to be used; there was no special protective clause for the Telephone Company. It has been said that the return current from the tramway system would affect the railway signals ; but any interference with railway signals can be, and, in fact, has been successfully guarded against, and at a comparatively trifling expense, by duplicating the wires for block signalling. And, with regard to the corrosion of gas- and water-pipes, I feel quite sure that this is so remote a contingency that it need hardly to be taken into account. It is not the tramway companies, nor the gas and water interests, which are opposed to electric traction ; it is solely the telephone companies, and they object to it because it brings into strong relief the imperfection of their system. The evidence on this subject was quite overwhelming, and it was conceded by all the witnesses called, that the adoption of metallic circuits is at least advisable, if not absolutely necessary. Mr. Preece, Engineer-in-Chief to the General Post Office in England, and who is responsible for all the trunk telephone lines running all over over the kingdom, said that "the English people were ashamed of the telephone, and that no more execrable and abominable service existed in the whole world than the telephone system of London." With regard to the electrolytic action on gas- and water-pipes, Mr. Hesketh, Electrical Engineer to the Blackpool Corporation, was examined by Mr. "Worsley Taylor on behalf of the municipal corporations. He said that all the main streets at Blackpool has been taken up during the last month, and he had seen no electrolytic action. At the request of the Board of Trade they had placed the negative pole to the rails in order to prevent any possible electrolytic action. He had never found any interference with the telephones from their tramway ; nothing to make conversation difficult. ItHvas unnecessary that tramways should be required to use insulated returns. The difficulties in the crossings and the