CHAPTER XXI 



RAILWAYS AND THE STATE 



FROM the earliest moment of there being any prospect of 

 railways, operated by locomotives in place of animal power, 

 coming into general use, the attitude of the State towards 

 their promoters was one less of sympathy than of distrust ; 

 and this distrust was directly due to the experience the 

 country had already had of the waterway interests, whose 

 merciless exactions and huge dividends had led to the fear 

 that if the railway companies, in turn, were to get a monopoly 

 of the transport facilities of the country, they might follow 

 in the footsteps of the inland navigation companies unless 

 they were restrained either by law or by the enforcement of 

 the principle of competition. 



Public sentiment, which Parliament is assumed to repre- 

 sent, and of which our legislation is supposed to be the 

 outcome, was divided between, on the one hand, the landed 

 gentry, the canal proprietors (each alike hostile to the rail- 

 ways until they found they had more to hope for from ex- 

 ploiting them), and the inevitable opponents of innovations 

 of any kind ; and, on the other hand, the traders, by whom 

 the railways were being cordially welcomed, not only because 

 of the greater and better transport facilities they offered, 

 but also because they presented an alternative to the canals, 

 the earlier enthusiasm for which had been greatly moderated 

 by the prospect of an improved means of transport. 



Without adopting wholeheartedly the views of either of 

 these two opposing parties, Parliament regarded the position 

 with much concern lest there might be a renewal, in another 

 form, of what we have seen to be the grasping tendencies of 

 monopolistic canal companies ; and the distrust inspired, 

 under these particular circumstances, and from the very 

 outset, towards railway companies which were preparing 

 to create a revolution in the transport conditions of the 



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