Railways and the State 261 



" The history of the existing canals, waterworks, etc., afforded," 

 he went on, " abundant evidence of the evils " of allowing 

 too much freedom in the matter of rates ; and he quoted the 

 high prices at which the shares of the Loughborough Canal 

 and the Trent and Mersey Canal were then still being sold, 1 

 adding : " The possession of the best, or, it may be, the 

 only practicable line, and the vast capital required for the 

 formation of new canals, have enabled the associations in 

 question, unchecked by competition, to maintain rates of 

 charges which have realised enormous profits for a long series 

 of years." 



The remedy he recommended in preference to competition 

 was that when Parliament established companies for the 

 formation of canals or railroads it should invariably reserve 

 to itself the power to make such periodical revisions of the 

 rates and charges as it might deem expedient, examining into 

 the whole management and affairs of each company, and 

 fixing the rates and charges for another term ; the period he 

 favoured being one of twenty years.* 



There was no suggestion, at this time, that the railway 

 companies had abused their powers. The only suggestion 

 and expectation was that because the canal companies had 

 abused theirs, the railway companies might, and doubtless 

 would, do the same, unless they were prevented ; and it will 



1 See page 237. 



2 In the Taff Vale Railway Act of 1836 (the same year as that in which 

 Morrison made his proposals) the company were prohibited from paying a 

 dividend of more than seven per cent when the full tolls were charged, or 

 of more than nine per cent after the tolls had been reduced by twenty-five 

 per cent ; and the shareholders were required, at any meeting at which 

 these maximum dividends were declared, to make such reasonable reduc- 

 tions in the amount of the rates to be paid during the following year as 

 would, in their opinion, reduce the profits to the seven or nine per cent 

 level. It was further provided that, for the purpose of "better ascertain- 

 ing the amount of the clear profits upon the said railway," the company 

 should submit their accounts to the Justices in Quarter Sessions, who were 

 to make such reductions in the rates to be collected during the year next 

 ensuing as would, in their judgment, reduce the profits to the prescribed 

 minima. Mr A. Beasley, general manager of the TaffVale Railway, who 

 gives this information in an article on "How Parliament Harassed Early 

 Railways," published in " The Railway Magazine " for November, 1908, 

 adds: "The gentlemen of Quarter Sessions were never called upon to 

 undertake this formidable task as the clauses were repealed by the 

 Company's Act of 1840." 





