Railways and the State 285 



single payment. The companies persevered, however, in their 

 further policy of amalgamation and consolidation, and in 

 1853 the number and magnitude of schemes with these 

 objects in view created such alarm on the part both of poli- 

 ticians and of traders that a further Select Committee known 

 as Mr. CardwelTs Committee was appointed. 



The members of this Committee pointed out in their 

 report that the whole tendency of the companies was towards 

 union and extension, that competition ended in combination, 

 and that the companies were able in great measure to attain 

 these ends by agreements with one another without the 

 authority of Parliament. The economy and the convenience 

 resulting from amalgamation were admitted by the report ; 

 but, though still no proof was offered, or suggestion made, 

 that the companies were actually abusing the greater powers 

 they had thus secured, there was an obvious under-current 

 of alarm in the minds of the Committee as to the many un- 

 desirable things which large concerns might do. 



The Committee were opposed to any " districting " of the 

 country between different companies, and they recommended 

 that, while working agreements might be allowed, amalgama- 

 tions between large companies should not. As an example of 

 the combinations they deprecated, I might mention that they 

 pointed with evident feelings of much concern to the fact 

 that if the amalgamation schemes then being proposed by the 

 London and North- Western Railway Company were conceded, 

 they would involve the union under one control of a capital 

 of 60,000,000, a revenue of 4,000,000, and 1200 miles of 

 railway, with the further result of " rendering impossible the 

 existence of independent rival trunk lines." One wonders 

 what the members of this Committee would have said had 

 they been told that by the end of 1910 (as shown by the Board 

 of Trade " Railway Returns ") the London and North- Western 

 would control a total authorised capital of (in round figures) 

 134,000,000, have gross receipts in a single year amounting 

 to 15,962,000, and be operating 1966 route miles of line, 

 equivalent to 5490 miles of single track (including sidings), 

 besides being only one of half a dozen great trunk lines. 



A much more practical result of the deliberations of this 

 Committee was seen in certain provisions of the Railway 

 and Canal Traffic Act, 1854, which laid down that every 



