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 {259}country--a revolution the State was not itself disposed to effect or to finance--was powerfully to influence much of the subsequent railway legislation, if, indeed, it has even to-day entirely disappeared. At first it was assumed that competition in rail transport would be assured, and the dangers in question proportionately reduced, by different carriers using their own locomotives, coaches and carriages on the railway lines, which alone, it was thought, would be owned by the railway companies constructing them. In some of the earlier railway Acts there was even a provision that the railway companies could lease their tolls, as turnpike trustees were doing. But the apparent safeguard in the form of competition between rival carriers disappeared when it was found (1) that, although a railway company was required to allow a trader's own horse or locomotive to use the line, it was under no obligation to afford him access to stations and watering-places, or to provide him with any other facilities, however indispensable these might be to the carrier's business; (2) that the tolls charged by the railway companies were heavier than the carriers could afford to pay; (3) that the entire operation of a line of railway worked by locomotives must necessarily be under the control of the owning and responsible company; and (4) that railway companies would have to become carriers of goods as well as owners of rails. A Parliamentary Committee which sat in 1840, and of which Sir Robert Peel was a member, had reported in the strongest terms that the form of competition originally designed was both impracticable and undesirable, and that monopoly upon the same line, at all events as regarded passengers, must be looked upon as inevitable. "Your Committee," said the report, "deems it indispensable both for the safety and convenience of the public, that as far as locomotive powers are concerned, the rivalry of competing parties on the same line should be prohibited"; though, as some check to the consequent monopoly of the railway companies, they suggested that the Board of Trade should act as a supervising authority, with power to hear complaints, consider bye-laws, etc.