The companies, according to a statement in the "Railway Magazine" for August, 1838, where a summary of the debate will be found, had been "prepared not merely to petition but to act"--whatever this may mean. The Government, however, adopted a more conciliatory attitude towards them by either withdrawing or amending the clauses which had evoked these protests, and an amicable settlement of the future relations between the railways and the Post Office was then effected. The rejection of Morrison's Bill and the withdrawal of the Duke of Wellington's motion, following on their adverse criticism by the railway interests, had committed the Government still more to their policy of stimulating competition between the railway companies themselves, thus, they considered, diminishing the risk of seeing any of them become too prosperous a monopoly. It was in full accord with this policy that encouragement was given to the creation of {266}many small, independent, and more or less competing lines, and that no attempt was made to encourage the provision, either by individual companies or by groups of companies, of "trunk lines" of the type which Thomas Gray and others had been urging on the country with so much though with such futile persistence. The advent of the new means of transport was, in fact, marked by the complete absence of any centralised effort with a view to securing the network of a railway _system_, so planned or so co-ordinated as to make the best possible provision for the country as a whole, and especially for the rapidly increasing necessities of trade, commerce and industry. The failure to act on these lines was, however, only in accordance with the previous policy, or no-policy, which had successively left the improvement of rivers, the making of roads, the construction of canals and the provision of turnpikes either to private benevolence or to private enterprise, influenced mainly by considerations of local or personal interests.