The Committee did not suggest that either of these companies had abused its powers, or taken undue advantage of such "monopoly" as it had secured in the districts concerned. In fact, of the North-Eastern Railway they said:-- "That railway, or system of railways, is composed of thirty-seven lines, several of which formerly competed with each other. Before their amalgamation they had, generally speaking, high rates and fares and low dividends. The system is now the most complete monopoly in the United Kingdom ... and it has the lowest fares and the highest dividends of any English railway." As for the Great Eastern, instead of abusing their "almost exclusive possession" of the Eastern Counties, everyone knows that the Company have won for themselves the credit of pioneering the movement for offering {288}exceptionally low rates and other special facilities for the transport of agricultural produce, and, also, of having done more, perhaps, than any other single railway company to enable working men to live in healthy suburbs around London. The whole position in regard to the prospective abuse of a so-called monopoly due to railway amalgamations is, in fact, much misunderstood. A railway company which controls, or practically controls, the traffic in a certain section of the country is especially interested in developing that traffic because it will enjoy all the advantages thereof, without having to share them with a rival. For this reason, instead of restricting facilities, such a company seeks to increase them; instead of imposing extortionate fares and rates it aims, not merely at immediate profits on the transport of particular commodities, but at encouraging such a development of the district in general as will ensure its prosperity, increase its population, expand its trade, _and_ create more traffic of all kinds in a not far distant future. It was precisely this idea that led the Great Eastern Railway Company to set the example it did in seeking to develop the interests of its agricultural districts. The more these interests expanded, and the more profitable the agricultural industry became to the people living in those districts, the greater would be the demand for household supplies, for furniture, for pianos, for building materials, and for countless other commodities, most of which would bring additional traffic to the line apart from the greater amount of agricultural produce carried, and apart, also, from the further inevitable increase in passenger traffic. Cornwall, again, might be regarded as the "monopoly" of the Great Western Railway; but what person would suggest that the Great Western have not sufficiently boomed "the Cornish Riviera"?