{290}The process of amalgamation has been carried even further than these figures suggest, some of the companies absorbed into the great systems having themselves previously amalgamated a number of still smaller companies. The North-Eastern, for example, came into existence in 1854, through a combination of three companies--the York, Newcastle and Berwick, the Leeds Northern, and the York and North Midland--which three companies then represented between them what had originally been fifteen separate undertakings. Since 1854 the North-Eastern Company have purchased or amalgamated thirty-eight other companies, one of which, the Stockton and Darlington (absorbed in 1863), was already an amalgamation of eleven companies.[46] That the conveniences of travel and the advantages to traders have been greatly enhanced by the substitution of these few great companies for a large number of small ones is beyond question, and actual experience has shown that the fears of grave evils resulting from prospective abuses of the railway "monopoly" brought about by amalgamations such as these have been mainly imaginary, notwithstanding the fact that they have formed the basis of so much of the policy of the State in its dealings with the railways. There are still various small and even diminutive companies which have escaped the fate of being swallowed up by their big neighbours. One of the smallest engaged in a general traffic--as distinct from dock or mineral lines--is the Easingwold railway, Yorkshire, which connects with the {291}North-Eastern at Alne, but still maintains an independent existence. According to the Board of Trade Returns for 1910 the Easingwold Railway consists of two miles of line, or three miles if we include sidings, and it owns one locomotive, two carriages for the conveyance of passengers and one goods waggon. It carried in 1910 a total of 33,888 passengers, 5547 tons of minerals and 11,214 tons of general merchandise. Its total gross receipts from all sources of traffic for the year amounted to £2358, and the net receipts, after allowing for working expenses, were £936. The authorised capital of the company is £18,000, of which £16,000 has been paid up. Small as this line is, it serves a useful purpose; but the policy of amalgamation, followed up by leading companies with such pertinacity, and in spite of so much distrust and opposition, has, happily, saved the railway system of the country from remaining split up among an endless number of companies of the Easingwold type--even though they might have had more than three miles of railway and a single locomotive each. Other developments of State policy towards the railways have applied to ensuring both perfection of construction and safety in operation.