The tendency in this direction is shown by the extract already given from the _Quarterly Review_; and I may repeat here the passage in which the writer suggested that some of the canal companies "would do well to transfer their interests from a bad concern into one whose superiority must be thus established," and added: "Indeed, we understand that this has already been proposed to a very considerable extent, and that the level beds of certain unproductive canals have been offered for the reception of rail-ways." This was as early as 1825. Later on the tendency became still more pronounced as pressure was put on the railway companies, or as promoters, in days when plenty of money was available for railway schemes, thought the easiest way to overcome actual or prospective opposition was to buy it off by making the best terms they could. So far, in fact, was the principle recognised that in 1845 Parliament expressly sanctioned the control of canals by railway companies, whether by amalgamation, lease, purchase, or guarantee, and a considerable amount of canal mileage thus came into the possession, or under the control, of railway companies, especially in the years 1845, 1846, and 1847. This sanction was practically repealed by the Railway and Traffic Acts of 1873 and 1888. By that time about one-third of the existing canals had been either voluntarily acquired by, or forced upon, the railway companies. It is obvious, however, that the responsibility for what was done rests with Parliament itself, and that in many cases, probably, the railway companies, instead of being arch-conspirators, anxious to spend their money in killing off moribund competitors, who were generally considered to be on the point of dying a natural death, were, at times, victims of the situation, being practically driven into purchases or guarantees which, had they been perfectly free agents, they might not have cared to touch. The general position was, perhaps, very fairly indicated by the late Sir James Allport, at one time General Manager of the Midland Railway Company, in the evidence he gave before the Select Committee on Canals in 1883.