[101] The reporters append the following note to the case. “It appears that competition between two railways, or by sea or canal, is sufficient justification for a railway company reducing its fares to the public, who are affected by such competitions, and can take advantage; but that a railway company cannot, merely for the sake of increasing their traffic, reduce their rates in favour of individuals unless there is a sufficient consideration for such reduction, which shall lessen the cost to the company of conveyance or other services rendered to them by such individuals,” vol. 2, p. 121. Probably this represented the general opinion of the legal profession in 1875. In the report for 1883 the Commissioners refer to “the fair pecuniary interests generally of the company carrying” (p. 1.) as if they might be taken into account. Among the multifarious complaints against railway companies is one to the effect that companies, instead of competing with and underbidding each other, combine to charge equal rates. This is an illustration of the curious inconsistencies of some of those who criticise the working of railways. Such a practice would be, as will be seen in the next chapter, opposed to the ideas of others who urge that rates should be based on scientific and uniform principles. Such competition, too, would inevitably lead to valid grounds for complaints, in the opinion of others, of undue preference in contravention of the Railway and Canal Traffic Act of 1854. The fact is, the practice has been tried and abandoned. In the days of road carriers, competition in quoting low rates generally ended in the submission or ruin of one of the parties. Here, and in the United States, experience shews that all such competition on the part of railways must end in combination. However severe the contest may be, and however great the losses in carrying it on, each of the railways continues to exist; they do not disappear like private traders engaged in a disastrous war of competition; and in the end they come to terms. In thus acting, they only do what is done in other industries. In the principal trades of the country are associations which arrange the prices of their products. Colliery proprietors, for example, agree as to the price of coal. Although the hardware merchants seldom vary their price lists, they agree from time to time as to the rate of discount to be allowed. The steel rail manufacturers of Germany, Belgium, England, and Scotland, had recently an arrangement regulating, if not the proportion to be produced by each country and district, the price at which rails were to be sold. SECTION XVI. RAILWAY AMALGAMATION.