Page:The Working and Management of an English Railway.djvu/247

 past actual carryings, but in settling the terms of the agreement due weight is accorded to any prospective advantages which may entitle one company to claim a larger proportion than it has carried in the past. An agreed allowance for working expenses is made to any company carrying more than the percentage allotted to its route, but, as this allowance is fixed with due regard to the actual cost of the service, it will be perceived that there is no very great inducement for any company to carry more than its share.

Let it not be hastily concluded that an agreement of this kind is opposed to the interest of the general public, for it may safely be asserted that in the long run it is a mistake to imagine that the public are the gainers by an extreme course of competition between two railway companies. If the contest is waged to the bitter end, the public may enjoy low rates for a time, but the result must be the "survival of the fittest"—or, rather, the strongest—and the latter, becoming masters of the situation, will naturally seek to recoup themselves for the severe losses they have sustained during the progress of the struggle. Meanwhile, neither of the competitors will have been in a position to perform the services they have undertaken in as efficient a manner as would have been the case if they had been working with a fair marign [sic] of profit. The only competition from which the public can reap a real and lasting advantage is that of two companies carrying at fair and remunerative rates, and each seeking to attract business to its own railway by performing the service to the public in the most efficient, safe, and expeditious manner.

It must be admitted that railway companies set a good example to the community at large in the method