INFLUENCES OF THE RAILWAY SYSTEM
While there are many machines which contribute much more directly to the rapid accumulation of wealth in the persons of individuals, than does the railway locomotive, there is probably none which tends more to enrich a community. Unlike most other mechanical contrivances for the abridgment of labour, the railway locomotive unites in the effects which it produces the elements of social as well as commercial improvement. Like the steamship, the railway is cosmopolitan in its character. The range of its operations may be as extensive as the globe itself; and throughout that sphere of activity, be it what it may, the locomotive engine is scattering thickly the seeds of civilisation, as well as of wealth.
By the application of steam as a motive agent an immense saving has been effected in the outlay required to be made in producing a given result in locomotion. This is the combined product of two causes. Such perfection has been attained in the construction of machinery, that by the aid of steam there can thence be obtained a continuity, combined with a rapidity of motion, which far exceeds what can be produced by any other means at present known to us. The fleetest racer equipped for speed alone, cannot equal, even for a single mile, the rate at which the locomotive engine, dragging after it a load of eighty tons, can, for hours together, be driven with ease and safety along its iron path. And this twofold result can be secured at a comparatively small cost. Coal, iron, wood—substances all to be easily obtained in nearly every quarter of the globe—can be, and daily are, fashioned into working agents not merely fleeter, stronger, and more docile than any endowed with animal life, but agents likewise which it is far less costly to sustain in active usefulness. The food, medicines, and attention which animal life demands, form very serious items of expense in the case of beasts of burden, and so very materially impair their utility. It is otherwise with the locomotive engine. Money, ingenuity, and toil require undoubtedly to be expended in its original construction, attention and care must be given to avert or repair accident, and food of its own peculiar kind it does unquestionably consume; yet when all the original and working expenses of a locomotive are summed up, it is found that, compared with the income it produces, it is the cheapest of all motive agents.
No doubt the items of railway expenditure now mentioned do not nearly exhaust the amount of money required in their construction. In addition to expensive engines, there require carriages to be supplied for the transport of goods and passengers, houses and sheds to be built for their temporary accommodation, salaries to be paid for management and service; and in addition to all this, there must further be expended in the construction of the line itself sums far greater in amount than those spent in the formation and repair of roads and highways. All this is true; but in estimating the comparative costliness of the old and new methods of land-locomotion, regard must be had to the amount of their produce as well as of their outlay; and an opinion regarding their respective merits, in an economical point of view, must be formed by striking a balance between these two sides of the account. The result of such a comparison proves that in point of economy, not less than of speed and endurance, railways take precedence over all other known means of locomotion. This combined result of rapidity and cheapness of transit produces a double effect upon a mercantile community: it at once enables merchants to realise the fruits of a given speculation more quickly, which is nothing else than transacting more business in a shorter period than before; and it also enables them to do this increased amount of business with a smaller amount of actual outlay—that is, to extend with safety and profit the field of their operations beyond those boundaries which prudence formerly marked out as the proper limits of speculation.
When we consider the amount of travelling within the island which is requisite for carrying on the mercantile and general business of the country, and the double saving, therefore, of time on the one hand, and of money on the other, which is effected by means of railways, we cannot fail to perceive that even did this new system of locomotion economise time and labour in no other way than this alone, its effects upon commercial transactions and on business generally would be immense. But when we reflect that this system is exerting the very same influence upon trade—and in a much higher degree, so far as the outlay of money is concerned—in reference to the carriage of goods, as in regard to that of passengers, we then come to comprehend in some measure how fertile the railway locomotive is in the production of the fruits of industry.
Another commercial effect of the railway system has been to equalise the value of land, and promote the cultivation of those districts of a country which lie considerably removed from large towns. Every one knows that distance from market forms, as regards the cultivation of many vegetable and animal productions, a very serious drawback. Hence it arises that lands lying immediately around large cities bring a far larger price than portions of ground of equal extent and fertility would do situated at a greater distance. This is peculiarly the case with kitchen-gardens, and pasture-land suited for the purposes of fattening cattle, or feeding such as are required for the dairy. In all these cases, and others which might be mentioned, the performance of a long journey affects very injuriously the quality and value of the several articles, and hence the demand for farms and fields not exposed to this drawback has naturally raised their value. Now railways, as they abridge space by means of speed, have had a tendency to increase the value of pasture and garden ground lying at, comparatively speaking, a very great distance around cities. It is now no unusual thing for the inhabitants of cities such as London, Liverpool, and Manchester, to use at breakfast milk or cream which has travelled thirty or forty miles the very morning it is consumed, and at dinner to partake of vegetables whose place of growth was more than a hundred miles removed from the stall at which they were sold.
The railway system has had a marked effect upon the state of the money-market of the commercial world in general, and of this country in particular. From the successful experiment made in 1830 in steam locomotion between Liverpool and Manchester, this new method of transit has been developing itself with a rapidity to which no parallel is to be found in the history of mercantile enterprise. Keeping out of view entirely the large sums which were recklessly squandered during the railway mania in mere gambling transactions and bubble schemes, there has been actually sunk in the construction and working of lines up to the present time more than L.200,000,000 sterling. Before railways were called into existence, by far the larger portion of this enormous capital was divided into a great number of comparatively small sums, invested in a corresponding number of different speculations. From causes which it would be easy, but foreign to our present purpose, to explain, the profits arising from these various speculations were not only in the aggregate larger than those hitherto derived from railways, but the former speculations or investments being more temporary and convertible in their nature, secured to the parties engaging in them a far greater command over the capital employed in them. By diverting, as the railway system has done, so much money from the ordinary channels of mercantile enterprise, in which large profits were made, and—what is of more importance to the present remarks—when that money was well within the command and subject to the recall of its owners; and by taking, so to speak, and locking it up in a repository which could not be opened, the circulating medium of exchange soon became a scarce commodity to those who but lately had possessed it in abundance.
But it would be very false to infer because extensive bankruptcies, and periods of severe pecuniary embarrassment, have accompanied, if not indeed been caused by the development of the railway system, that therefore that system must be an unsound and unremunerative one. These monetary difficulties were in a great measure the consequence of over-speculation, and therefore form no sounder evidence against the utility of railways, than does over-speculation in tea condemn the prudent employment of capital in the tea-trade. Besides which, it must ever be remembered that the judiciousness of an undertaking is not always to be judged of by its immediate results. All investments of capital which are from their nature permanent, require time for the development of their effects, and may, as regards many of their immediate results, prove rather injurious than beneficial. To this class of speculations railways belong. Introduced for the purpose of facilitating locomotion, and thus improving the industry of the country, this new system of transit was calculated to produce rather an eventual and permanent, than an immediate benefit to the empire. So long as Great Britain retains and cultivates the resources of trade and manufactures now at her disposal, and provided no new method of locomotion be invented which shall supersede railways, there is every reason to believe that railways will continue to form an ever-increasing source of wealth to the nation. That this is an opinion very generally entertained is proved from the vast sums of money which are now lent out on the faith that this result will be realised. The railway system has not only created a new field for speculation, but likewise a new security for monetary investments. At the close of 1848, upwards of L.43,000,000 was lent upon railways. There is every reason to believe that debenture-holding is much greater now than it was then; but as no official report of its amount, so far as we know, has been published since 1848, we, for accuracy's sake, quote the return made in that year.
If railways have produced very important effects upon commercial affairs, they have exercised an influence not less important in a social and intellectual point of view. They have been greatly instrumental in removing prejudices, in cementing old and forming new friendships, in extending information, and in sharpening ingenuity.
Prejudice has been one of the most formidable obstacles to the spread of civilisation. It has for ages kept separate and at enmity nations born to bless and benefit each other; propped up systems whose graver errors or weaker absurdities now form subjects of regret and ridicule; and fomented among the members of smaller societies and sects discords, strifes, and recriminations, which have been based on no other foundation than wilful or accidental ignorance. By bringing those in contact who otherwise would never have met, and improving the acquaintance of those who have, railways have spread individual opinions, tastes, and information more equally than before; and out of this mixture of the social and moral elements have collected and more widely distributed just conclusions regarding men, manners, politics, and religion. By being thus more frequently brought together, individuals have increased the number of their acquaintances, and become to a greater extent than before 'citizens of the world.' A mutual discharge of the good offices of life has augmented those feelings of interest in our fellow-creatures, and kindness towards them, which are not less in accordance with the spirit of Christianity than conducive to the social wellbeing of communities.
The knowledge which one acquires by personal experience and observation is, generally speaking, much more valuable than that obtained from the written experience or observation of others. By the former method we obtain knowledge in a more rapid, accurate, and impressive manner; and, as a consequence of this, retain it longer in our memories, and possess a greater and more constant command over it. Books always convey a faint and imperfect, and often a very erroneous impression of things; and to the extent that railways have superseded or assisted book-teaching, have they conferred upon society an improved means of acquiring knowledge.
Through the instrumentality of railways also, an impetus has been imparted to the inventive and constructive faculties of the human mind. By being brought into more frequent contact with one another, individuals whose tastes and occupations are more or less similar are naturally led to form comparisons regarding the relative merits of their respective productions. This comparison has necessarily sharpened invention, improved taste, and suggested improvement. It is not too much to affirm, that there is not a single branch of industry now pursued within this country which has not, directly or indirectly, been benefited to an immense degree by the introduction of railways. Having served to bring into one market far more articles of commerce than before were exposed in it, this new mode of locomotion has to a great extent increased throughout our different trades and callings that element of a generous and wholesome competition which is the most effective agent in eliciting a high degree of skill in the cultivation of an art, or the improvement of an invention.
To railways we are also indebted for a new application to practical usefulness of one of the most powerful elements in nature's laboratory: we refer to the employment of electricity in the transmission of thought. Although the wondrous powers and properties of the electric telegraph were known long before the introduction of the railway system, they were not till then made to minister, as they now do, to the information of man. By providing facilities towards laying and protecting the delicate machinery along which electricity was to perform its marvellous exploits, railways have directly contributed to apply and develop the resources of one of the most useful and wonderful of inventions, which even in its first stage of infancy has wrought a perfect revolution in the mode of transmitting intelligence; and which promises at no very distant day to play the same part among the continents and islands of the globe that it now does between the provinces of an empire.