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.