CHAPTER XXVII 



WHAT THE RAILWAYS HAVE DONE 



To say that the railways have revolutionised trade and 

 industries would be simply to repeat one of the common- 

 places of modern economic history. Taking the general 

 statement for granted, I would invite the reader to look a 

 little more closely at some of the actual results that railways 

 have, or have not, brought about. 



In the first place it would be going too far to say that the , 

 Railway Age inaugurated the Industrial Era. The invention 

 of, or the improvements in, machinery which gave so immense 

 an impetus to our national industries preceded the opening of 

 the particular lines of railway the Stockton and Darlington 

 and the Liverpool and Manchester that were more especially 

 to lead to the great development of the railway system on 

 present-day lines. All the same, it was the railways that, 

 by offering a far more effective means of transport than was 

 already afforded by canals, rivers or roads, made it possible 

 for the industries then already started, or for those following 

 thereon, to attain to their present proportions. 



For the creation of what is known as the factory system, 

 with its teeming industrial populations aggregated into busy 

 urban centres, the railways are certainly far more responsible . 

 than the earlier modes of transport. The merits or the draw- 

 backs of that system, from the point of view of general interests, 

 are matters that need not be discussed here. Suffice it to say 

 that as soon as the railways had allowed of great quantities 

 of raw material being conveyed, at especially low rates, to 

 particular localities ; of machinery being set up there, also at 

 lower cost than before ; of labour from the rural districts 

 being brought in and concentrated in the same localities, and 

 of an efficient distribution, again at lower rates, of commodities 

 produced on a large scale under the most economical con- 

 ditions ; it was inevitable that factories should supplant home 

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