386 



History of Inland Transport 



industries, that manufacturers should succeed small masters, 

 and that great towns should grow up in proportion as rural 

 centres declined. 



In helping to bring about these results results that so 

 materially accelerated the " economic revolution " already 

 proceeding railway transport also supplied a ready means 

 for providing these urban communities with the necessaries 

 of life. 



It is only with the help of the railways that the provisioning 

 of such vast collections of humanity as are to be found in 



Condon, Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Glasgow and 

 other centres is rendered possible. As compared with the 

 earlier conditions of life, when households were mainly self- 

 supporting, each providing for its own needs from its own 



ields, pasture or garden, the average urban family to-day is 

 dependent on the trader for practically all domestic neces- 

 saries, and the same is mostly the case in suburban or even in 

 country districts except, it may be, in regard to vegetables, 

 eggs and table poultry. It is doubtful if London or any other 

 of these great centres ever has more than, at the outside, 

 a fortnight's supplies on hand. The complete stoppage of the 

 railway system for any such period would thus be a national 

 disaster. Food might still come to the ports in the same 

 quantities as before ; but without the railways there would be 

 no adequate means for its distribution, and the large inland 



;o\vns would more especially be at a disadvantage. The mere 



)ossibility of such an eventuality may help one to realise the 

 extent of our dependence to-day on rail transport from the 



Doint of view, not alone of trade, industry and commerce, but 

 of our daily life and sustenance. 



While it is true that many rural centres suffered a decline 

 in population when the railways led indirectly to so many 

 agricultural workers leaving the fields for the attractions and 

 the supposed advantages of urban life, it is no less true that the 

 expansion of the towns gave to those who remained in the 

 rural centres greater markets for the sale there of such produce 

 and especially for such market-garden produce, eggs and 

 poultry as they could supply to advantage. The railways 

 may not have annihilated distance, but they were engaged in 

 curtailing distances ; and such curtailment became still more 

 effective when the achievements of the locomotive were 



