The papers by Sir George S. Gibbs and Mr. A. M. Acworth, the leading authorities on British railways, discuss the alternative to wisely regulated railways—nationalization of railways. With a continuance of unwise and burdensome regulation of railways, which strips responsibility of all discretion, nationalization is inevitable.
The Bureau's statistics of American railways for the year ending June 30, 1909, is included in The Railway Library because it affords the latest data not only as to the railways of the United States but for the world.
Acknowledgments are made to the authors and publishers of the various papers, and especially to the publishers of the two works from which important chapters have been extracted by their courteous permission, as well as that of their authors.
If this publication fulfils the purpose of its compilation, it will be succeeded by annual volumes of like character under the same title.
S. T.
Chicago, June 1, 1910.
PRE-RAILWAY ERA IN AMERICA
From Chapters I and II of "Railroad Promotion and Capitalization in the United States," by F. A. Cleveland and E. W. Powell. Longmans, Green & Co., 1909.
(By permission of the authors.)
Inland transportation, as we know it, is the product of the last century. It had its beginning in the industrial revolution. In England at the close of the eighteenth century the manor as a productive agency had been supplanted by a system of domestic production, and this in turn was giving place to the factory. The combined influences of increasing capital and invention had operated to centralize the industrial population in the towns. Ocean commerce was comparatively well developed, and manufacture was fast being established upon a modern basis; but inland transportation was still encumbered by such primitive methods as to make difficult the utilization of the resources of the interior. A century and a half before, Lord Bacon had called attention to the three great elements necessary to make a nation great and prosperous—"a fertile soil, busy workshops, and easy conveyance of men and things from one place to another,"—but the significance of this reflection was not appreciated until after the middle of the eighteenth century. The controlling force of custom—social inertia—had stood in the way of progress.
IN ENGLAND.
Until about the opening of the nineteenth century the principal manufacturing towns of Great Britain were situated on or near the coast; for in the inland country goods were still carried on the backs of men, or hauled in carts over heavy roads. Said Lardner: "The internal transport of goods in England was performed by wagon, and was not only intolerably slow, but so expensive as to exclude every object except manufactured articles, and such as, being of light weight and small bulk in proportion to their value, would allow of a high rate of transport. Thus the charge for carriage by wagon from London to Leeds was at the rate of £13 ($63.31) a ton, being 13½d. (27 cents) per ton per mile. Between Liverpool and Manchester it was 40s. ($9.60) a ton, or 15d. (30 cents) per ton per mile. Heavy articles, such as coal and other materials, could only be available for commerce where their position favored transport by sea, and, consequently, many of the richest districts of the kingdom remained unproductive, awaiting the tardy advancement of the art of transport."
IN AMERICA.
Before the Revolution the American colonists lived in almost complete isolation. Travel by land was limited, for water communication presented fewer obstacles to progress. Population was arranged along the seaboard, or in isolated groups a short distance inland. Living narrow, self-centered lives, each community developed a distinct dialect and characteristic customs and dress. Social activities were limited to going to mill, market and church, or exchanging friendly calls; traveling on foot or on horseback along wooded trails. Even between seacoast towns there was little interchange of products or population; and a citizen of one colony going to another was at once struck with the many local peculiarities. It was less than twenty years before the Revolutionary war when the first stage line was opened between New York and Philadelphia, and three days were then required for a single trip. It was ten years later when the first stage line was established between Philadelphia and Baltimore.
METHODS OF TRAVEL AND TRANSPORT.
Between towns of considerable size there were country roads over which vehicles could pass when the weather would permit. The stage coach, which was the only public land conveyance, plied along the coast and between a few inland centers, but the coaches of that day were rude boxes swung on wheels by leathern straps instead of springs, with seats for a dozen or more and accommodations for a limited amount of baggage. The rate of travel was from two to six miles an hour, according to the condition of the roads and the importance of the route. On the farm the mud-boat or stone sledge was in common use, and at times it was even employed to carry produce to local markets. In more progressive communities two-wheeled carts and wagons were to be found. The best of roads, however, were nothing but "mud roads"; and the wagons, commonly of the linchpin type, were clumsy and awkward. Some of the more primitive wagons had wheels made of cross sections of trees, trimmed and centered to roll on axles of wood. Those who traveled had little thought of time; companionship found expression in story-telling, gossip and tippling; and an emergency which required all to get out and "take a wheel" only added spice to the trip.
We have the following description of the roads about Philadelphia, the metropolis and commercial center of the New World: "On the best lines of communication the ruts were deep, the descents precipitous. * * * Near the great cities the state of the roads was so bad as to render all approach difficult and dangerous. Out of Philadelphia a quagmire of black mud covered a long stretch of road near the village of Rising Sun. There horses were often seen floundering in the mud up to their bellies. On the York road, long lines of wagons were every day to be met with, drawn up near Logan's hill, while the wagoners unhitched their teams, to assist each other in pulling through the mire. At some places, stakes were set up to warn teams of the quicksand pits; at others, the fences were pulled down, and a new road made through the fields." Transportation facilities were either entirely lacking or such as to make travel both expensive and hazardous. It is difficult to realize that as late as 1780 the roads over a large part of Pennsylvania were narrow paths which had been made through the woods by Indians and traders.
ABSENCE OF ROADS IN THE INTERIOR.
The isolation of interior settlements finds apt illustration in the Wyoming valley. This rich region along the Susquehanna had been until 1786 almost completely cut off from the outer world. A small colony had moved in from the East, and taking color of title from Connecticut, disclaimed the sovereignty of the Quaker proprietary. War consequently broke out between this isolated settlement and the Pennsylvania government. Several military expeditions were sent out to reduce the "Yankees" to submission; but the absence of roads and the necessity of carrying provisions on horseback left the determined pioneers masters of the situation when the larger issue, the Revolutionary war, suspended local strife. The spring after Burgoyne's surrender at Saratoga the settlers of the Wyoming valley learned that a detachment of Johnson's "Royal Greens" and Butler's "Rangers," with a company of Tories, had allied themselves with the Seneca Indians, and were preparing to descend upon the valley. A courier was despatched to congress, and appeals for aid were made to the neighboring states, but the isolation which had before served for defense now brought disaster. With the June freshet the British allies came down from Tioga, and nothing but ruins were left to mark the scene. One of the reasons urged for the removal of the state capitol from Philadelphia to Harrisburg in 1799 was the cost of travel, which bore heavily upon legislators from the interior.
THE ROADS OF NEW ENGLAND.
The early settlers of Springfield, Massachusetts, were obliged to send their household goods from Roxbury around by way of Long Island Sound and the Connecticut river, but they themselves were able to proceed on foot along an Indian trail. In time this trail was widened, and as the "Bay path" and the "Boston road" occupied