The Industrial Revolution

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 1027928145

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-159926

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Cunningham, William http://d-nb.info/gnd/128907487

Title:: The Industrial Revolution

Place of publication:: Cambridge

Publisher:: The University Press

Year of publication:: 1922

Scope:: xxii S., S. 404-886

Digitisation:: 2021

Collection:: Economics Books

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RAILWAYS AND STEAMERS 813 ton, by railway 10/8. By canal, goods took 20 hours, by + railway 2 hours.” ’ None of the other improvements of the nineteenth century awakened so much foreboding as was roused by the railways at first, and in no other case has the boon to the public been a id so immediate and obvious. The profits of the Liverpool and the public Manchester Railway were so large that the market price of #*%: the shares doubled; and the development of traffic was such that the waggons, which had carried goods for long distances before, might have been absorbed in the subsidiary employ- ment of taking goods to and from the stations. The loss involved, in superseding the old methods of transport by a new one, was comparatively slight, and a wonderful stimulus was given to business of every kind. Under the new Poor Law the labourer was much more free to migrate, and the railway gave him facilities to transfer his labour to the districts where it was most wanted. The saving of time and money was a boon to the capitalist, and the rapidity of transit by rail rendered it possible to fetch fruit, dairy produce, fish and other perishable goods, from long distances, to markets in London and other large towns. All classes in the community, both producers and consumers, have derived some economic advantage from increased facilities for inter- communication. The introduction of railways has also served to accelerate but it some of the changes which were already at work in English ee aconomic life. The effect of the factory system had been to Be soncentrate industry in certain localities, where power or Zngland. materials were easily obtainable. Manufacturing on a large scale, with much division of labour, became more feasible when there were better means of distributing the goods and finding a market in the most distant parts of the country. This concentration of labour in factories has had a correspond- ing effect on rural districts; there has been an increased differentiation between town and country, and diminished scope for the employment of the village artisan, or for the tradesman who catered, in market towns, for a rural neigh- bourhood. The introduction of railways has given an immense 1 Leone Levi, op. cit. 198.

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