CHAPTER XXX
ROADS AND RAILROADS
341. Commercial importance of the subjects of the chapter.—“Of all inventions, the alphabet and the printing-press alone excepted, those inventions which abridge distance have done most for the civilization of our species.” Macaulay’s celebrated sentence applies to civilization in general. With regard to the material civilization depending upon commerce, certainly no factor has been of greater importance than improvement in the means of transportation and communication. An improvement in these means has been effected during the past century, without a parallel in the world’s history; and a description of the changes deserves the most careful attention of the student in the short space which can be allowed the subject.
342. Statistical survey of development.—For a convenient means of reference I introduce, in this place, a statistical table (on opposite page) showing the development of the most important modern instruments of transportation and communication.
343. Improvement in the condition of roads.—Aside from the stretches of canal which had been brought into operation, the universal means of inland transportation about 1800 was the road. Some reference has been made in an earlier chapter to the condition of English highways in the eighteenth century, and to the improvements which marked that period. Conditions on the Continent were worse than those in England. French roads were mere tracks in the first part of the eighteenth century, and for the most part were still hopelessly bad at its close, when the system of maintaining the roads by forced labor was abolished.
From near the close of the eighteenth century, however, we may date the beginning of a period of rapid improvement in the roads of western Europe. The turnpike system, which allowed tolls to be charged for the use of improved highways, encouraged the investment of capital in these undertakings. The teachings of Telford and Macadam, two great road-engineers who emphasized the necessity of using good materials and securing proper drainage, were generally applied. In the period from 1800 to 1850 the roads of Europe were reformed to meet the demands which commerce made upon them, before the introduction of the railroad, and were put in the excellent condition which attracts the attention of American travelers to-day. The cost of freight transportation was reduced to half or less of what it had been, and the speed of passenger service increased correspondingly. An Englishman, Porter, notes that in 1798 he occupied nineteen hours in traveling eighty miles by what was considered a “fast coach”; when he wrote, in 1838, the trip was made in eight hours.
| Shipping Million Tons | Railways Telegraphs Cables | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sail | Steam | Carrying Power | Thousand Miles | |||
| 1800 | 4.0 | 4.0 | ||||
| 1820 | 5.8 | .02 | 5.8 | |||
| 1830 | 7.1 | .1 | 7.5 | .2 | ||
| 1840 | 9.0 | .3 | 10.4 | 5.4 | ||
| 1850 | 11.4 | .8 | 14.9 | 23.9 | 5. | .02 |
| 1860 | 14.8 | 1.7 | 21.7 | 67.3 | 100. | 1.5 |
| 1870 | 12.9 | 3.0 | 25.1 | 139.8 | 281. | 15. |
| 1880 | 14.4 | 5.8 | 37.9 | 224.9 | 440. | 49. |
| 1890 | 9.1 | 8.2 | 42.3 | 390.0 | 768. | 132. |
| 1900 | 6.6 | 13.8 | 62.1 | 500.0 | 1,180 | 200. |
| 1910 | 4.6 | 22.0 | 92.8 | 637.0 | 1,307 | 291. |
| 1913 | 3.8 | 26.5 | 109.9 | 690.0 | 1,462 | 330. |
344. Importance of roads in the present transportation system.—A word of warning may be advisable before we leave this subject to study more recent means of transportation. Not many years ago a French economist estimated that not one twentieth of the settlements of the inhabited world were within less than a day’s distance from a railroad. Even in the most advanced countries the extent of roads far exceeds that of railroads, and only in the rarest cases do products reach the consumer without having traversed a stretch of common road. The road, therefore, takes a place in our modern economy more important than, in our carelessness, we generally admit.
The unit for measuring the expense of transportation is the cost of moving a ton one mile; on a modern American railroad the average cost of a ton-mile is less than one cent. Even on the excellent roads of Europe the cost is ten cents or more; while it has been estimated that the average cost of moving farm produce to market over the common roads of the United States is twenty-five cents per ton-mile. Assuming that the average haul is twelve miles, and that three hundred million tons are carried in a year, the expense reaches the total of nine hundred million dollars, a sum greater than the operating expenses of all the railroads of the United States before 1900.
It has been proved by actual test that the same force which draws one ton on a muddy earth road will draw four tons on a hard macadam road. One of the greatest improvements in transportation is still, in large part, neglected by the American people; and intelligent energy will find in no field richer results than in the reform of our common roads. Such a reform would economize time and force, would reduce wear and tear, and would greatly better the business position of the farmer by enabling him to choose his own time for marketing his goods and making his purchases.
345. Advantage of transportation by water; canals.—The student may, perhaps, remember that in the Middle Ages the expense of transportation by road led people to choose rivers for conveying their goods, whenever this was practicable. It has been estimated that a horse which could carry on its back two or three centner (a centner is about 110 lbs.) could with equal exertion drag twenty centner on a highway, or 1,200 through dead-water. This enormous gain in efficiency, resulting from the avoidance of the slightest difference in level and from the reduction of force wasted in friction, suggested to people in early times the idea of establishing channels for water where none had previously existed, that is, of building canals. Locks, for controlling the flow and level of the water, were invented toward the end of the Middle Ages, and a considerable extent of canals had been constructed on the Continent before the Bridgewater canal, described above, was opened in England. The real era of the canal, however, was in the period which may be limited roughly by the dates 1750 and 1850.