THE MAKING OF THE FIRST RAILWAY AND TELEGRAPH NETWORK, 1830-1869

1 § 37. Ithasbeenpointed outthat,

when

Sir RobertPeelwas calledfrom

Rome

to

London

in

December

1834^{to preside} over anexceedinglyshort-lived ministry,hetravelled

no

quicker than one of Agricola's couriers might have travelled,

when

taking back to

Rome news

ofhis master's British victories. Peelhad aneasierjourney,becausetheroadsallthe

way

in histime were, as the Frenchsay, "coachable."

They

hadjust been

made

so,

thoughprobablyhehad

some

bad stretches

on

theItalian side.

At

that time, in Peel's country, the Stockton and Darlington andthe Manchester and Liverpoolrailwayshad been openfor

some

years,and progress had been

made

with the

London

and

Birmingham

and other trunk Hnes.

On

the continent, two or three short but rather unimportant lines were open, and one shortbutimportantlinewas nearing completion. Thislinewas notonPeel'sroute. Itran

from

Brussels toMalines.

Opened

in

May

1835, it carried over halfa million passengers in its first

year

—

^actually

^more

^{thanwere carried on all theEnglish lines}

in 1835.

The

fact is significant. In

some

ways Belgium led Europeinrailway building. She

was

aheadofallthecontinent inordered construction, and ahead ofEnglandinthatshehad arailway policy,

when

England was fumblingfora policy

which

she never found.

The

beginningsofthecoal-minetramway,

which

precededthe railwayproper

on

the continent as inEngland, are ofno great interest.

There

was one at Anzin early in the century, and others

among

the Belgian mines, besides the

tramway

at the Li^ge cannon foundry mentioned in a previous chapter.

No

sooner was Belgium a nation

—

^she

^became

^{a nation, it will} be

recalled,intheyear theManchester andLiverpoolwas opened

—

than her press began to fill vnth railway schemes.

The

first

suggestionwas a direct line from

Antwerp

to Cologne,which,

CH.vii]

BELGIAN RAILWAYS

141 in the

form

then proposed,

was

never built.

Next

year the Minister of theInteriorbeganto haveplansmade.

At

oncethe question arose of state versus private railways.

There

were no precedents, so Belgium had to

make

her own. She

was

one of the few countries, _at that time, in

which

private capital and private enterprise might not unreasonably have been expected to create a railway system; so thatit really was anopenissue.

But

after discussion inParliament, duringthe

autumn

of _1833,

it

was

decided, partly for the glory of the

young

state, partly becausethe

government was

resolute thatthewhole

work must

becarriedoutsystematically, thatthe projected Belgian_railways should be anationalundertaking.

The

scheme was voted with acclamation (ist

May,

1834), and put in

hand

without delay.

There

is

no

doubt that"this magnificent project," as the first

and greatest English scientific writer^

on

railways called it,

raised the prestige of Belgium, as the Belgians had

hoped

it

would.

Belgium

meant

to exploit the advantages of her position as aland ofpassage.

Her

railwaysystemshould begin witha cross, linking, north

and

south, Antwerp, Malines, Brussels,

Mons and

France; east

and

west, Ostend, Bruges, Ghent, Malines, Louvain, Liege

and Germany.

Malineswas thepoint ofinter- section.

There

were to be branches,

on

the western arm,

from Ghent

towards Lille via Courtrai,and

from Ghent

northwards to

Antwerp; on

theeasternarm,

from

Tirlemontto St

Trond;

and on

the southern

from

Braine-le-Com^te to Charleroi and eventually to

Namur. So

Belgium

would

link

up

England, France,

Germany

andHolland,

by

₃₄₇miles ofrailway,and

draw

across her territory the trade of all.

Lebeau

and Rogier, the

two men

mainly responsible for the policy, deserved well of theircountry. It

was

asimple but^brilliantplan.

Part of itwas executed^quickly.

By May

1836,theline

was

open

from

Brusselsto

Antwerp

.

By

January^ofthenext year,the western.

main

line

was

working

from

Malines to

Termonde.

Forty-five

more

miles of thesystem were opened in 1837,andseventy-one miles in 1838.

By

1844 ^{the original plan} was approximately

^ Dionysius ^Lardner, Railway Economy: a Treatise on the

New

Art of Transport, 1850,p. 416. Thischapterowesagreat deal to Lardner.

142

BELGIAN RAILWAYS

^[cH.

complete. Engineering difficulties, very formidable for those days, had been successfully overcome

on

the eastern arm, in- cluding a tunnel

more

than halfa mile long and the crossing of a watershed five hundred feet high.

"The

extraordinary expedition with

which

the Belgianrail roadswerecompleted,"

wrote Lardner in 1850, "has been mainly caused

by

the cir-

cumstance of their havingbeen executed

by

the state,

and

the execution being conducted under the superintendence of a special railwaycommittee, investedwith adequate powers.

By

this expedient innumerable official formalities were avoided."

Lardnerno doubt hadin

mind

theprivatebillprocedure of the BritishParliament,andthevacillationsofBritishrailwaypolicy, in theforties.

The

Belgian state system proved far

more

expensive than was originally contemplated.

When

all the original lines were opentotraffic,the statehadspent £5,373,000 on

them

or,say, ,£16,500 a mile.

The

expenditurebeyondestimate was natural, asthewholestandard ofrailwayconstructionaltered while the

work

was in progress.

The

light rails,

wooden

^bridges,

and

10h.p.locomotives ofthe original project,wereout ofdatelong beforetheeasternlinehad been pushedoverthedifficultcountry betweenLouvain and Liege. Yet

some

profit could always be shown. Ifitwasnot always acommercialprofit,not

enough

to cover the interest on the railway loans, the government could pointto theindirectgain tothecountryresulting

from

a long- sighted and rapidly applied policy

—

^the 50 per cent, rise in Belgian imports between 1836 and 1845; the 100 percent, rise in coal production between 1835 and _{1845; the}

more

than 800 per cent, rise in the export of cast iron during the

same

period. Moreover,

by

_{1853, the} state lines could

show

^a profit of ₅percent.,enoughtocoverinterest.

By

that time,however, therailwayadministrationwas showingsignsofossification.

No

fresh state enterprisewas undertaken inthe twenty years from 1850 to 1870; and

by

the latter date the government lines

measurednot

much more

thana quarter of the Belgianrailway system (800-900 kilometresout_{of 3000).}

^There hadneverbeenofficialoppositionto private enterprise.

Concessions were being sought as early as 1832. But, except

VII]

BELGIAN RAILWAYS

143