V"] FRENCH RAILWAYS 149

150

GERMAN RAILWAYS

^[ch.

Emmanuel Company,

which

made

the

Mont

Cenis tunnel in the sixties; but this

company

was taken over

by

the P.-L.-M.

in 1867.

There

isno need^toinsistonitseconomicsignificance.

Finally, it

may

be ^{noted that all this}

work

of concession and consolidationwasnotparliamentary, owingto the constitutional situationunderthe Empire.

When

^{in itslast days the}

^Empire

triedto liberalise itself. Parliament claimed the exclusive right to

make

concessionsforall butthemostlocal and insignificant lines.

The

law containing the claim was of July 27, 1870.

France had declared

war

eightdaysbefore.

§39.

When

France got her great trunk lines open under Napoleon III,

Germany,

so Treitschke used to boast,had

had

her

main

lines in operation for a decade^.

"In

this peaceful contest she.was far ahead of all continental nations, with the soleexception of Belgium,ahead bothofcentralisedFranceand of wealthy Holland." "_It

was

therailways

which

firstdragged the nationfrom its economic stagnation; they ended

what

the Zollvereinhad only begun;withsuch

power

did they break in

upon

^all the old habits of life, that already in the forties the aspect of

Germany

was completely changed."

There

isa dash of exaggeration in all this and the contrast with France is

overdrawn; but

Germans may

be justifiably proud of an achievement which was the

more

remarkable because their country had at that time no central government and no great reservesofcapital.

Some Germa n

business

men,

statesmen, and thinkers, had occupied themselves withthe railwayquestion at anearly date.

From

1825onwardsFritzHarkort,a

WestphaUan

manufacturer, was pressing railway projects on an incredulous and generally hostile public. In 1828 Motz, the creator of the Zollverein, hadconsideredaschemefora linefromtheRhinetotheWeser, in order to avoid the

Dutch

Rhine tolls.

King Ludwig

of Bavaria was passionately interested in railway talk, and sent engineersto England, Franceand Belgium inthe earlythirties to

make

inquiry.

He

brushedaside the assertionoftheBavarian CollegeofPhysiciansthatrailwaytravel

would

give horriblehead- achesto both travellersandspectators.

He

hadthe satisfaction

' DeutscheGeschichte,iv,581-2.

vii]

GERMAN RAILWAYS

151 of knowing, in

December

_{1835, that the} first

German

railway

had

been openedin hiskingdom^. Itwasthefivemilesuburban

line

from Nuremberg

to Fiirth.

The

distance

was

covered in fifteenminutes by steam andin twenty-fivewith horsetraction.

But

it

was

reserved for Friedrich List, just returned

from

^• America,toconceive andadvocate with restlessenergythe idea ofa

German

railway system. It is all laid out in his pamphlet published at Leipzig in 1833

— _"Of

_{a Saxon railway system as}

foundation for a general

German

system."

He

sketched in nearly all the lines as they wereafterwards built.

He

foresaw, though

no

Prussian, that the bulk of the lines

would

radiate

from

Berlin

—

^six

^was

^his

^number,

^and six there were twenty yearslater. Also he attainedhis immediate object.

A company was

createdtobuildaline

from

LeipzigtoDresden.

The

Saxon

government was

helpful but took

no

real part inthe enterprise.

Within

six years (April 1839) the line was at work, and it

'

carried412,000peopleinitsfirstyear,includingladies

who

^kept

needles between their lips to check familiarity in the single tunnel.

List

had

been

thrown

over

by

the Leipzig business

men

at

an early stage.

So

he founded a railwayjournal taspread his'^

views, and

went

to

Magdeburg

to interest people there in the extension of the

Saxon

line,

which

he

saw

as apiece ofa trunk line

from

Prag to

Hamburg. The Magdeburgers

approached the Prussian government.

They

found the officials suspicious.

Having

sanctioned a short line near Diisseldorf, and a Berlin-

Potsdam

suburbanconnection, theywerehesitatingoverseveral large schemes recently put forward, including one for a great north-south line strongly backed

by

Bavaria. Their hesitation is explicable,

when

^it is recalled that Prussia proper was still

very badly equipped withroads.

One

large section of

Pomer-

ania (Vorpommern) did not contain a single

made

road.

The

officials naturallyspoke ofdoing one thing at atime.

A

report

had

been putin toprove that therewasnottradeenough on any of the routes suggested ^{to justify} a single railway line.

The

Minister of Posts

was

stiffinopposition;he

saw

allhisarrange-

ments

upset.

So was

the leading general of engineers; he said

^

An

experimentallinehad beenlaid at Elberfeldin 1826.

152

GERMAN RAILWAYS

^[ch.

railways

would

be ^ofno use inwar.

The King

^{thought quick}

travelshouldbe reservedfor gentlemen;but the

Crown

Prince -(the future FrederickWilliamIV)was a railway enthusiast.

He

was always anenthusiast ofonekind or another.'

'In

consequence of ministerial coolness, the first Prussian railway law, compiled before any important line

on

Prussian territoryhad been made, and issued in

Nov.

1838,was rather unsympathetic towards private enterprise and did not con- template immediate state action. Yet, considering

how

^little wasthen

known

of railways,itsprovisionswerefar-sightedand

at least tended to prevent bubble projects and wasteful

com-

petinglines.

In spite of official suspicions, however, the

Magdeburg

project was allowed to go forward.

The

necessary funds were raisedwith comparative ease; and

by

August 1840 the

Magde-

burg-Leipzig line was opento traffic. It paid a dividend that year.

Meanwhile

a

number

of othercompanies

had come

into

\existence under the terms ofthe

new

law

—

Diisseldorf-Elber- feld, Berlin-Kothen (Kothen ^is on the Magdeburg-Leipzig), /Berlin-Stettin. After 1840 the suspicions of government were

allayed, and the

work

of concession-granting

went on

rapidly.

The

Prussianstateevenbeganto give

some

direct assistanceto

^railway building. Ittookshares in orguaranteedinterest onthe Berlin-Kothen and the Berlin-Stettin. After 1842 ^it

became

'Dolderand,findingtheexchequerfull,plannedover athousand miles of necessary line, to expedite the construction of

which

itwas

now

^preparedto offera guarantee ofinterestto thecon- structing companies, whenever the prospects of any given s^railway were not good

enough

to attract capital without guarantee.

Among

thelines

now

planned weretheRhine-Weser, to link those river basins; the Thuringian line, to do for the railway systems

what

the great Thuringian highway had done for the roads, i.e. link Prussia with the south; the Frankfurt- on-Oder-Breslau, which, together withtheBerlin-Frankfurtand

Upper

Silesian Unes already in hand,

would

join the capital to thecoal-fieldsandthe delicate strategicalarea of

Upper

Silesia;

a Posen line for Prussian Poland; and the great Eastern Une running through the Prussias.

The

results of this change of

VII]

GERMAN RAILWAYS

153