THE industrial revolution was built on coal. But where would it have got without rail? The Economist in 1845 set out (too late) to milk the British railway mania with a weekly supplement, The Railway Monitor. Its first issue recorded that Britain by then had already seen 412 Railway Acts, for the building of 278 separate lines. By the end of 1844, 2,069 miles of track had been completed in Britain, 1,384 in Germany, 552 in France and 3,688 in America. The implications for society were huge. But our reflections were more mundane: if a dozen companies wanted to build a line from A to B, which was to win?
Our answer was less than pure Adam Smith:
Nor did The Economist deny a role to government. It recorded without comment a French law of 1842 committing the state to put up half the capital for new lines. As to rival routes, we positively commended the French system:
Nay more, this paper commended the French practice whereby
—an idea that we recommended to Britain, where, we said cheerfully, it would
So much for the invisible hand.