Page:EB1911 - Volume 11.djvu/837

RAILWAYS]

Navigation.—The seamen of Frisia are among the best in the world, and the shipping of Bremen and Hamburg had won a respected name long before a German mercantile marine, properly so called, was heard of. Many Hamburg vessels sailed under charter of English and other houses in foreign, especially Chinese, waters. Since 1868 all German ships have carried a common flag—black, white, red; but formerly Oldenburg, Hanover, Bremen, Hamburg, Lübeck, Mecklenburg and Prussia had each its own flag, and Schleswig-Holstein vessels sailed under the Danish flag. The German mercantile fleet occupies, in respect of the number of vessels, the fourth place—after Great Britain, the United States of America and Norway; but in respect of tonnage it stands third—after Great Britain and the United States only.

Railways.—The period of railway construction was inaugurated in Germany by the opening of the line (4 m. in length) from Nuremberg to Fürth in 1835, followed by the main line (71 m.) between Leipzig and Dresden, opened throughout in 1839. The development of the railway system was slow and was not conceived on any uniform plan. The want of a central government operated injuriously, for it often happened that intricate negotiations and solemn treaties between several sovereign states were required before a line could be constructed; and, moreover, the course it was to take was often determined less by the general exigencies of commerce than by many trifling interests or desires of neighbouring states. The state which was most self-seeking in its railway politics was Hanover, which separated the eastern and western parts of the kingdom of Prussia. The difficulties arising to Prussia from this source were experienced in a still greater degree by the seaports of Bremen and Hamburg, which were severely hampered by the particularism displayed by Hanover.

The making of railways was from the outset regarded by some German states as exclusively a function of the government. The South German states, for example, have only possessed state railways. In Prussia numerous private companies, in the first instance, constructed their systems, and the state contented itself for the most part with laying lines in such districts only as were not likely to attract private capital.

The development of the German railway system falls conveniently into four periods. The first, down in 1840, embraces the beginnings of railway enterprise. The next, down to 1848, shows the linking-up of various existing lines and the establishment of inter-connexion between the chief towns. The third, down to 1881, shows the gradual establishment of state control in Prussia, and the formation of direct trunk lines. The fourth begins from 1881 with the purchase of practically all the railways in Prussia by the government, and the introduction of a uniform system of interworking between the various state systems. The purchase of the railways by the Prussian government was on the whole equably carried out, but there were several hard cases in the expropriation of some of the smaller private lines.

The majority of the German railways are now owned by the state governments. Out of 34,470 m. of railway completed and open for traffic in 1906, only 2579 m. were the property of private undertakings, and of these about 150 were worked by the state. The bulk of the railways are of the normal 4 ft. 8½ in. gauge. Narrow-gauge (2½ ft.) lines—or light railways—extended over 1218 m. in 1903, and of these 537 m. were worked by the state.

The board responsible for the imperial control over the whole railway system in Germany is the Reichseisenbahnamt