Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/248

Rh 236 ENGLAND [RAILWAYS. The total tonnage here enumerated comprised both sail ing vessels and steamers. The number and tonnage of the former is decreasing, and that of the latter increasing, to such an extent that steam vessels appear likely to absorb the whole international commerce of the country. The following table of the principal ports of the country summarizes the tonnage of vessels with cargoes which entered and cleared coastwise, and from and to foreign countries and British possessions, in 1876 : Port. Entered. Cleared, Total. London Tons. 9,074 519 Tons 4 503 673 Tons. 13.578,192 Liverpool 6 380,217 5.587.416 11,967,633 Newcastle 1 and North ) and South Shields ... Cardiff 1 1,431.874 671 209 5.168 330 2.883,535 6.650,204 3,554,744 Hull 1 691 328 1.334 285 3.025,613 Sunderland * 303 820 2 289 710 2 593,530 Southampton 992 447 705 517 1 697.964 Bristol . . .. 1 087 602 496 679 1 584.281 567 741 992 092 1 559.833 Newport 1 508 474 959 792 1,468.266 Uartlepool * 452 159 956 248 1 408.407 These are almost exclusively -ninei-ai ports. Tonnage The subjoined table shows the total tonnage of the sail of vessels j n g vesso i g and steamers registered as belonging to the e Uer United Kingdom, at the end of each third year from 1864 to 1876 : Years. Sailing Vessels Steamers. Total. Ton? Tons. Tons. 1864 4,930,219 697 281 5.627 500 3867 4,852,911 901,062 5,753 973 1870 4 577,855 1,112 934 5 690,789 1873 4 091,379 1.713 783 5 805.162 1876 4,257 986 2,005,347 6 263,333 Increase During the period 1864-76 the number and tonnage of of steam sailing vessels registered as belonging to the United King- n.aviga- dom decreased, but the steamers increased from 2490 to 4335, and the table shows that their tonnage nearly quadrupled. The latter fact indicates a doubling of the average tonnage of steamships, the wants of commerce requiring them to be more and more large. Nearly three- fourths of the total shipping of the United Kingdom be longs to England and Wales The total tonnage of the United Kingdom, far larger than that of any other country, represents by itself more than one-third of the shipping of all the maritime states of the world. Ship- Ship-building has long been an industry of great import- building. ance } n England, although of late years it has suffered con siderable fluctuations. The principal centres of the industry are the Thames, the Tees, the Tyne, and Sunder land on the east coast, and Liverpool, Barrow, and White- haven on the west. A very large proportion of vessels built in recent years are constructed of iron, with the con sequence that th e ship-building trade has mostly settled in those parts of the coast that are nearest to the iron and coal fields. In 1874 the total amount of shipping built in England reached 277,984 tons; in 1875, 220,036 tons ; and in 1876, 189,840 tons. In Scotland there were built 166,214 tons, and in Ireland 4311 tons in 1876. The numbers do not include ships built on foreign account. VII. Railways. Canals and Roads. Influence Far greater even than the impulse given to the country s of rail- foreign commerce by steam navigation has been the vast ways. progress of internal communication effected by railways. The first ordinary roads deserving the name of highways ,vays were made in 1660, and canal-building began in the middle of the following century; but though roads and canals aided materially in raising the commercial and industrial activity of the nation, their fostering agency was very slight com pared with that of railways. In the half century during which England has built railways, its material progress haa been vastly greater than that of the whole five previous centuries, The first line of railway on which carriages were propelled Early by steam engines, that from Stockton to Darlington, four- English teen miles in length, was opened September 27, 1825. ra Although this little line, pioneer not only of England s, but the world s railways, proved a great success, it had no im mediate successors of any note till five years after, when the first really important railway, connecting two great centres of commerce, was finished. This was the line from Man chester to Liverpool, opened September 15, 1830, when Mr Huskisson was accidentally killed. As yet 110 railway had come near the metropolis, but great efforts were made by George Stephenson and his friends to get permission for constructing a line from London to Birmingham. The bill brought into parliament for this purpose met with the most violent opposition, chiefly on the part of the great landowners, who, so far from seing that the new mode of communication would immensely enhance the value of their properties, loudly proclaimed that the substitution of steam for horse-power would be &quot; the curse and the ruin of England.&quot; It took three years to get the bill for the London-Birmingham railway, which was passed at last in the session of 1833, obtaining the royal assent on the Blh of May. The first sod of the great line was cut at Chalk The fir Farm, London, on the 1st of June 1834. Enormous ea- gj^ gineering difficulties had to be overcome, originating not so |V 1 ^ much from the nature of the ground as from intense public prejudice against the new mode of locomotion. Instead of following the course of the old highroad, running along valleys, the line had to be pushed, by numerous viaducts and tunnels, over hollows and under hills, so as to avoid touching any considerable towns. It took five years to construct the railway from London to Birmingham, at a cost of over four millions. Even friends of the railway presaged that such outlay could not by any possibility be remunerative ; but the contrary became evident from the moment the line was opened, in 1838. The first great &quot;trunk&quot; line proved a striking success, and its opening settled, without further controversy, the establishment of the new system of intercommunication in England. All the great railway systems of England sprang into Origin existence within less than ten years after the opening of of the the London-Birmingham line. Out of the latter grew in Ie ? din 8 the first instance, one of the largest of companies, the Lon- O om&amp;gt; don and North -Western, while the most extensive system, panies. as regards mileage, the Great Western, originated in a line from Paddington, London, to Bristol, for which an Act of Parliament was obtained in 1835, and which was opened in 1841. In 1836, a bill passed the legislature erecting the &quot;Great North of England&quot; Railway Company, from which was developed the now third largest of English rail way systems, the North Eastern. A few years subsequently various other Acts were passed, sanctioning the &quot;Midland Counties&quot; and the &quot;North Midland&quot; lines, from which sprang the present Midland system, fourth largest of Eng lish railway companies. The construction of railways, up to this time, was confined almost exclusively to England ; the work was begun much later in Scotland, and still later in Ireland. The total length of railways in the United Kingdom at the end of the year 1825, which saw the opening of the first line, was 40 miles, constructed at a cost of XI 20,000. Five years later, at the end of 1830. there were not more