Page:Karl Kautsky - The Road to Power - tr. A. M. Simons (1909).pdf/77

 active economic improvement began, which, with few interruptions, has continued up until within recent years. The capitalists and their intellectual retainers, professors, journalists and the like, took new courage. The hand workers shared in the improvement, and even agriculture once more enjoyed a revival. It found an expanding market in the swiftly growing industrial population, especially for such products as meat or milk, which were little affected by foreign competition. It was not the agrarian tariffs that rescued European agriculture, for even free trade countries like England, Holland, Denmark shared in the rise, but it was rather the rapid upward movement of industry which came at the end of the '80s.

This upward movement was, in turn, itself a result of the rapid extension of the world market, the same extension that had sent the stream of food stuffs pouring into Europe from distant countries, and had thereby produced the agricultural crisis. This growth of the world market was due especially to the great development of railroad construction outside Western Europe.

Following is the length of the railroads in kilometers :

On the other hand, the following six countries show a remarkable increase: