Unified Transport System Research Articles

“A Dangerous Game”: The Crisis of Locomotive Manufacturing in France before 1914

“A Dangerous Game”: The Crisis of Locomotive Manufacturing in France before 1914 ALLAN MITCHELL From its inception in the 1830s until its nationalization a century later, the French railway industry comprised a unique mixture of private and public interests. Given the already established tradition of a centralized state, France possessed at the outset the possibility of divising a unified rail transport system; but this opportunity was knowingly forfeited through the formation of six major private railway companies that emerged in the 1840s and 1850s. In the development of the most important technological innovation of the early 19th century, the French thus created artificially what came naturally before 1870 to the Germans: a decentralization oftheir railroad network. France’s organization thereby guaranteed a persistent tension between center and periphery, that is, between the supervisory powers ofa national state administration and the capitalistic prerogatives of the private companies. One could claim to pursue the long-term political interests of the patrie, the other to seek economic prosperity through the expansion of commerce and industry.1 Such an arrangement required a sensible division of labor. Fundamen­ tally, albeit not very neatly, the agreement was that the state should oversee construction of railways, whereas the companies would handle their operation. Each rail line was formally a “concession”—carefully drafted by the central engineering corps of Ponts-et-Chaussées—whereby governmental specifications had to be met by the companies for building routes, grades, curves, bridges, tunnels, and the like. Once the stateowned roadbeds were in place, however, it was up to the companies to purchase rails and rolling stock to exploit them. Where one competence Dr. Mitchell is professor of history at the University of California, San Diego. His latest book is The Divided Path: The German Influence on Social Reform in France after 1870 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1991). ‘For an ample bibliography and a convenient overview of the state’s role in this development, see Cecil O. Smith, Jr., “The Longest Run: Public Engineers and Planning in France,” American Historical Review 95 (1990): 657-96; whereas the importance of private enterprise is stressed by Georges Ribeill, La révolution ferroviaire: La formation des compagnies de chemin defer en France (1823-1870) (Paris, 1993).© 1995 by the Society for the History of Technology. All rights reserved. 0040-165X/95/3601-0003$01.00 29 30 Allan Mitchell ended and the other began was necessarily vague, however, because the uncharted business of running the railways could only be explored by experience, and consequently the French rail industry was always charac­ terized by overlapping authority, ambiguity, and confusion. This modus operandi survived well enough during the two decades of the Second Empire after 1850, when the imperial aegis of Napoleon III and a surge of credit banking promoted a remarkable expansion of France’s infrastructure of railway transportation. But the military de­ bacle of 1870 exposed some of the incongruities and insufficiencies of the entire system, especially from the standpoint of national defense; and the inception of the Third Republic thereupon brought to office a divided, unstable, and often ineffectual political leadership. Inevitably, the years that followed were a time of indecision. It was no wonder, then, that a controversy erupted in the French parlia­ ment in the 1870s over the so-called repurchase (rachat) issue. As suggested, the companies had usually been left to exercise a virtual monopoly in their respective regions once the railroads were in operation there. Specifically, as a result, they routinely obtained the locomotives, tenders, freight wagons, and passenger cars necessary to assure an optimal flow of traffic. In such transactions the state did not ordinarily intervene. But the anomalies re­ vealed by the lostwaragainstGermanyprovoked some politicians to demand that the government promptly acquire part or all ofthe French rail networks. We may dispense with the details of this debate, yet it should be noted that the heavily subsidized project of rail and port construction launched by Minister of Public Works Charles de Freycinet in 1878 was consciously conceived 'as an alternative to outright state ownership. Once the Freycinet plan ingloriously collapsed a few years later, cries of “rachat” were again heard in the Chamber of Deputies. But the momentum...

Inland Waterways of Germany

SINCE the State took over the control of the German inland waterways in 1921, much attention has been given to their improvement; schemes which had been projected for years have recently been completed, and others are in course of realization. This activity is an acceleration of a policy which has been pursued with a varying degree of intensity since the foundation of the first empire in 1871. Transport of goods by river however had played an important r61e in German economy long before that date. During the Middle Ages the rivers were the most efficient medium for the exchange of goods. Germany, particularly in the north and east, is well provided with rivers which offered few difficulties to navigation by the craft of that period, From an early date the facility with which this natural system of routes could be improved by the building of canals was recognized, and small schemes were carried out in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The industrial revolution and the development of the railway system rendered the unimproved waterways largely obsolete, and it was not until the close of the last century that serious efforts were made to evolve a system adequate to the demands of modern industry. The hydrographical network however possesses one great disadvantage from the point of view of a unified transport system: its general direction is from south-east to north-west, and the rivers flow on roughly parallel courses. There is therefore no natural focus of waterways, such as contributed to the growth of the French state in the Paris basin, and no continuous water route from east to west. Moreover the Oder debouches into the Baltic, and the Elbe and Weser into the North Sea, while the marginal position of the Rhine prevented its passing under complete German control, and its estuaries lie outside German territory. In addition therefore to the major conflict evident throughout German history between expansion north-westwards down the rivers to the sea, and expansion south-eastwards down the Danube, there was the divergent attraction of the Baltic. These centrifugal forces, which contributed to political particularism, had also an economic aspect, and until national unity was fashioned little advance towards a common economic policy was possible, and even less to a unified system of inland water transport. To-day it is the policy of the administration to resolve these conflicting trends, to unify the system, and to extend its sphere of influence. To understand the work at present in progress and the plans for the future, a short sketch of the German inland waterways may be useful. The following notes are based in part on recent articles in German periodicals.1 The foundations of the network are the navigable rivers. Owing to the

Law and Justice in Soviet Russia, The Unified Transport System of the U.S.S.R, Science and Education in the U.S.S.R, Collectivist Economic Planning and Economic Planning in Soviet Russia

Law and Justice in Soviet Russia, The Unified Transport System of the U.S.S.R, Science and Education in the U.S.S.R, Collectivist Economic Planning and Economic Planning in Soviet Russia Get access 61. Law and Justice in Soviet Russia. By Harold J. Laski. [Day to Day Pamphlets, No. 23.] 1935. (London: The Hogarth Press. 8vo. 44 pp. 1s. 6d.)62. The Unified Transport System of the U.S.S.R. By K. N. Tverskoi. [The New Soviet Library, No. X.] 1935. (London: Gollancz. 8vo. 176 pp. 3s. 6d.)63. Science and Education in the U.S.S.R. By A. Pinkevich. [The New Soviet Library, No. XII.] 1935. (London: Gollancz. 8vo. 176 pp. 3s. 6d.)64. Collectivist Economic Planning. Edited, with an introduction, by F. A. Hayek. 1935. (London: Routledge. 8vo. v + 293 pp., bibl. 10s. 6d.)65. Economic Planning in Soviet Russia. By Boris Brutzkus. 1935. (London: Routledge. 8vo. xvii + 234 pp. 10s. 6d.) Margaret Miller Margaret Miller Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar International Affairs, Volume 14, Issue 3, May-June 1935, Pages 437–439, https://doi.org/10.2307/2603797 Published: 01 May 1935

The Unified Transport System of the U.S.S.R.

The Unified Transport System of the U.S.S.R.