Note H — MODERN IMPROVEMENTS AND OUR NATIONAL DEBT.
Reading edition
Some estimate of the influence of railways alone may be formed by reference to the following statement, which occurs in an address of Robert Stephenson before the Institution of Civil Engineers, in 1856:—
"The result, then, is, that, upon the existing traffic of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, railways are affecting a direct saving to the people of not less than forty million pounds per annum; and that sum exceeds by about fifty per cent the entire interest of our national debt. It may be said, therefore, that the railway system neutralizes to the people the bad effects of the debt with which the state is incumbered. It places us in as good position as if the debt did not exist."