Liverpool was about forty-eight kilometers from Manchester. Liverpool was a port city, while Manchester's pillar industry was cotton spinning. With the outbreak of the Industrial Revolution, Manchester's demand for cotton increased dozens of times over. Britain's domestic cotton could no longer meet that demand, so they could only turn their eyes toward North America.
Ships carrying cotton from America crossed the Atlantic Ocean and docked at Liverpool, where the raw materials were transported by nearby canals and horse-drawn carriages on land. But carriage transport costs were astonishingly high, while navigation rights on the canals had been monopolized at exorbitant prices by several companies.
The people of Liverpool were the direct victims of the canal companies' monopoly. The excessive freight charges left them with meager profits. They took the initiative to communicate with the canal companies, but the companies completely ignored their demands. Thus, building a railway and establishing a railway company became Liverpool's means of contending with the canal companies.
Georgiana's "invention" of wooden railways greatly pleased Napoleoni. Artillerymen needed not only technical skills but physical strength as well, and with them, moving cannons became much easier. During some casual conversation in the interval of a meeting, this matter came up, and the British representatives quickly thought of Liverpool's railway.
Railways had first been used in mines, and the French were also very interested in them. The two sides, originally at their wits' end over the textile industry, found room to maneuver because of "railways." But railway construction required budgetary funds, and the Corsican's chance for "revenge" had arrived. When he wanted to build canals, they would not let him; now that others wanted to build railways, he would not let them.
Building roads required more than money; it also required manpower. To put it bluntly, massive domestic construction projects