Mr. Bowley points out that "after each of the great railway booms of the century, for instance in England about 1847, in America before 1857 and 1873, in India in 1878, and on the Continent in 1873, the collapse has been very violent; for the materials are bought at exaggerated prices; the weekly wage during construction is enormous; no return is obtained till the whole scheme, whose carrying out probably lasts many years, is complete." A great deal of this railway enterprise meant over-production of forms of transport-capital and a corresponding withholding of current consumption. In other words, a large part of the "savings" of England, Germany, America, etc., invested in these new railways, were sterilised; they were not economically needed to assist in the work of transport, and many of them remain almost useless, as the quoted value of the shares testifies. It is not true, as is sometimes suggested, that after a great effort in setting on foot such gigantic enterprises, a collapse is economically necessary. If the large incomes and high wages earned in the period prior to 1873, when capital and labour found full employment in these great enterprises, had been fully applied in increased demand for commodities and an elevated standard of consumption, much of the new machinery of transport, which long stood useless, would have been required to assist in forwarding goods to maintain the raised standard of consumption. This argument, of course, assumes that ignorance or fraud have not caused a misdirection of investment. There is no evidence to indicate that the vast sums invested in 1869-72 in railway enterprise could have found any safer or more remunerative investment. It is the overflow of "savings," after all capital economically needed to carry on the work of production to supply steady current wants has been secured, that flows into the hands of speculative company-promoters. Such savings are not diverted from safe and useful forms of investment, they are "savings" which ought never to have been attempted, for they have no economic justification in the needs of commerce, as is proved by results.