Rassegna storica del Risorgimento

Banche e ferrovie in Piemonte
185
Summary and conclusion. The discussion in the preceding pages has focused on two elements of economie innovation in nineteenth century Europe, railroads and joint-stock banks, and examined them against a wider background of economie and politicai change. It has showed that, in very general terms, the timing and the pace of banking and railroad development in the Kingdom of Sardinia were determined by three related, interacting factors. The first was the general European context, which presented the basic politicai as well as economie options, including techno-logical, institutional, and organizational innovations in the economie sphere, and provided practical demonstrations of their viability. The second was the underlying condition of the kingdom's economy, including its develop­ment trend and its stock of human and material resources. The third factor was a pre-eminently politicai one, centering on the dominànt politicai issue of the nineteenth century, the battle for responsible, representative government.
The policies of the reactionary Restoration government and its first successors hindered and retarded the development of the Kingdom of Sardinia's economy and allowed the gap -separating it from its neighbours in northern and western Europe to widen. The adnùnistrative monarchy of Charles Albert graduaHy unshackled the kingdom's economy with its policy of ponderous reform, but it remained unwilling to permit capitalists and entrepreneurs to attempt to match the pace of institutional innovation being established in northern and western Europe. With the advent of liberal, parliamentary government, the kingdom assumed a place among the very most advanced nations of Europe, politically speaking, and its banking institutions and pattern of railroad development also quickly matched those of Europe's most advanced economies. Thenceforth, the only con straint on the kingdom's economie development was the same one affecting ali capitalist economies of the day, the availability of material resources.
In railroad development the Kingdom of Sardinia initially lagged behind most of Europe, but once launched into activity, it emulated the pace and dynamism of the leaders. It did so by relying overwhehningly on locai capital and initiative in its Italian provinces, once it had gotten started with a modicum of foreign technical assistance. The only signìfìcant contribution of French capital, so often credited with spearheading Italian development, was in the dynasty's French homeland of Savoy, which was soon to be united to France. And in Savoy French capital worked with a lassitude in distinct contrast to the spirit of enterprise and industry which characterized railroad construction on the Italian side of the Alps. It was so toad that litigation was threatened and an Italian managing engineer plucked from the Kingdom of Sardinia's Royal Corps of Civil Engineers was finally foreed upon the French company to direct its construction and operation.65)
) Cavour to Coant Ercole Oldofredi, 18 Feb., 29 March and 14 Aug. 1854; to Bixio, 29 Oct 1854; to Laffitte, 3 Sept. 1853, 31 Oct. 1854, 10 July 1856, and 7 Sept. 1857; and to Paleocapa, 3 Aug. 1856, in Cavour, Nuove lettere, pp. 3-4.