ABSTRACT
Such a substantial and appealing business as the railways in no way meant that the Rothschilds were to forget that public finances remained their natural source of business. The resources they sent to the Bank of Spain and to the Treasury during the 1860s and 1870s exceeded all the MZA investment. Yet between 1856 and 1860 the consolidation of the wave of railway investments and the massive creation of companies had completely changed the face of the Spanish economy and brought about a temporary lapse in the Rothschilds’ operations with Spain’s public institutions.
