That's 60 years after Ricardo, already in the middle of the Long Depression and after financial capitalism had already replaced the entrepreneurial capitalism of Smith/Ricardo, at least in capital-intensive sectors such as railways. What Veblen wrote in 1904 about railways and finance is not that different from what Minsky was writing in 1986, but both are a world apart from what Ricardo was writing about.

En un viejo país ineficiente, algo así como España entre dos guerras civiles, poseer una casa y poca hacienda y memoria ninguna. -- Gil de Biedma

U.S. laws and institutions were sufficiently similar to those of the U.K. that British investors were generally comfortable investing in high potential return projects in the USA, not to mention Canada.  But they were also very active, for instance, in Argentina and Chile as well.

As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

I believe russian railroads were similarly built with french money.

(This was also during the the first period of globalization so Mig's comment applies similarly to it.)

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