(184.)

Capital and skill have of late years been directed with extraordinary energy to the improvement of inland transport; and this important instrument of national wealth and civilisation has received a proportionate impulse. Effects are now witnessed, which, had they been narrated a few years [Pg329] since, could only have been admitted into the pages of fiction or volumes of romance. Who could have credited the possibility of a ponderous engine of iron, loaded with some hundred passengers, in a train of carriages of corresponding magnitude, and a large quantity of water and coal, taking flight from Manchester and arriving at Liverpool, a distance of above thirty miles, in little more than an hour? And yet this is a matter of daily and almost hourly occurrence. The rapidity of transport thus attained is not less wonderful than the weights transported. Its capabilities in this respect far transcend the exigencies even of the two greatest commercial marts in Great Britain. Loads, varying from fifty to one hundred and fifty tons, are transported at the average rate of fifteen miles an hour; and in one instance we have seen a load—we should rather say a cargo—of waggons, conveying merchandise to the amount of two hundred and thirty tons gross, transported from Liverpool to Manchester at the average rate of twelve miles an hour.

The astonishment with which such performances must be viewed, might be qualified, if the art of transport by steam on railways had been matured, and had attained that full state of perfection which such an art is always capable of receiving from long experience, aided by great scientific knowledge, and the unbounded application of capital. But such is not the present case. The art of constructing locomotive engines, so far from having attained a state of maturity, has not even emerged from its infancy. So complete was the ignorance of its powers which prevailed, even among engineers, previous to the opening of the Liverpool railway, that the transport of heavy goods was regarded as the chief object of the undertaking, and its principal source of revenue. The incredible speed of transport, effected even in the very first experiments in 1830, burst upon the public, and on the scientific world, with all the effect of a new and unlooked-for phenomenon. On the unfortunate occasion which deprived this country of Mr. Huskisson, the wounded body of that statesman was transported a distance of about fifteen miles in twenty-five minutes, being at the rate of thirty-six miles an hour. The revenue of the road arising from passengers since its opening, [Pg330] has, contrary to all that was foreseen, been nearly double that which has been derived from merchandise. So great was the want of experience in the construction of engines, that the company was at first ignorant whether they should adopt large steam engines fixed at different stations on the line, to pull the carriages from station to station, or travelling engines to drag the loads the entire distance. Having decided on the latter, they have, even to the present moment, laboured under the disadvantage of the want of that knowledge which experience alone can give. The engines have been constantly varied in their weight and proportions, in their magnitude and form, as the experience of each successive month has indicated. As defects became manifest they were remedied; improvements suggested were adopted; and each year produced engines of such increased power and efficiency, that their predecessors were abandoned, not because they were worn out, but because they had been outstripped in the rapid march of improvement. Add to this, that only one species of travelling engine has been effectively tried; the capabilities of others remain still to be developed; and even that form of engine which has received the advantage of a course of experiments on so grand a scale to carry it towards perfection, is far short of this point, and still has defects, many of which, it is obvious, time and experience will remove.

If, then, the locomotive engine, subject thus to all the imperfections inseparable from a novel contrivance—with the restrictions on the free application of skill and capital, arising from the nature of the monopolies granted to railway companies—with the disadvantage of very limited experience, the great parent of practical improvement, having been submitted to experiments hitherto only on a limited scale, and confined almost to one form of machine;—if, under such disadvantages, such effects have been produced as are now daily witnessed by the public, what may not be looked for from this extraordinary power when the enterprise of the country shall be more unfettered—when greater fields of experience are opened—when time, ingenuity, and capital have removed or diminished existing imperfections, and have brought to light new and more powerful principles? This is not mere speculation [Pg331] on abstract possibilities, but refers to what is in actual progress. The points of greatest wealth and population—the centres of largest capital and most active industry throughout the country—will soon be connected by lines of railway; and various experiments are proposed, with more or less prospect of success, for the application of steam engines on stone roads where the intercourse is not sufficient to render railways profitable.

The important commercial and political effects attending such increased facility and speed in the transport of persons and goods, are too obvious to require any very extended notice here. A part of the price (and in many cases a considerable part) of every article of necessity or luxury, consists of the cost of transporting it from the producer to the consumer; and consequently every abatement or saving in this cost must produce a corresponding reduction in the price of every article transported; that is to say, of every thing which is necessary for the subsistence of the poor, or for the enjoyment of the rich—of every comfort, and of every luxury of life. The benefit of this will extend, not to the consumer only, but to the producer: by lowering the expense of transport of the produce, whether of the soil or of the loom, a less quantity of that produce will be spent in bringing the remainder to market, and consequently a greater surplus will reward the labour of the producer. The benefit of this will be felt even more by the agriculturist than by the manufacturer; because the proportional cost of transport of the produce of the soil is greater than that of manufactures. If two hundred quarters of corn be necessary to raise four hundred, and one hundred more be required to bring the four hundred to market, then the net surplus will be one hundred. But if by the use of steam carriages the same quantity can be brought to market with an expenditure of fifty quarters, then the net surplus will be increased from one hundred to one hundred and fifty quarters; and either the profit of the farmer, or the rent of the landlord, must be increased by the same amount.

But the agriculturist would not merely be benefited by an increased return from the soil already under cultivation. Any [Pg332] reduction in the cost of transporting the produce to market would call into cultivation tracts of inferior fertility, the returns from which would not at present repay the cost of cultivation and transport. Thus land would become productive which is now waste, and an effect would be produced equivalent to adding so much fertile soil to the present extent of the country. It is well known, that land of a given degree of fertility will yield increased produce by the increased application of capital and labour. By a reduction in the cost of transport, a saving will be made which may enable the agriculturist to apply to tracts already under cultivation the capital thus saved, and thereby increase their actual production. Not only, therefore, would such an effect be attended with an increased extent of cultivated land, but also with an increased degree of cultivation in that which is already productive.

It has been said, that in Great Britain there are above a million of horses engaged in various ways in the transport of passengers and goods, and that to transport each horse requires as much land as would, upon an average, support eight men. If this quantity of animal power were displaced by steam engines, and the means of transport drawn from the bowels of the earth, instead of being raised upon its surface, then, supposing the above calculation correct, as much land would become available for the support of human beings as would suffice for an additional population of eight millions; or, what amounts to the same, would increase the means of support of the present population by about one third of the present available means. The land which now supports horses for transport would then support men, or produce corn for food.

The objection that a quantity of land exists in the country capable of supporting horses alone, and that such land would be thrown out of cultivation, scarcely deserves notice here. The existence of any considerable quantity of such land is extremely doubtful. What is the soil which will feed a horse and not feed oxen or sheep, or produce food for man? But even if it be admitted that there exists in the country a small portion of such land, that portion cannot exceed, nor indeed equal, what would be sufficient for the number of horses [Pg333] which must after all continue to be employed for the purposes of pleasure, and in a variety of cases where steam must necessarily be inapplicable. It is to be remembered, also, that the displacing of horses in one extensive occupation, by diminishing their price must necessarily increase the demand for them in others.

The reduction in the cost of transport of manufactured articles, by lowering their price in the market, will stimulate their consumption. This observation applies of course not only to home but to foreign markets. In the latter we already in many branches of manufactures command a monopoly. The reduced price which we shall attain by cheapness and facility of transport will still further extend and increase our advantages. The necessary consequence will be, an increased demand for manufacturing population; and this increased population again reacting on the agricultural interests, will form an increased market for that species of produce. So interwoven and complicated are the fibres which form the texture of the highly civilised and artificial community in which we live, that an effect produced on any one point is instantly transmitted to the most remote and apparently unconnected parts of the system.

The two advantages of increased cheapness and speed, besides extending the amount of existing traffic, call into existence new objects of commercial intercourse. For the same reason that the reduced cost of transport, as we have shown, calls new soils into cultivation, it also calls into existence new markets for manufactured and agricultural produce. The great speed of transit which has been proved to be practicable, must open a commerce between distant points in various articles, the nature of which does not permit them to be preserved so as to be fit for use beyond a certain time. Such are, for example, many species of vegetable and animal food, which at present are confined to markets at a very limited distance from the grower or feeder. The truth of this observation is manifested by the effects which have followed the intercourse by steam on the Irish Channel. The western towns of England have become markets for a prodigious quantity of Irish produce, which it had been previously [Pg334] impossible to export. If animal food be transported alive from the grower to the consumer, the distance of the market is limited by the power of the animal to travel, and the cost of its support on the road. It is only particular species of cattle which bear to be carried to market on common roads and by horse carriages. But the peculiar nature of a railway, the magnitude and weight of the loads which may be transported on it, and the prodigious speed which may be attained, render the transport of cattle, of every species, to almost any distance, both easy and cheap. In process of time, when the railway system becomes extended, the metropolis and populous towns will therefore become markets, not as at present to districts within limited distances of them, but to the whole country.

The moral and political consequences of so great a change in the powers of transition of persons and intelligence from place to place are not easily calculated. The concentration of mind and exertion which a great metropolis always exhibits, will be extended in a considerable degree to the whole realm. The same effect will be produced as if all distances were lessened in the proportion in which the speed and cheapness of transit are increased. Towns at present removed some stages from the metropolis, will become its suburbs; others, now at a day's journey, will be removed to its immediate vicinity; business will be carried on with as much ease between them and the metropolis, as it is now between distant points of the metropolis itself. Let those who discard speculations like these as wild and improbable, recur to the state of public opinion, at no very remote period, on the subject of steam navigation. Within the memory of persons who have not yet passed the meridian of life, the possibility of traversing by the steam engine the channels and seas that surround and intersect these islands, was regarded as the dream of enthusiasts. Nautical men and men of science rejected such speculations with equal incredulity, and with little less than scorn for the understanding of those who could for a moment entertain them. Yet we have witnessed steam engines traversing not these channels and seas alone, but sweeping the face of the waters round every coast in Europe. The [Pg335] seas which interpose between our Asiatic dominions and Egypt, and those which separate our own shores from our West Indian possessions, have offered an equally ineffectual barrier to its powers, and the establishment of a regular steam communication between the capitals of the Old and New World has ceased to be a question of practicability, having become merely one of commercial profit. If steam be not used as the only means of connecting the most distant points of our planet, it is not because it is inadequate to the accomplishment of that end, but because the supply of the material, from which at the present moment it derives its powers, is restricted by local and accidental circumstances.[30]

We propose in the present chapter to lay before our readers some account of the means whereby the effects above referred to have been produced; of the manner and degree in which the public have availed themselves of these means; and of the improvements of which they seem to us to be susceptible.