sult is produced by the circumstance that landcarriage in the interior of a country is dearer than water-carriage from its ports. The writer of this book received lately a package from Havre, a French port; and the cost of bringing it by sea from Havre was less than the cost of bringing it in a cart from the docks at the east-end of London to a house at the west-end. Havre is nearer to London in the price of transport, than the Custom-house of London is to Pall-Mall. We cannot have a more striking proof of the value of ship-machinery, by which we obtain all the commodities which the world produces, in greater abundance and at a cheaper rate than the people of any other country.

In our rivers we have vast quantities of goods moved along by the tide, with little more labor than taking care that the barges do not get aground; and where there is no tide, horses are used on a towing-path. Horses work to a disadvantage there, but still one does the work of a great number employed in land-carriage. On the canals which cross the country in all directions, the effect is still greater; and though the expense of making canals is considerable, they generally yield large profits; while they give employment to ten times as many people as could be employed without them.

The conveyance of goods by canals is cheap; but it is a slow conveyance when compared with that of a coach. We might naturally suppose that the slow motion of canals might

be got the better of by steam-boats, as contrary winds and calms are got the better of in the narrow seas. But that is not the case. The steam-boat produces a great deal of motion in the water, by which the banks of the canal would be injured; and the canal would have to be made extravagantly expensive for the load that the boat, burdened with its machinery, could carry, to prevent mutual injury by the boat striking the banks.

Machinery is not without its resources, for the purpose of combining cheapness and expedition. Machinery gives us the rail-way and the steam-carriage, to the action of which, either in strength or in speed, there is no limit but the strength of the materials. The most complete instance of this means of communication is upon the rail-way between Liverpool and Manchester, and the following is an account of the first conveyance of heavy goods along this rail-way in December, 1830.

The train consisted of eighteen wagons, containing a hundred and thirty-five bags and bales of American cotton, two hundred barrels of flour, sixty-three sacks of oatmeal, and thirty-four sacks of malt, weighing altogether fifty-one tons, eleven hundred weight, and one quarter. To this must be added the weight of the wagons and oil-cloths, viz. twenty-three tons, eight hundred weight, and three quarters; the tender, with water and fuel, four tons; and of fifteen persons on the train, one ton; making a total weight of exactly eighty tons, exclusive of the engine

about six tons. The journey was performed in two hours and fifty-four minutes, including three stoppages of five minutes each (one only being necessary under ordinary circumstances) for oiling, watering, and taking in fuel; under the disadvantages also of an adverse wind, and of a great additional friction in the wheels and axles, owing to their being entirely new. The train was assisted up the Rainhill inclined plane, by other engines, at the rate of nine miles an hour, and descended the Sutton inclined plane at the rate of sixteen miles and a half an hour. The average rate on the other parts of the road was twelve miles and a half an hour, the greatest speed on the level being fifteen miles and a half an hour.

All these modes of communication are nothing but applications of machinery. The road is a sort of machine; the coach and the wagon are machines; the barge, the ship, and the steam-ship are machines; the rail-way and the locomotive engine (or engine moving from place to place) are machines. If these were to be destroyed, all the other advances in civilization that have taken place amongst us would be of comparatively little advantage, as there would be no means of bringing the produce and the consumers together. Without the means of conveying goods to a market, the prices of commodities would be doubled, and many thousands would be thrown out of bread.

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CHAPTER VII.

WE have endeavored to explain the general principle that easy communications, whether of roads, or canals, or rail-ways, between one part of a country and another, add to the general wealth, and diminish the cost of production. We shall proceed to give some particular examples of the advantages of improved communication to country districts remote from towns, and particularly to the laboring population of those districts.

In England, at the present day, there is no part of the country without good roads. It would be impossible for a traveller in England to set himself down in any situation where the post from London would not reach him in three days. Fifty years ago such a quickness of communication would have been considered beyond the compass of human means. It would be easy to show what benefits have been conferred upon the poorest inhabitant of England, by the roads and canals which now intersect the country in every direction. But the value of these blessings may be better estimated, by viewing the condition of such parts of the United Kingdom as are just beginning to enjoy them.*

In the Highlands of Scotland, at the begin

* See Appendix, No. II. p. 213.

ning of the present century, the communication from one district to another was attended with such difficulty and danger, that some of the counties were excused from sending jurors to the circuit to assist in the administration of justice. The poor people inhabiting these districts were almost entirely cut off from intercourse with the rest of mankind. The Highlands were of less advantage to the British empire than the most distant colony. Parliament resolved to remedy the evil; and, accordingly, from 1802 to 1817, the sum of two hundred thousand pounds was laid out, in making roads and bridges in these mountainous districts. Mark the important consequences to the people of the Highlands, as described by Mr. Telford, the engineer of the roads.

"In these works, and in the Caledonian canal, about three thousand two hundred men have been annually employed. At first they could scarcely work at all; they were totally unacquainted with labor, they could not use the tools; but they have since become excellent laborers; of that number we consider one-fourth left us annually, taught to work. These works may be considered in the light of a working academy, from which eight hundred have annually departed improved workmen. These men have either returned to their native districts, having had the experience of using the most perfect sorts of tools and utensils, (which alone cannot be considered as less than ten per cent. on any