20 OCTOBER 1832, Page 19

THE EDINBURGH REVIEW,

THOUGH it no longer marks the quarters of the year with merry changes of pleasant sounds and sparkling ideas, seems determined to make up in solidity what it has lost in brilliancy. The present Number is greatly given to the grave and the instructive ; in this, perhaps, following the bent of the age. The article on BREW- STER'S Life of Sir Isaac Newton, that on CHALMERS'S Political Economy, the one on Inland Transport, and another on the Record Commission, are all remarkable for their anxiety after truth, for the moderation of their tone, and the judiciousness of their views. The article on BREWSTER'S Life just applies the proper correctives to that able but still hasty work. The article on Inland Trausport is remarkable for the profound and yet popular manner in which the author has gone into the very principles of traction of every description. His elementary account of the steam-engine is parti- cularly admirable. The whole paper, by its subject and its method of treatment, confers a high value on this Number of the Edin- burgh. The literary papers are below par ; and the political ones, more especially that on the working of the Reform Bill, old-wo- munish in the extreme.

The following is an extract from the introduction to the article on Inland Transport. Its subject is the effects of the rapid com- munication consequent upon the universal establishment of rail- roads.

Railways are in progress between the points of greatest intercourse in the United Kingdoms, and travelling steam-engines are in preparation in every quarter for the common turnpike roads; the practicability and utility of that application of the steam-engine having not only been established by experiment to the satisfaction of their projectors, but proved before the Legislature so con- clusively, as to be taken for the foundation of Parliamentary enactments. The important commercial and political effects attending such increased fa- cility 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 consi- derable part) of every article of necessity or luxury, consists of the cost of trans- porting it from the producer to the consumer ; and, consequently, every abate- neat 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 con- sumer 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 sur- plus 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 transpert of the produce of the soil is greater than that of manufactures. If 200 quarters of corn be necessary to raise 400, and 100 more be required to bring the 400 to market, then the net surplus will be 100. But if by the use Of steam-carriages the same quantity can be brought to market with an expen- diture of SO quarters, then the net surplus will be increased from 100 to 150 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 reduction in the cost of transport- ing 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 !ill 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 en- able 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 on increased extent of cultivatedland, 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 en- gaged in various ways in the transport of passengers and goods, and that to sup- port each horse requires as much land as would, upon an average, support eight inen. Jf 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 caitulation correct, as much

land would become available for the support of huinabeings-as-would sufficat for an additional population of eight nullions,—or, whatramounts 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 suppovts-horses for trans.. port, would then support men, or produce corn for food. The objection that a quantity of land exists in the country capAile 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 in 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 exceeds nor in- deed equal, what would be sufficient for the number of horses 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 manufacture command a monopoly. The reduced price which we shall attain by cheapness and facility of trausport, will still fur- ther 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, u-ill form an increased market for that species of produce. So interwoven and complicated are the fibres which form the texture of the highly-civilized 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 inter- course. 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 lit 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 pro- digious quantity of Irish produce, which it had been previously 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 calcu- lated. 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. The ordinary habitations of various classes of citizens engaged in active business in the towns, will be at what now are re- garded considerable distances from the places of their occupation. The salubrity of cities will thus be increased by superseding the necessity of heaping the inha- bitants together, story upon story, within a confined space; and by enabling the town population to spread itself over a larger extent of surface, without incurring the inconvenience of distance. Let those who discard speculations like these as wild and improbable, recur to the state of public opinion, at no very remote pe- riod, 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 iutersect these islands, was re- garde(' 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, and even plough.. hug the great oceans of the world. If steam be not used as the only means of connecting the most distant habitable points of our planet, it is not because it is inadequate to the accomplishment of that end,. but because local and accidental causes limit the supply of that material from which at the present moment it derives its powers.