ABSTRACT
Before concluding our account of the Railway, we shall take a single glance at the position we occupy, and the probable changes, whether for good or evil, which may be expected to occur (as the consequence of our operations) in the state and circumstances of the community around. The first and most obvious result must needs be a great revolution in the established modes of conveyance, both for merchandise and passengers, between Liverpool and Manchester; and consequently in the private interests of a large class of persons, who have been engaged, directly or indirectly, in the coaching or carrying business. An undertaking like the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, completed at a cost, including its machinery and carriages, of upwards of £800,000. for a line of thirty-one miles, and professing to be decidedly superior to existing establishments, cannot be brought imperceptibly or silently into operation. But though a great change must take place in the application of capital, and the distribution of revenue, amongst large companies and wealthy proprietors, the effect on the whole, with reference to the employment of the labouring classes, may be considered as decidedly favourable. It has frequently been matter of regret, that in the progress of mechanical science, as applicable to trade and manufactures, the great stages of improvement are too often accompanied with severe suffering to the industrious classes of society. The machinery of the present day continually supersedes that of a few years back; and as the substitution of mechanism for manual labour is the object generally aimed at, immediate privation to the labouring community seems the inevitable result. It has consequently been a subject of speculation, how far the rapid extension of manufactures, by the instrumentality of successive improvements in machinery, is advantageous to a country, as regards its moral and social condition. I recollect that, during the progress of the Railway Bill through Parliament, when some members of the Railway Committee waited on Lord Harewood, and urged the advantages to trade and manufactures to be anticipated from the facilities of communication to be afforded by the Railway, his Lordship demurred at once to our proposition, that any new impetus to manufactures would be advantageous to the country. And before this point can be settled, we must determine the broader and more general question, whether it be desirable that a nation should continue in the quiet enjoyment of pastoral or agricultural life, or that it should be launched into the bustle and excitement of commerce and manufactures. We must refer to the history of the world, and compare the characters and capabilities for happiness, of different ages and nations. We must decide between qualities of different kinds and claims of opposite characters—between the simple and the refined; between the passive and the active; between a state of society presenting fewer temptations, and adorned by humbler virtues, and one where, amidst the collision of interests and the excitements of passion, there is room at least for the exercise of the highest qualities, both moral and intellectual. We must determine in what happiness consists: whether in the cultivation and exercise of all the active powers and faculties which belong to us as men, and citizens, and freemen; or whether it be wise to limit our ambition to more sober and tranquil enjoyments, to a state of society, where, if there be fewer pleasures there are also fewer pains, and where, at least, may be realized the poet’s definition of contentment—“Health, peace, and competence.” Fortunately, we are not required to make choice between two conditions of society, separated, in the history of man, and in the ordinary course of events, by centuries of gradual and imperceptible transition. It must be admitted that the golden age is past, and it is to be feared the iron age has succeeded; that, with reference to many of us, our lines are fallen amidst eternal rivalries and jealousies—agricultural, manufacturing, and commercial. The stern principle of competition is prominent in every department of industry. The most strenuous activity is hardly sufficient, in the present day, to secure to the artizan, or his employer, a scanty return for his labour or capital. Every invention, by which time is saved and business expedited, is seized with avidity, and in self-defence. Every increased facility of production, though its inevitable tendency be to glut the market and to lower prices, yet, as it affords immediate gain to its possessor, is eagerly resorted to. If profit be reduced to the smallest per centage on capital, every one is active to realize this minimum, as expeditiously as possible: one step diminished in the process of a manufacture, or the saving of a few hours in the period of conveyance from one town to another, forms part of a nice calculation, every small item in which must be attended to, in order to secure a very moderate remuneration. Hence all the contrivances for abridging labour, for shortening distances, and expediting returns. Every one is on the alert in his own department, or he is left behind; the most active exertion being barely sufficient to enable a man to maintain his station in the world. The race of competition is universal and unceasing—every manufacture striving against every other; cotton and silk and woollen reciprocally against each other, and against themselves, and iron against iron, in all its multifarious branches. Every class, and every individual, in every department of industry, hurrying along, struggling with fortune and the times, and jostling his fellow-sufferers; while the Land-owner boldly enters the list against the field—“Protection” his motto—viewing with complacency the desperate efforts of the rival competitors, and especially the never-ceasing race of population against subsistence—the great first mover in the busy drama.
