RAILWAYS, HIGHWAYS, AND CANALS. 163 



means of internal intercourse ; and there are few subjects of public 

 importance in which their injurious effects are not felt. 



There is another preliminary point also of great importance in- 

 deed, of more importance than the one we have mentioned to which 

 Mr. Grahame alludes, and which bears more closely on the main 

 subject of his inquiry. It is the comparative merits and the compa- 

 rative encouragement given to animal power and to mechanical 

 power; the first including human labour as well as that of other 

 animals. He contends that taxation, and especially the prohibitory 

 duty on the importation of corn under ordinary states of the market, 

 have greatly enhanced the expense of animal power, and compelled 

 the manufacturing capitalist to substitute mechanical power in its 

 place, wherever such a substitution is practicable ; that the capitalists 

 have sufficient parliamentary influence for preventing the imposition 

 of any tax upon this species of power^ at all comparable with that to 

 which animal power has been subjected j and he shews, and we think 

 successfully, in a subsequent part of his work, that this inequality of 

 taxation is almost the sole cause why, in many instances, mechanical 

 power appears to be the cheaper of the two. 



Now, it is perfectly evident that, in a sound and wholesome state 

 of legislation, no one power, or means of serving the public, should 

 have an undue preference over another ; and that if any one is to be 

 burdened beyond its fair proportion, the labour of man and of do- 

 mestic animals, or, which is the same thing, the means of their 

 maintenance, is the very last one which a wise legislature would so 

 burden; because it is here, and here only, that excessive taxation 

 can be directly productive of suffering to that portion of the people 

 who are least capable of finding new resources when those to which 

 they are accustomed fail. There is a sort of charm about the imple- 

 ments of mechanical power by which the attention of mankind is very 

 apt to be carried away, till their understandings are bewildered, and 

 they are apt to estimate these things at far more than they are really 

 worth. They admit of sounding descriptions ; and can be, and are 

 lectured upon to wondering audiences, till all the world wonders at 

 them as chefs-d'oeuvre of construction, while the animal, which is be- 

 yond all comparison the more curious and perfect structure of the 

 two, passes unknown and unheeded, farther than as it may perform 

 the greatest labour at the least possible expense. This adoration of 

 the dead idol as it were, and neglect of the living subject, is a very 

 prominent vice of the present day ; and, though there may be some 

 excuse found for it in the vast achievements which have been made 

 by means of machinery, yet the excess to which it has been carried 

 is fraught with much mischief, and mischief of a very heartless de- 

 scription. The remarks which Mr. Grahame makes on this subject 

 are few ; but they are much to the purpose, and, to a reflecting mind, 

 they speak volumes. 



The numerous operations which, in the case of a steam engine, for 

 instance, a few pounds of iron, gallons of water, and bushels of coal can 

 be made to perform, are trulv worthy of admiration ; but we ought at 

 the same time to consider what might have been the result if the 

 same care and study had been devoted generally to the improvement 



