46 REVERIES ON RAIL-ROADS. 



and passengers at an accelerated rate ; it must also be proved that the 

 quantity of goods and the number of passengers, that may reason- 

 ably be expected to be carried along the proposed line, will be so 

 great as to meet the annual expenses incidental to it, and at the same 

 time yield an adequate remuneration for the outlay of capital ; and, 

 further, that the existing means of conveyance are inadequate to the 

 purposes they profess to answer ; that the establishment of rail-roads 

 is imperiously called for by the wishes and wants of the country 

 through which it will pass, as well as of the towns at its extremities ; 

 and that the advantages to be derived will more than counterbalance 

 the evil it will occasion. All this must be proved ; otherwise it will 

 be only creating a new species of property at the expense of the old; 

 for one of the first effects of this new system of communication will 

 be to occasion a violent change in the value of property in some in- 

 stances, and total destruction in others. We believe that it will be 

 readily admitted that the towns and villages situated upon the line 

 of a great road derive much of their prosperity from that circum- 

 stance ; and, therefore, property is more valuable in those places 

 than in others less fortunately circumstanced. Now, the effect of a 

 rail-road will be to deprive these towns of the advantages they now 

 enjoy ; in other words, to diminish the value of the property pre- 

 cisely in the same ratio as it was previously increased, by taking 

 away all the traffic and travelling therein. In opposition to this ar- 

 gument, we know that it will be urged that other property along the 

 proposed line of railway will become valuable in a corresponding 

 degree, and that the mischief which will accrue from the deprecia- 

 tion of property in one place will be more than counterbalanced by 

 its increase in another. Now, supposing this were susceptible of a 

 demonstration, it would even then be a matter deserving serious con- 

 sideration, whether, unless for the purpose of obtaining some immense 

 advantages, such a change in the property of the country in its pre- 

 sent condition would be advisable. 



In the first place, it would greatly diminish the value of the 

 agricultural produce of the country, by reducing the demand for 

 horse-power. 



2dly. By throwing a numerous class of men, who at present earn 

 their subsistence by that means and by the present mode of travel- 

 ling, out of employ, not only a great mass of social misery would be 

 the consequence, but the burdens of the country, in the shape of 

 poor-rates, greatly increased. 



3dly. They are demoralizing in their effects, from their tendency 

 to concentrate the population of the country in large towns. We 

 are aware that what has been alledged, with regard to the value of 

 property, may with equal justice be adduced in the second instance 

 that men thrown out of one species of labour would soon find em- 

 ployment in other channels, which this new system of communication 

 would create. This is the favourite theory of the political economist ; 

 but, after all, it is but a theory and a heartless one the practicable 

 application of which none but an enthusiast would ever dream of 

 seeing successfully realized in a country where the price of labour is 

 so closely graduated upon the means of subsistence that the inter- 



