35© LAND REFORM 



years 1848, 1849, 1850 were that the working classes 

 were provided with fair employment during a period 

 of uninterrupted trade, . . . they were able to com- 

 mand, by means of wages, a larger amount of comfort 

 and sustenance than probably in any previous part 

 of the century. ... It appears that in 1848 the 

 number of men actually employed as navvies, and in 

 other capacities, on the sites of the various lines of 

 railways in course of construction, was 188,000. Be- 

 sides this army of persons directly employed on the 

 works, there were the further large number of 

 artisans engaged in different workshops of the 

 country in preparing iron rails, building locomotives, 

 carriages, and other processes indispensable to the 

 work. . . . During the years 1847-8 the railway 

 expenditure may be safely assumed to have given 

 employment to at least 300,000 workmen, and that as 

 a general result hardly less than a million of persons 

 (men, women, and children) were dependent during 

 these two years on employment flowing from railway 

 works in progress."^ 



In addition to the rapid development of the under- 

 takings named, both at home and abroad, there was 

 the discovery of gold in California in 1848. The 

 effect of that discovery was almost immediately felt in 

 this country by an increased general demand for 

 goods, and specially by a rapid increase in our export 

 trade with the United States. The discovery of gold 

 in Australia in 1851 had the same striking results. 

 Our exports to that colony of all kinds of commodities 

 increased in a remarkable manner. The demand for 



1 Tooke's " Historj' of Prices," Vol. V. The population of England 

 and Wales at this lime may be estimated at about 16^ millions. 



