LOCOMOTION AND TRANSPORT. 



consumption from this cause is generally in a larger ratio than 

 the diminution of price. The number of consumers able and 

 willing to pay one shilling for any proposed article is much more 

 than twice the number who are able and willing to pay two 

 shillings for the same article. 



But consumption is also augmented in another way by this 

 diminution of price. The saving effected by consumers who, 

 before the reduction, purchased at the higher price, will now be 

 appropriated to the purchase of other articles of use or enjoyment, 

 and thus other branches of industry are stimulated. 



12. The improvements which cheapen transport, necessarily in- 

 cluding the expenditure of less labour in effecting it, might seem, 

 at first view, to be attended with injury to the industry employed 

 in the business of transport itself, by throwing out of occupation that 

 portion of labour rendered superfluous by the improvement. But 

 experience shows the result to be the reverse. The diminished 

 cost of transport invariably augments the amount of commerce 

 transacted, and in a much larger ratio than the reduction of cost ; 

 so that, in fact, although a less amount of labour is employed in 

 the transport of a given amount of commodities than before, a 

 much larger quantity of labour is necessary by reason of the vast 

 increase of commodities transmitted. The history of the arts 

 supplies innumerable examples of this. When railways were first 

 brought into operation, it was declared, by the opponents of this 

 great improvement (for it had opponents, and violent ones), that 

 not only would an immense amount of human industry connected 

 with the business of land carriage be utterly thrown out of 

 employment, but also that a great quantity of horses would be 

 rendered useless. Experience was not long in supplying a striking 

 proof of the fallacy of this prevision. 



13. The moment the first great line of railway was brought into 

 operation between Liverpool and Manchester, the traffic between 

 those places was quadrupled ; and it is now well known that the 

 quantity of labour, both human and chevaline, employed in land 

 carriage where railways have been established, has been increased 

 in a vast proportion, instead of being diminished. 



In 1846 there were seventy-three stage-coaches or lines of 

 omnibus employed in the transport of passengers to and from the 

 several stations of the North of France Railway, which supplied 

 176 arrivals and departures, had 5776 places for passengers, 

 and employed daily 979 horses. In the six months ending 31st 

 December, 1846, these coaches transported 486948 passengers. 



Improvements in transport which augment the speed, without 

 injuriously increasing the expense or diminishing the safety, are 

 attended with effects similar to those which follow from cheapness. 



