The Sun.
London, England, 1841-08-23 00:00:00

RAILWAY RETURNS.

We extract from the Railway Magazine the sums re-
ceived on the principal railways of Great Britain for the
week ending an the day of the month prefixed to each.
The return applies only to railways with a revenue ex-
ceeding 1,000/., and includes the money received for pas-
sengers, parcels, carriages, horses, mails, and merchar:-
dize

Aug. 13. Birmingham and Gloucester £2,177
14. Glasgow and Ayr 1,250
14. Paisley and Greenock
7. Grand Junction and Chester and Crewe 10,603
16. Great North of England 1,451
15. Great Wes-tern
13. Liverpool and Manchester
14. Loudon and Birmingham 17,892
19. London and Blackwall 1,256
19. London and Brighton
17. London and Croydon
14. London and South-Western 7,175
9. Manchester and Leeds 5,082
14. Midland Counties 2,854
14. Newcastle and Carlisle 1,851
15. Northern and Eastern
14. North Midland
16. York and North Midland 1,838

The following calculation of the last weekly returns
of 31 railways, 1,142 miles 'in length, will be in-
teresting to many readers :—Number of passengers on
twenty-one railways, 293,295, consequently the total for
the week must be above 400,000. The receipts' fur pas-
sengers on thirty-one railways, 74,3991. 9s. 9d. ; ditto
for goods on twenty-five railways, 15,0391.45. 6d.—Total
89,4381. 14s. 3d. This is an average of 78/.los. per mile
per week. The traffic, therefore, is certainly at the rate
of more than three millions a year, and carrying fifteen
millions of passengers.

SOME EFFECTS OF THE MANU-

FACTURING SYSTEM.
(No. II.)
TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.

Manchester, August H.
Sie,—ln my former communication I mentioned some
of the moral effects of our manufacturing system as a set
off to those evils which your City Arcadians continually
ascribe to it. I shall now advert to an economical effect
which seems to me worthy of the attention of those who
presume to guide the nation.
Nothing is more common than to hear of capital em-
ployed in machinery displacing labour and throwing
men out of employment. In fact that is one of the stock
arguments of the Tories, with which they seek,to hide the
enormous errors of their presumptuous legislation. If these
gentlemen knew what they were talking about, or even at-
tended to the meaning of terms, they would come to a
different conclusion. Capital gains nothing except bysetting
labour in motion ; and it is absurd, therefore, to suppose
that any increase of capital can throw labour out of em-
ployment. There are sometimes changes in the direction
of labour. A loom moved by power, for example, is
substituted for a loom moved by the hand ; a self-acting
spinning mule is made to supply the place of a mule
which requires the attendance of a spinner. Machinery
is continually made to do the work which was before
done by man's hand, but by capital employed in machinery
infallibly gives employment both to those who make and
those who use it. No where in the world, I believe,
certainly no spot that ever I have seen, is there so much
done by machinery, and by capital emplOyed in machinery,
as in this town, and no town in the empire, with the ex-
ception, perhaps, of Glasgow, has increased so rapidly in
population, or supplied so much employment for labour.
This general result, in conjunction with the fact that
capital can only obtlin a profit by setting labour, the
source of all wealth, in motion, is I think a complete re-
futation of the general assertion that employing capital
in machinery displaces labour, and throws men out of
employment.
But I must quote a particular instance to show how
the employment of capital in machinery really affects
labour. It is now about eleven years since the railway
was opened between Manchester and Liverpool. At that
time locomotive engines were first brought into use, and
they come strictly under the description of capital em-
ployed in machinery. What amount of labour have
they displaced ? One effect of using these has been to
promote travelling. A much greater number of persons
now pass daily between Liverpool and Manchester and
between Liverpool and London than passed before they
came into use. A great number of engines, conse-
quently, each requiring an engineer and a stoker, giving
a great quantity of employment to guards, porters, watch-
men, clerks, colliers, coke-burners, &c., is now employed
on railroads. The only persons deprived of work by this
employment of capital in machinery, are a few post-
boys, coachmen, and stablekeepers, but they fall far be-
low the number to which this improved method of tra-
velling has given employment. A great change has
taken place in employment, by which, undoubtedly, some
individuals have suffered, but on the whole, this employ-
ment of capital in machinery has increased the demand
for several different kinds of labourers.
To have a complete view, however, of the question, the
employment which making this machinery has given to
a multitude of persons must be taken into consideration.
I have visited one establishment which is chiefly devoted
to making locomotive engines, that of Messrs. Sharp and
Roberts, in which 700 men are employed. There are
many other establishments where locomotive engines are
made, not only in Manchester, but in several other
places; and thus this entirely new art—for it had no ex-
istence before 1829—this employment of capital in
machinery, actually sets at work and provides with com-
fortable subsistence several thousand persons. To the
number actually engaged in manufacturing locomotive
engines in different places, must be added the number
employed in getting and smelting the iron used in
making them, in obtaining the coal and forming the
coke consumed at the forges at which the locomotive
machines are manufactured ; and we must also add the
number employed in providing these workmen with food
and subsistence. Including all those concerned in any
way in making and in using locomotive engines, it must
be plain that this new art has provided employment and
subsistence for a great body of people.
But this one art is only a specimen of the whole ma-
nufacturing system. There are several similar arts,
such as the making self-spinning mules, making the in-
struments which make the cards for cleaning cotton,
making lathes for tuning and planes for planeing iron,
which have of late years been called into existence.
It is a mistake to suppose that the thousand tall chimneys
which vomit forth their smoke in Manchester, are all
devoted to cotton spinning, and that in Manchester only
children are employed in cotton factories. With the
cotton manufacture a great multitude of most ingenious
arts are connected, all of which are comparatively of mo-
dern origin, and are distinguished by much capital being
employed in machinery. The very chimneys, though
masonry and bricklaying are not modern arts, are all
monuments of vast labour, to which employment has been
given by the use of machinery. Indeed, nothing strikes
a person more here than the immense masses of solid and
enduring brickwork, superior even to the brick-work of
old Rome, which—as factories carrying enormous weights,
and having floors as true as a water-level, as railway
viaducts and termini, and as chimneys taller and
straighter than any of the proud columns of antiquity_
are seen in every part of this industrious busy town.
They are all the result and accompaniments of the new
arts which, like that of making locomotive engines, have
latterly been called into existence. By their means
thousands, and even millions of persons have found em-
ployment and food ;
and those arts have carried Man-
chester to its present size, and the empire to its present
greatness.
In truth, what has occurred at Manchester has also
occurred in all the manufacturing districts ; and the
creation of new arts, and the increase of employment,
arc the necessary consequences of the manufacturine.
system. We see its effects, too, not only in the spot
w hne the manufacture is established, but throughout
the agricultural districts, to which it has given prosperity
unknown before. No Corn-law could keep up the price
of corn, or stimulate its production, were there no con-
sumers, and no new wealth wherewith to purchase it.
Every other stimulus to agriculture is as dust in the ba-
lance compared to the inc pease of customers. It is
the new arts which have sprung up in the manufactur-
ing district.:, and constituting the manufacturing system,
which, providing employment and wages for a vast po-
pulation, have caused the prosperity of the landowners,
and have swollen rent tenfold. They have been the
cause of that great extension of cultivation since the
peace which fools have ascribed to a wicked and cruel
law, and which they have most ignorantly attempted to
check by destroying the farmers' customers.
It is impossible fur any person to ascertain the number
of beings whom these new arts have added to our popu-
lation, to whom they have given a comfortable sub-
sistence. st
tin
eo
ile, e .
To them, probably, is due the existence of at
least people and half of our present
wealth. them,sent there must have been fewer
ha half of ourtfo present
people and greater poverty.. Not only as they have come
into existence have they stimulated agriculture, but suc-
cessive inventions and successive applications of capita
y l
to machinery have staved ofl; from day to da, and year
to year, that dreadful pressure of population on subsist-
ence to which some philosophers have ascribed all the
evils, miseries, and crimes of society. Had they not
been called into existence, draining off the surplus hands
which improvements fin agriculture, and economy of
labour in the rural districts, threw out of employment,
without there finding them other occupation, our popula-
tion would have been degraded below the level of the
Hindoos or the Chinese. They would have eaten one
another. Our circumscribed island, wanting the manu-
facturing system, and wanting the commerce connected
with it, would have been like a ship at sea, destitute of
provisions, - and hunger would have reduced our now
moral and benevolent-minded people, to the terrible con-
' 449 a of distress, 4 3gradation, and criminality, which