The Sun.
London, England, 1859-12-22 00:00:00

STBAM ON COMMON ROADS.

Now that a British steam carriage is in actual
and regular service in the United States, while not
one American carriage is in such service in this or
any other country ; now that English machinists
are supplying not only the roads of South America,
India, and Australia, but districts all over the world
that have no roads, with traction engines,•while
American mechanics, whose plans are already proved
to be better, have not secured the least liberal en-
couragement; now that steam vehicles are employed
in the streets of London to haul loads which horses
cannot conveniently draw, while the more practicable
carriages which sometimes venture in our streets
draw only the anathemas of our progressive people;
now that steam waggons are in the actual service
of the British Government, while the authorities of
our own city have refused to license public steam
vehicles to run within its limits—it is time for us
to glorify ourselves upon a second stride in national
progress and wealth. The first was the surrender
of our transatlantic trade to the iron screw ships of
foreign countries. We are wont, in every-day
phrase, to style ourselves a "smart people," and
the English " plodders" and " old fogies ;" yet it
somehow happens that our neighbours are a trifle
in advance of us chronologically, if not intrinsically,
in the little matter of steamships, in the minor item
of steam agriculture, in the trifling sundries of
puddled steel and coal-burning locomotives. Our
prowess in the manufactures of clocks, tools, and
Yankee notions is indeed unquestioned, and our
sailing vessels may be counted by the hundred (in
our docks), but people are so exacting now•a-days
that they will doubt our entire pre-eminence in the
art of engineering if we allow the Europeans to
slip ahead of us in any particular. Let us, there-
fore, devote a passing thought to the subject of
steam on common roads, to see if there is really
anything in it worthy of our distinguished consi-
deration. Steam carriages ran successfully on
common roads in Great Britain before railways were
introduced, and were driven off by the extreme and
' unrelenting opposition of the land and stage
owners, backed by the House of Lords. Railways
evaded and by more brilliant promises overcame
this opposition, and superseded the common road
service of both steam and horse coaches. What was
the result? In attempting to cover the whole ground
their proprietors have saddled themselves with
1,500,000,000 dols worth of way and equipment, two
thirds of which have been sunk because the traffic
was not in proportion to the outlay. The conclu-
sion, therefore, that railways at 170,000 dols per
mile, and capable of a regular speed of 50 miles an
hour, are hardly necessary for a traffic which may
be economically accommodated at 15 miles per hour
on the public highway, and at a less working cost
than that of horses at six miles per hour—this con-
clusion is not sufficiently outrageous to evoke legis-
lative opposition in England. Meanwhile, in the
United States the stock of railways that penetrate
the wilderness of new States for hundreds of miles
have not been above par in most cases. Even in
well-settled New England districts short branch
roads have not been found to pay interest, even at
slow speeds. Railways between cities and through
populous towns are indeed the foundations of
our national wealth ; but the accommodation
of small, short, stage-coach traffic, and the
feeding of main lines by splendid, level, and costly
roads of iron have been found to pay about as
well as would the running of the Great Eastern
between New York and Staten Island. Shall our
rural districts, i.e., several hundred thousand miles
of highway—depend for ever on horse-power at six
miles an hour, or can this speed be doubled, or
quadrupled, and that at a reduced expense ? Here
are boundlesa regions cut off from progress, isolated
from enterprise, and dammed outsof the channel of
wealth, by the simple want of cheap and rapid
communication with great steam highways. Is it
totally impossible to open up this cemparative
wilderness by any known means short of railroads
at 40,000 dols. a-mile ?—New York Times.