The Sun.
London, England, 1842-10-17 00:00:00

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LONDON
MONDAY MORNING. OCTOBER 17, 1842.

The Morning Post, in throwing doubts on
some observations on the effects of railways in
diminishing the general prosperity of the coun-
try, has some judicious remarks on the change ra-
ther than the lessening of employment, by the
use of new contrivances, which we should wish
that journal always to remember. Speaking. Of
such places es Hounslow and Barnet, our Con-

teal pbrary says—
But. we must demur to the soundness of the. con-
clusion that these " deserted villages" are the cause
ofthe general distress, since they no doubt. produce
much activity in other quarters, and the difference
between the large sums they receive, and the diviL:
dends paid to shareholders, must go into the pockets
of working people of some kind or another, and
thence to the purchase of such commodities as these
people consume. There is, however, much reason
to doubt that the innkeeping business has at all kept
pace with the increase of travelling in England. The
railroads enable people to do without the accommoda-
tion of inns. Formerly, if a man were coming up
from Liverpool, or Manchester, or York, to transact
business in London, he would probably spend a couple
of pounds by the way, going and returning, at the
roadside inns. Now he gets from his own home to
London, or from London to his own home, without
spending more than a shilling in some luncheon-pa.
lace on the railway line.
But if he does not eat at the inns he eats at home.
True; but then he pays only what the thing costs,
whereas at the inn he " distributed" about three or
four times the :cost of the viands. There may be
something in this. The railroads, while they pay ten
per cent. to rich people, who embarked capital in
them, cut away many of the profits of the poorer sort.
. The same doctrine, of course, applies to all
kinds of machinery, all the extra profit made by
which will certainly be invested in some kind
of new production or other, and find its way into
the pockets of some class of working people.
" Money-making men," says the Editor of the
Streggie,published in the heart of the manufactur-
ing districts, and well acquainted with the habits
of capitalists, " never accumulate; that is to say,
they never lay it by, for as it respects the actual
possession of cash, they are often amongst the
barest. They either sink it in trade, or place it
in the bank, whence it is lent on interest to
others who are short of capital. In either case
it is used in such a mariner as to find employ-
ment." What master manufacturers gain, there-
fore, by improved machinery, and by cheapening
production, they inunediately put out to use, and
the greater their gains the greater is the sum
which they so putout; the greater of course, also,
is the demand by capital for labour, and the more
the labourers are benefited. That is a clear and
plain deduction from the admission of the Post,
and we hope that our Contemporary will not
again accuse machinery of lowering wages, or
cheap production of injuring the labourer.
Having thus entered the Post on a right track
by its own impetus, we proceed to notice, which
is our chief object in making the quotation, the
beneficial change in morals and in employment
which our Contemporary proves to be the conse-
quence of railway travelling. Sojourning in inns
has long been felt to be a great discomfort to
domestic men, and has been long stigmatised as
unfavourable to morality by religious teachers.
Railways, in a great measure, enable travellers
to dispense with inns. They pass from their
home to the other extremity of the island in a
few hours, and rarely, or never, have occasion to
stop at an inn by
,the way. The old system of
travellers drinking every half-dozen miles is quite
at an end; if thereby innkeepers have suffered,
many homes, we believe, have been made hap-
pier, ned much money saved from taverns has
been spent in a more beneficial manner.
The change which that indicates in employ-
ment k not undeserving of notice. Travellers
stopping at inns spend considerable sums of
money on waiters, boots, aild chambermaids,
persons whose occupations, however respectable
the individuals, require no great degree of talent
or skill. So the use of stage coaches gave em-
ployment at every coach and posting-bonze to a
considerable number of ostlers, grooms, stable
loungers helps, riding boys,
about the tap, half
mendicants, half labourers, ready for any kind of
job—to ride a spare horse, to carry a parcel, to
run with a letter; - to deliver a message—a great •
bod 7 of persons who were never trained to any
continuous patient- toil, and were amongst the
least
sskilful and the least elevated Of the commu-
nity. At least it is consistent with all our early
impressions to believe that the multitudes who
collected about coaching inns were, next to
poachers, perhaps the least creditable portion (:).

the rural community. Railways have nearly Put
an end to their occupation, and must tend tol
lessen, if not to extinguish, such classes of men.
We are by no means of opinion that rail-
ways have caused any great diminution of
employment for horses and coaches, for where
one long stage before plied there are
now a great number of short stages,
of cabs and omnibuses. Little or no employ-
ment actually depending on the rearing
and maintaining horses has been lost. Some of
the persons connected with the long stages have
become omnibus and cab drivers, and probably,
by being dispersed, have. improvedin character
and station. So far as the servants of inns have
been superseded by porters and servants con-
nected with railways, the change is advantageous,
for the discipline maintained amongst the latter
makes them in general quite models of propriety.
They live not in public-houses, and do not, as
the rule, pass their spare hours in drinking and
smoking. Policemen on the railway line must be
watchful and steady, or they cannot retain their
situations. Next come the guards and conduc-
tors, who are continually under inspection, and
must be, at the least, as careful and steady
as the guard's of coaches. Great as is the
skill of a coachman, and many of them
were, latterly, most respectable, steady
men, it cannot be compared, we think, to the
skill of the engineer, who has superseded the
coachman. We know of no class of labourers
connected with coaching to be compared to the
stokers, who are always occupied during their
working hours ; or to the smiths, who make and
repair the stupendous machines, that are at once
horses and carriages, and give motion to time
whole mile long trains. A a great many more
carriages are required for railways than for com-
mon roads, and the use of the former has not
diminished the employment of coach builders
and coach smiths.

The principal and most noted change of em-
ployment is the substitution of the thousand in-
telligent and tolerably well educated mechanics
who contribute to the perfection of a railroad, fir
the stable boys and idlers who congregated about
great coach houses and great posting houses.
The mechanics live in a comparatively cultivated
and informed society, and we could, if it were
worth while, quote Lord BROUGHAM'S authority
for their being some of the most enlightened
and best behaved persons in the community.
Such a change in employment is every way ad-
vantageous. It is a type of those changes which
are going on in every part of society—which
would go on more rapidly were politicians to in-
terfere less—and of which the gist and principle
is to substitute skilful machinery, the produce of
the mind of man, fbr untutored animal power.
No persons have a higher opinion, we believe, of
railways, than ourselves. Great as is the celerity,
the ease, certainty, safety, and convenience of
railway travelling, are quite as surprising ; yet we
venture to doubt whether their moral benefits,
substituting home for inns, and intelligent me-
chanics for the loungers of the tap and the
stable-yard, be not quite as great as their phy-
sical advantages.

We made a-few observations, in the course of
last week, on the law of nations in reference to
the free navigation of rivers; and we then laid
down the principle that the interest of the people
governed is the basis of all the rights of every
Government. A larger or more comprehensive
principle can scarcely be desired or conceived,
for it concedes to every nation everything which
is for its benefit. According to our view of free
trade, which is every day, we believe, becoming
more prevalent, all the new tariffs enacted in
England, France, Germany, the United States,
Ste., are proofs that these nations are not really
aware of what commercial regulations and laws
are .for their benefit. At least great disputes pre-
vail here as to our own tariff, as they prevail in
America as to its tariff, and France, England, and
America, will all, probably, join in condemning
the tariff of the Zoll Verein. But if nations are
not. yet well aware what laws and regulations
will promote their own interest, if that interest is
the basis of all the rights of Governments, and
of all international law, it follows, that as nations
become enlightened as to their own true interest,
the rights and duties of their Governments must
be changed, and the international law must be
also changed. On this principle, we are averse
from pinning our faith to the dicta of GROTIUS
or VATTEL, or Herr Von MASTERS, 011 the rights
of Governments concerning rivers; particularly
when those assumed rights extend to interdict or
control commerce, with which Governments
have properly nothing whatever to do.
The necessity of occasionally revising and
changing international law, seems, in fact,
established by the frequent changes that have
been made in the customs of Europe. It was
formerly contended that a nation might do with
the rivers which pass through it as it liked; but
that was at length found to be wholly untenable,
and, at the Congress of Vienna, it was declared
that the navigation of all rivers which form the
boundaries. of States, or pass through several
States, " shall be entirely free, from the points
where they become navigable to their em-
brouchures, and that no one who conforms to the
police arrangement, shall be debarred the privi-
lege of navigating them for commercial pur-
poses." It was further declared, that " duties ex-
acted shall be regulated with a view to encourage
commerce and facilitate navigation." That was
a great change on the old principle, that every
State might do what it likes with the rivers which
pass through it, and shows conclusively, we think,
that we must not rely on ancient authorities to
inform us what ought to be the laws of nations.
It is well observed by the Spectator, from
which we copy this brief notice of the treaty of
Vienna, that by Lord ASHBURTON'S treaty so
much is not conceded to the United States as
England would have been bound to concede to
any other Power a party with her to the treaty
of Vienna. St. John's is a boundary river, and
the Americans may justly daiM to have as free
use of it as the inhabitants of New Brunswick,
for " commercial purposes." " The priyilege,,,
says the Spectator, " conferred upon American
produce is in reality a boon to the New Bruns-
wick ers." There never wasa more idl e cry than that
attempted to be raised against Lord ASHBURTON
for conceding this privilege to the Americans
without exacting some favour in return, unless
men are to insist upon being paid for serving
themselves." The last words put the right on its
true basis. It is the interest of New Brunswick
and of England that the right should exist ; and
those persons who would have the Government
claim a power to prevent the exercise of this
right by the Americans, require it to take upon
itself the power to injure its own people.
Both the theory we have laid down, and the
practice of the Congress of Vienna, seem to us to
establish the great principle, that the benefit of
the people is the basis of the rights of every Go-
vernment, and, of course, of all international law.
But as what promotes the benefit of nations is
yet only darkly known, it is the duty of intelli-
gent and enlightened nations, like the English and
Americans, and the intelligent and enlightened
journalists who bold the pen for them, to study
what will promote the benefit of, nations, and
to make the rights of Government and interna-
tional law conform thereto, instead of seeking
in the pages of writers what were the customs of
Sovereigns in less enlightened times than the
present, and endeavouring to keep our usages in
conformity to their barbarous practices. Let us,
for example, apply this doctrine to our own right
of search for British seamen. It is utterly
im-
possible that it can be for the benefit of the
people of England to impress the seamen ; it is
not, therefore, fur the national benefit to seek to
retain a power over them fur ever ; it is not, con-
sequently, q ue tl
Americanfo Vessels r our advantage
to insist on search-
for English seamen, and
the claim to search, them ought at once to be
gracefully resigned, so that another source of
contention between these two great nations may
be dried up for ever and ever.

The Tories say that the rate of wages rises and
falls with the price of provisions. Suppose it
true, let us see what follows. The Tories have
passed a tariff; the object of which is to lower

prices; but as; the rate of wages will be reduced
in proportion, the working classes will get ncr
benefit from it. That tariff principally affects
meat and things which are as the rule now beyond
the reach of the labouring classes. It lowers
prices, therefbre, to the opulent, whom the
Tories pretend not to benefit. The persons who
will chiefly benefit by this reduction of prices
are those who have nothing to sell but money,
who possess an annuity. In fact, the Tory mea-
sures, according to the Tory doctrine, will benefit
the money classes at the expense of the pro-
ducers, and not benefit the labourers. So their
policy, on their own theory, accords not with
their professions. If they are not errant political
swindlers, they are the most ignorant men that
I ever attempted to govern a State.

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