The difference there is in the specific gravities of ore, coal, and limestone, in different places, will render any estimate not correct for every place; though, generally speaking, I believe it may be received that the quantity of iron stone, coal, and lime stone, which it is necessary to raise to produce a ton of pig iron, will be about 6½ cubic yards.
In the evidence laid before the Lords’ Committees upon the London and Birmingham Railway, it is stated that the whole amount of “earth work” required for that railway, amounts to 22,779,431 cubic yards; of which a detailed statement is given in the minutes of evidence.
Dividing the twenty-three (nearly) millions of cubic yards of “earth work” which are to be excavated and embanked on the Birmingham Railway, by the number of cubic yards of ore, &c. which it is necessary to dig to make a ton of iron, will show, that if the wages which will be paid for levelling on that railway, were to be expended in digging iron ore, &c. the nation would be benefitted by having three millions and a half tons of iron more than it now possesses; while the labour expended on the railway will be not only worth nothing to the nation, but also worse; insomuch as it appears by the evidence before the Lords’ Committees that it will render 1250 acres of land, which are now cultivated and productive, sterile as a turnpike road.
It is supposed by Mr. Treasurer Booth, in his book on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, that three thousand miles of rail-road, will, eventually, be laid down in England.
Supposing these 3000 miles to require “earth work” (cuttings and embankments, i.e.) in the same proportion that the London and Birmingham Railway will do so, and also supposing that the wages which will be paid to the Irish, &c. labourers, who do the digging for this “earth work,” were, instead, to be paid to the workmen of the iron masters for raising ore, &c. &c. and converting it into iron, the nation would be richer by nearly one hundred million tons of iron, than it will be if these said wages are paid merely for “cutting and embanking” for railways.
Now though I do not mean to insinuate that this hundred million tons of metallic worth, would increase what is now termed the “monetary wealth” of the nation, yet, as surely as their ignorance (and consequent want) of iron, rendered Mexico and Peru such easy conquests to the iron of the Spaniards, as to make them most striking examples of the truth of Solon’s warning to Crœsus, “He who has more iron, will soon be master of all this gold,” so surely would the possession of this hundred million tons of iron, be enormously more advantageous to the nation, than the cuttings and embankments required for these 3000 miles of railway will be.
Although iron be not, at the present day, either with ourselves, or in any other part of the world, the symbol of value, medium of exchange, and money, which Lycurgus made it in Sparta, when that state was in her glory, yet has it, as a commodity which will obtain us the gold and silver of Mexico and Peru in exchange for it, a value, which will procure us the amount of its worth in those metals, as certainly as any other commodity that we export. In whatever proportion, therefore, this hundred million tons of iron would procure us either the gold or silver, the corn and flour, the silks and cottons, the wines and wools, the tea and coffee, the sugar and spices, &c. &c. of other countries, would devoting the wages which will be expended in cutting and embanking for these 3000 miles of railway, to the raising and smelting of iron ore, be more valuable to the nation at large, than if so employed.
Nor is this all; since the substitute I propose for railways, would give us food for one hundred thousand people, which these railways will deprive us of.
The documents laid before the Lords’ Committees, state, that this Birmingham railway will cover and throw out of cultivation, 1250 acres of land. Supposing the proportion thrown out by the 3000 miles of railway to be the same, the whole amount will be 33,333 acres. Allowing these acres to produce three quarters of corn each, is no very excessive allowance. [45] And each individual of the kingdom being estimated to consume a quarter of corn every year, here is land that would produce bread for one hundred thousand people thrown out of cultivation by the railway system.
Now as, in addition to its being perfectly practicable for my tunnels to be buried underground, it would be decidedly best for themselves, and for the operation of the principle, that they should be so; and as ploughing, sowing, reaping, mowing, and all other operations of agriculture, may go on over them, as over any drain, or water-pipe, there is, in addition to the metallic difference which my plan would make to the riches of the nation, the circumstance, that, besides providing this exchangeable metallic wealth, or exportable value, it would also provide us, every year, with food for one hundred thousand more people, than the railway system can provide for.