I have asked, and I still ask of them only one thing: a full, and fair investigation. By the result of that I am content to abide; though I must, in common justice stipulate, that this investigation shall be entered on in a different spirit to what it has hitherto been my lot to meet with. “There is always a proneness” says Washington Irving, “to consider a man under examination as a kind of delinquent, or impostor, whose faults and errors are to be detected and exposed.” Most truly can I say that I have “always” experienced the effects of this “proneness” in reference to this subject: and that the object of those who deemed my proposition worthy throwing away a fragment of their time upon, was infinitely less to ascertain its truth and justice, than to display their own penetration and wit, in discovering and turning to ridicule, every part which admitted (as they thought) of being sneered at and made the subject of a jest.
Had it been my good fortune to have met with but one candid examinant of influence, I had been spared years of trouble and anxiety. But my proposition being deemed deserving only of contempt, candid examination has no more been vouchsafed me, than to the wanderings of a lunatic.
Should, however, the iron masters, instead of granting me this candid investigation, continue, “in the pride of half knowledge,” (as Dr. Wells terms it) to condemn what I propose, because they have found that a something has failed, which is as different from it, as would be, saying that it is impossible we can ever get to the North Pole, because Captain Cook could not get within 30° of the South, I venture to commit myself to the prediction that they will repent it, as bitterly as Genoa repented her rejection of Columbus’s proposition, to discover, and possess her of America.
“They inconsiderately rejected his proposal, as the dream of a chimerical projector,” says Dr. Robertson, of the Genoese, “and lost, for ever, the opportunity of restoring their commonwealth to its ancient splendour.”
For, equally certain as it is that iron, though the best, is not the only material of which tunnels can be constructed, is it, that unless this proposition is very differently treated by them to what it has hitherto been, will they drive the manufacturing of tunnels from their own line into another: and that, too, notwithstanding that opportunities are arising which, in addition to bringing them to their own doors, would give such facilities as relates to the transmission of the large stocks of iron which the uncertainty, and occasional long interruptions of the present method of conveyance, compel them to keep in London, as to do away with the necessity for keeping those stocks.
The Welch papers announce the plan of a railway which is to connect the iron districts and ports of that country with London. In this plan, Merthyr Tydvil, the centre of the South Wales iron manufacture, is stated to be 176 miles from London.
Now, even supposing that this railway, instead of costing the many thousands per mile which it must cost, could be laid down for nothing, still, the circumstance of the bare expenses of conveyance on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, amounting to 4¼d. per ton, per mile, exclusive of the charges necessary to pay one farthing of interest, or return on the capital sunk in laying that railway down—and for which 3¾d. per ton, per mile, is charged, in addition to the 4¼d. required to cover the bare expenses—the mere expenses of railway conveyance, exclusive of interest or return on the capital invested, being so great as this, it appears that, even were this railway laid from their own doors to the metropolis, the iron masters could not, including the charge to pay interest or return upon the money sunk in laying the railway down, get their material to London for less than 4l. 10s. per ton; which, on an article the selling price of which (pigs) in London is only about the same amount, is in effect a prohibition; especially with the expense of freight for coast conveyance, only 12s. per ton from South Wales to London.
But as the expense of carriage by a tunnel would be as much less than this over-sea freight, as that is less than railway conveyance; while, in addition to this superiority over both, a tunnel would save all the risk as well as the delays and uncertainty of over-sea transmission, London and the iron districts might be brought within so few hours of each other, as to obviate the necessity of the iron masters keeping the heavy stocks of their article in London which they are now obliged to maintain, and the capital so locked up become, in consequence, liberated for other purposes: while, were the tunnel extended to Milford Haven, as it has been announced the railway would be, that port, as well as Swansea, might be brought within a few hours of London; and the advantages of its (perhaps) unequalled harbour, rendered fully available to the nation at large for commercial purposes, as well as to Government for our fleets.
This consideration merits the serious attention of the advocates of the Bristol Railway. Swansea and Milford Haven being both more advantageously situated for all vessels from foreign ports that would make Bristol their port of delivery; and their harbours being (particularly the latter) incomparably superior to that of Bristol, a tunnel would, were it to be laid down between either of them and the metropolis, be the certain ruin of any railway from Bristol to London. The mere expenses of carriage on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway being 4½d. per ton per mile, and the whole charge 8d., it is evident that, supposing the Bristol Railway were to cost only half what the Liverpool and Manchester has cost (the “Capital, 3,000,000l.” placed at the head of the prospectus of the Bristol Railway, allows 25,000l. per mile for each of the 120 miles the map accompanying said prospectus shews the line will be in length) the whole change for carriage along its line could not be less than 6d. per ton per mile: the aggregate of which, 3l., would be equal to what cargoes have been brought from the East Indies for; and more than equal to freights from the West Indies, Mediterranean, &c. &c.; so that only such cargoes or freights, as stress of weather drove into Bristol, would be sent to London by the railway; while, by a tunnel from Milford or Swansea, they might be sent so cheaply, as actually to command the trade which it is supposed the Bristol Railway will command.
But to return from the long digression, into which the consideration of the question relative to the effect of the friction of the air, and the importance of the subject to the iron trade, has led me.