And now it will not be uninteresting to see what has become of all these coals. In the first place our export of them to all parts of the world was not very large, 8,733,327 tons in 1865, and 9,622,324 tons in 1866.[14] Secondly, they warmed (with the addition of some turf and a little wood), cooked, and made gas for the 30,157,239 persons who, according to the most recent returns, constitute the present population of the United Kingdom. Thirdly, we supplied with fuel, in 1865, some few foreign, and 2,718 British steam vessels, of which 1,745 were over fifty tons register, and 973 were fifty tons each and under; united, they represent a gross burden of 825,533 tons.[15] Fourthly, we furnished the principal consumption of coals for the engines of our iron-clads and our wooden-clads. Fifthly, our railway locomotives ran, as we have seen (in 1865), 139,527,127 miles, and taking the average consumption at about 35 lbs. a mile, which includes lighting up[16] and time that engines are standing in steam, waiting for duty, or acting as “pilots” (reserve and station engines), the total amount is 2,625,000 tons; and to this amount may be added the consumption in the locomotive and carriage shops, stores, and stations, 1,375,000, making the direct railway consumption 4,000,000 tons. Sixthly, independent of the coal used in the reduction of our other minerals to the state of metal, we produced, by means of 613 blast furnaces, in 1866, from 9,665,012 tons of iron ore, raised during the year, 2,576,928 tons of pig iron in England, 952,123 in Wales, and 994,000 tons in Scotland; total, 4,223,051 tons, which consumed at least 6,000,000 tons of coal; and, by means of some 6,000,000 more tons, we kept at work, in 1866, 256 iron works, in which there were 6,239 puddling furnaces, and 826 rolling mills.[17] Seventhly, our agricultural steam cultivation is beginning to count for something. And lastly, our coal assisted in the manufacture of most of the articles of our dress, and of most of the articles we require in our domestic economy. It is by means of the coal that we raise that we are able to manufacture the greater portion of the articles we export to every part of the civilised or uncivilised world. Thanks mainly to disembowelled coal, and to its noble adjunct, iron,[18] combined with the unceasing and undying energy of Englishmen, the money value of our exports has risen from £115,821,092 in 1854, to £188,827,785 in 1866. The returns for the first half of 1867 show a slight falling off as compared with those for the first half of 1856. Nevertheless, they were £88,000,000. Our colonies take between a third and one quarter, and of that proportion India alone takes a quantity approaching to one-half. To be sure, India has a gross area of 1,553,282 square miles, with a population of 193,100,963, of whom 144,674,615 belong to British India, 47,909,199 to native and independent states, 203,887 to France, and 313,262 to Portugal. Australia took from us £13,662,650 in 1866, being an increase of £323,409 over 1865, when her population was 1,599,580, an increase from 1861 of 333,148. In short,—let us say it again,—thanks to coal, energy, and iron, we deal with forty-eight independent states, and twenty-two of our colonies.[19] These seventy countries constitute, with our own little islands, practically every portion of the inhabited globe.[20]

The percentage of the working expenses of railways to the receipts was, for 1865, according to the returns of the Board of Trade, 48 per cent.; in 1862 it was the highest of the seven years, 49 per cent. But we fear that these returns are not very strictly accurate; recent inquiries and investigations have tended to show that some of the items charged to capital in the half-yearly accounts should have been debited to revenue. No doubt there has been exaggeration in several of the statements, which professional accountants have submitted to the committee of investigation by whom they have been employed. But whether this be so or not, the time has come when all charges must either be made against revenue or remain unpaid. Capital can no longer lend its friendly aid and assistance; therefore, in a year or so it will be seen how far the percentages hitherto published have been based on fact or on the fictions that have been alleged against them. The subject of working expenses is an important one, as affecting materially the question of dividend to shareholders. We therefore will give more detailed information respecting them when we connect them, in subsequent pages, with receipts and profits. In the meantime, we give, on the over-leaf, a return that has just been prepared from the three last half-yearly reports and statements of accounts published by the twelve following companies. We are aware that as regards one company, the London, Brighton and South Coast, the working expenses have been stated by the present board of directors at 10 per cent. higher than those we now publish, but we believe that these latter approach the nearer to correctness of the two.

Statement of Working Expenses on Receipts, for the eighteen months ending 30th June, 1867.

Name of Company.Rate per cent.
London and North-Western46·63
North-Eastern48·05
Great Western48·65
Midland47·26
Lancashire and Yorkshire44·87
Great Northern52·68
Great Eastern53·96
Manchester, Sheffield and Lincoln45·24
London and South-Western53·63
South-Eastern52·68
London and Brighton58·86
Bristol and Exeter49·76

We need not, at the present day, discuss the abstract question of the value of railways to the community, but it will be well to record some of the advantages which the population of Great Britain has obtained by their establishment. Let us begin with passenger traffic. Previous to 1837, the year of the opening of the line between Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool, the speed of stage coaches did not average eight miles an hour. The speed of mail coaches was a little under ten. It is true that in former times we were proud, as we ought still to be, of the roads which the skill and ingenuity of our engineers had, by means of what were then considered vast excavations, extensive embankments, bridges, viaducts, and other works, carried through the country. In one grand respect British roads differ from those magnificent constructions of a similar nature which Imperial Rome had accomplished when in the zenith of her splendour. Those were made without the slightest view to commercial objects. The power which it gave her to transport her legions from one extremity of her dominions to another was the sole consideration with her in inducing the formation of those great causeways, the remains of which have excited the admiration of succeeding generations, even to the present day.

In 1837, there were fifty-two mail coaches, and about 500 stage coaches. If we allow to each of them the full complement of passengers that it was authorised to carry, we shall probably arrive at a tolerably correct estimate of the number of persons who then used to travel daily in the United Kingdom. It is true that the average loads of mail and stage coaches was not considered to exceed two-thirds of their number when complete, but they should be considered as carrying full loads, to allow for passengers travelling only short stages. Thus viewed, the number of persons travelling by these conveyances throughout the Kingdom was (mail coaches seven, stage coaches fourteen, exclusive of guard and coachman) 7,364, or at the rate per annum (of 365 days) 2,687,860. If to these be added 25 per cent., as representing aristocracy with post horses, and plebiscity in waggons, and a few in canal boats, we arrive at a gross total of 3,359,825. To this number may be joined, say over a million who were passengers in river and coasting steamboats.[21] Every other traveller went by the means of locomotion beneficently granted to us by the all-wise and ever-provident Creator of all things human and divine.

In 1837 the population of the United Kingdom was 25,650,426 persons, so that, assuming our calculation to be correct, the number of travellers journeying only by road was little more than an eighth of its population. As already stated, seven years previous to 1837, the Liverpool and Manchester Railway (31 miles long) had been opened for traffic. But during all that period it was simply a local line unconnected with any places except its two termini, and its then comparatively unimportant intermediate stations. Nevertheless, by the substitution of steam for horse power, the number of passengers (about 21,600 per annum), previous to the opening of the railway, at once quadrupled, notwithstanding that the speed had only increased in the ratio from nine to seventeen miles an hour, the number of trains being six a day in each direction.

By 1837, when the average speed had increased to 25 miles an hour, this quadrupling had increased seven-fold: at the present time the maximum running speed on this portion of the London and North-Western Railway is forty miles an hour—the average speed of trains is about twenty-seven miles, and on week-days there are sixteen trains in each direction, on Sundays six. Yet there are now three competing lines to that of the London and North-Western between Liverpool and Manchester.