ur, whether it be in
agriculture or manufacture.

Easy communication lessens the time occupied in the transport; and a
saving of time lessens the distance, or our notion of distance. This
effects a saving of money: and a saving of money permits of a greater
employment of capital. The man who can only afford to keep one traveller
soliciting orders for his goods, will thus be enabled to keep two;
because the expense of travelling will be reduced a half. Or it may be,
he will find it more advantageous to employ the saving in the production
of a more delicate and desirable article in the way of his trade. The
increased traffic from place to place will give likewise an impulse to
business, which, in the present stagnant times, is most desirable. The
manufacturer in Scotland will find the London market more easily arrived
at: and the merchant in the metropolis will be able to get his orders
more rapidly given and executed. A conveyance which, in good management,
would be a weekly one, is, in bad management, a monthly one: and the
carrier is obliged to quadruple his charge for the transport. To meet
this charge the merchant has to add to the cost of the article, and so
on throughout the various gradations of mercantile transition, until the
consumer pays the necessarily increased price. Hence, whatever reduces
the price of transportation, reduces the price of the commodity
transported. Whatever reduces the traveller's time, reduces his claim
for compensation, and (competition being always at work) he is content
with a smaller profit upon his merchandise. If a scarcity of any article
occurs at one point of the kingdom, the monopolist there cannot continue
his increased price for any duration of time. Commerce may, in this
respect, be resembled to water, for, if not obstructed, it will always
circulate till it finds its level. An opening or channel being
furnished, an equalised supply will make its way wherever required.

Thus we see that the strength, wealth, and happiness of a nation, depend
very much upon facility of communication. The ill-defended spot in the
empire is alive to the reality, that subsidies having bad roads or a
tedious navigation to pass may arrive too late to present an effectual
resistance to a plundering enemy. The hard-working emigrant of a remote
settlement, distant from a market, feels the difficulty and loss he
sustains in bringing produce to the spot where merchants and dealers
meet for the purposes