e amongst the nations of the earth, she must most
assuredly pay for it. No country can have all the blessings and
advantages of England and have them for nothing, nor can she retain them
without great exertion. Her accumulated wealth cannot be allowed to
remain idle--nor will it.[see Note 12] No one will deny for a moment
that every economy that will make the poor man richer and happier ought
to be practised;[see Note 39] but let us take care that we do not, from
too strong a desire to retain that wealth which Providence has thrown
into the lap of England[see Note 13] even in the midst of war,[see Note
14] deprive her labouring children of legitimate employment and just
remuneration, (all that the industrious classes of our fellow-countrymen
require.) But the undertaking proposed has even a higher claim to our
attention. _It is the great link required to unite in one powerful chain
the whole English race_. Let then our Railway Kings, and our Iron
Kings, our princely merchants, and our lords millionnaires--let the
stirring and active spirits of the age--the great reformers and the
modern politicians, many of whom are now proclaiming through the land
that economy alone can save the country--[see Note 15]condescend for a
short time even, to consider the undertaking here proposed; and say, if
they can, that (even should it be executed at an immense expense) it
would not produce a great and beneficial forward movement, and be a
present happy employment, and a future perpetual source of wealth to
England and her children. Let them consider also that "the social
advancement which the modern improvement of Railways is calculated to
effect has added a new faculty to man in the facilities which it affords
of communication between province and province, and between nation and
nation. Nor does it seem too much to say, that it will be the means of
binding all the nations of the earth into one family, with mutual
interests, and with the mutual desire of promoting the prosperity of
their neighbours, in order that they may enhance their own, and forming
thereby the most powerful antagonistic principle to war that the earth
has ever known." [_Bradshaw's Almanack, 1849._] Again, what says the
Quarterly: "We trust our readers of all politics will cordially join
with us in a desire, not inappropriate at the commencement of a new
year, that the wonderful discovery which it has pleased the Almighty to
impart to us, instead of becoming amongst