justified
in advancing any money on such an undertaking. Let us, then, consider
this point a little. Mr. Cobden has asserted (what some of our public
journals confess to be true), "that if the revenue had fallen off, it
was because the balance sheet of the merchants and the manufacturers had
fallen off likewise." If then we show by the undertaking of such a
work as is now proposed, the balance sheets of the merchants and
manufacturers must increase immensely, we surely make out a case for
the good of the country generally, as far as revenue is concerned.

Let us then first consider, that "So interwoven and complicated are the
fibres which form the texture of the highly civilized and artificial
community in which we live, that an effect produced on any one point is
instantly transmitted to the most remote and apparently unconnected
parts of the system." And again--"The exportation of labourers and
capital from the old to the new countries, from a place where their
productive power is less to a place where it is greater, increases by
so much the aggregate produce of the labour and capital of the world."

Now, with regard to the first remark, the effect that would be produced
by the necessary exportation of all the machinery for the making and
working of this Atlantic and Pacific Railway, would of course produce,
even in England, a very great increase both to the productive power and
to the consumption of a variety of articles apparently unconnected with
the affairs of the Railway; and when, again, we look to the necessary
exportation of labourers and of capital to the towns on the Line of the
Railway where there is less productive power at work, by increasing that
dormant power we shall increase the aggregate capital of the world, and
consequently that of England. Again--"Could we suddenly double the
productive power of the country, we should double the supply of the
commodities in every market, but we should by the same stroke double
the purchasing power--every body would bring a double demand as well as
supply--every body would be able to buy twice as much, as he would have
twice as much to offer in exchange." Also--"A country which produces for
a larger market than its own, can introduce a more extended division of
labour--can make a greater use of machinery, and is more likely to
make inventions and improvements in the progress of production."
Again--"Whatever causes a greater quantity of any thing to be produced
in