Page:Report from the Select Committee on Steam Carriages.pdf/119



John Farey, Esq. 10 August, 1831. look forward is entirely dependent on the circumstance of the first speculators in Steam Coaches being enabled to go through a sufficient term of inefficient performance, and consequent loss, to acquire experience in the new business, and that experience will, no doubt, lead to expensive alterations and reconstructions of their machinery. There is so much mechanical talent to be had for money, that I have no doubt of the final accomplishment, if the attempts now making are continued long enough; because I am confident that there is (as was the case in Steam Boats) a real efficacy in the principle of action. The general opinion of Engineers was not very favourable to Steam Boats when they were first brought forward as a novelty; many doubted if they could ever be made to perform well, particularly at sea; and others, who foresaw the possibility of that, doubted whether they would answer in point of expence of fuel, and wear and tear of engines and boilers. If no assistance or encouragement is given to new inventions when they are in the infant state which Steam Coaches are now in, persons who find that they only lose money when they expected to gain, by being the first to adopt the improvements, are liable to become disheartened, and give up the pursuit too precipitately, whereby their undertaking dies a natural death; and that is sometimes the case when it might have been established by another two or three weeks' continuance of the efforts; and that continuance might be induced by some small relief, like the reduction which was made by Parliament in the register tonnage of Steam Vessels, or the taking off of toils from the earliest Steam Coaches. If by any means they are enabled to go on till the proper plan of machinery and management is found out, they will afterwards keep their ground, because the profit of working by steam in lieu of horses will be very great. The present Steam Coaches are mere experiments, and the next editions of each plan of them will, I expect, be losing concerns, and will continue so to be for some time; under those circumstances, every small increase of their expences is a real retardation to that practical