Page:Report from the Select Committee on Steam Carriages.pdf/233



Col. Torrens, M.P.. 9 September, 1831. or the landlord's rent increased in a corresponding proportion. There are many tracts of land which cannot now be cultivated, because the quantity of produce expended in cultivation and in carriage exceeds the quantity which that expenditure would bring to market. But if you diminish the quantity expended in bringing a given quantity to market, then you may obtain a net surplus produce from such inferior soils, and consequently allow cultivation to be extended over tracts which could not otherwise be tilled. On the same principle, lowering the expence of carriage would enable you to apply additional quantities of labour and capital to all the soils already under cultivation. But it is not necessary to go into any illustrative examples to explain this, it being a well-known principle, that every improvement which allows us to cultivate land of a quality which could not previously be cultivated, also enables us to cultivate in a higher manner, lands already under tillage.

If horses were displaced from common roads, would not the demand for oats, beans, and for pasture, be diminished, and land thereby be thrown out of cultivation, and labour out of employment?—If Steam Carriages were very suddenly brought into use, and horses thereby displaced. I think the effect stated in the question would be produced for a time; but practically. Steam Carriages can be introduced only very gradually, and the beneficial effect upon the profits of trade, by bringing agricultural produce more cheaply to market, will tend to increase profits, to encourage industry, and to enlarge the demand for labour; so that by this gradual process there will probably be no period during which any land can actually be thrown out of cultivation, the increasing population requiring all the food which horses would With respect to the demand for labour, that demand consists of the quantity of food and raw materials which can be cheaply obtained; and as by the supposition the displacing of horses will leave at liberty more food and more material, the demand for labour will ultimately be greatly increased instead of being diminished. It has been supposed,