Page:Report from the Select Committee on Steam Carriages.pdf/234



Col. Torrens, M.P.. 9 September, 1831. I know not how accurately, that there are employed on the common roads in Great Britain, one million of horses, and a horse, it is calculated, consumes the food of eight men. If Steam Carriages could ultimately be brought to such perfection as entirely to supersede draught horses on the common roads, there would be food and demand for eight millions of persons. But when we take further into consideration, that lowering the expence of carriage would enable us to extend cultivation over soils which cannot now be profitably tilled, and would have the further effect of enabling us to apply, with a profit, additional portions of labour and capital to the soils already under tillage. I think it not unfair to conclude, that were elementary power on the common roads completely to supersede draught horses, the population, wealth and power of Great Britain would at least be doubled.

There are soils which are stated to be so poor, that oats alone can be raised upon them, would not the substitution of Steam for horse power have the effect, of throwing out of employment the labour required for the cultivation of such lands?—If there are soils of such a peculiar quality that oats is the only marketable product which they will yield, the persons employed in cultivating those lands would certainly be thrown out of that particular occupation; but the extension of tillage over other lands not of this peculiar quality, would create a demand for labour which would much more than absorb the persons thrown out from the culture of oats upon that land which would grow nothing else. But I doubt of there being any land which it is profitable to cultivate, which would not raise some other agricultural produce than oats either for man or cattle, for which the increasing population would create a demand.

The general impression on the minds of the Committee is, that Steam Carriages will, at least for the present, rather be substituted for horses used in conveying travellers than for the conveyance of bulky articles. Do you think that the substitution of Steam in this manner will be injurious to agriculture, and to