Chapter XVIII: Concluding Reflections.

MY work is completed in pointing out the necessary results of our present rapid multiplication when brought into comparison with a fixed amount of material resources. The social and political consequences to ourselves and to the world of a partial exhaustion of our mines are of an infinitely higher degree of uncertainty than the event itself, and cannot be made the subject of argument. But feeling as we must do that they will be of an untoward character, it is impossible to close without a few further remarks upon the truly solemn question—Are we wise in allowing the commerce of this country to rise beyond the point at which we can long maintain it?

To say the simple truth, will it not appear evident, soon after the final adoption of Free Trade principles, that our own resources are just those to which such principles ought to be applied last and most cautiously ? To part in trade with the surplus yearly interest of the soil may be unalloyed gain, but to disperse so lavishly the cream of our mineral wealth is to be spendthrifts of our capital—to part with that which will never come back.

And after all commerce is but a means to an end, the diffusion of civilization and wealth. To allow commerce to proceed until the source of civilization is weakened and overturned is like killing the goose to get the golden egg. Is the immediate creation of material wealth to be our only object? Have we not hereditary possessions in our just laws, our free and nobly developed constitution, our rich literature and philosophy, incomparably above material wealth, and which we are beyond all things bound to maintain, improve, and hand down in safety? And do we accomplish this duty in encouraging a growth of industry which must prove unstable, and perhaps involve all things in its fall?

But the more there is said on the one side of this perplexing question, the more there is to say on the other side. We can hardly separate the attributes and performances of a kingdom, and have some without the others. The resplendent genius of our Elizabethan age might never have been manifested but in a period equally conspicuous for good order, industrial progress, and general enterprise. The early Hanoverian period, on the other hand, was as devoid of nobility as it was stationary in wealth and population. A clear and vigorous mind is to be looked for in a wholesome state of the body. So in our Victorian age we may owe indirectly to the lavish expenditure of our material energy far more than we can readily conceive. No part, no function of a nation is independent of the rest, and in fearlessly following our instincts of rapid growth we may rear a fabric of varied civilization, we may develop talents and virtues, and propagate influences which could not have resulted from slow restricted growth however prolonged.

The wish surely could never rise into the mind of any Englishman that Britain should be stationary and lasting as she was, rather than of growing and world-wide influence as she is. To secure a safe smallness we should have to go back, and strangle in their birth those thoughts and inventions which redeemed us from dullness and degeneration a century ago. Could we desire that Savery and Newcomen had abandoned their tiresome engines, that Darby had slept before the iron ran forth, that the Duke had broken before Brindley completed his canal, that Watt had kept to his compasses and rules, or Adam Smith burnt his manuscript in despair? Such experiments could not have succeeded, and such writings been published, among a free and active people in our circumstances, without leading to the changes that have been. Thence necessarily came the growth of manufactures and of people; thence the inexplicable power with which we fought and saved the Continent; thence the initiation of a Free-trade policy by Pitt, the growth of a middle class, and the rise of a series of statesmen—Canning, Huskisson, Peel, Cobden, and Gladstone—to represent their views and powers.

Our new industry and civilization had an obscure and unregarded commencement; it is great already, and will be far greater yet before it is less. It is questionable whether a country in any sense free can suffer such a grand movement to begin without suffering it to proceed its own length. One invention, one art, one development of commerce, one amelioration of society follows another almost as effect follows cause. And it is well that our beneficial influence is not bounded by our narrow wisdom or our selfish desires. Let us stretch our knowledge and our foresight to the furthest, yet we act by powers and towards ends of which we are scarcely conscious.

In our contributions to the arts, for instance, we have unintentionally done a work that will endure for ever. In whatever part of the world fuel exists, whether wood, or peat, or coal, we have rendered it the possible basis of a new civilization. In the ancient mythology, fire was a stolen gift from heaven, but it is our countrymen who have shown the powers of fire, and conferred a second Promethean gift upon the world. Without undue self-gratulation, may we not say in the words of Bacon?—"The introduction of new inventions seemeth to be the very chief of all human actions. The benefits of new inventions may extend to all mankind universally, but the good of political achievements can respect but some particular cantons of men; these latter do not endure above a few ages, the former for ever. Inventions make all men happy without either injury or damage to any one single person. Furthermore, new inventions are, as it were, new erections and imitations of God's own works."

When our great spring is here run down, our fires half burnt out, may we not look for an increasing flame of civilization elsewhere? Ours are not the only stores of fuel. Britain may contract to her former littleness, and her people be again distinguished for homely and hardy virtues, for a clear intellect and a regard for law, rather than for brilliancy and power. But our name and race, our language, history, and literature, our love of freedom and our instincts of self-government, will live in a world-wide sphere. We have already planted the stocks of multiplying nations in most parts of the earth, and, in spite of discouraging tendencies, it is hardly for us to doubt that they will prove a noble offspring.

The alternatives before us are simple. Our empire and race already comprise one-fifth of the world's population; and by our plantation of new states, by our guardianship of the seas, by our penetrating commerce, by the example of our just laws and firm constitution, and above all by the dissemination of our new arts, we stimulate the progress of mankind in a degree not to be measured. If we lavishly and boldly push forward in the creation and distribution of our riches, it is hard to over-estimate the pitch of beneficial influence to which we may attain in the present. But the maintenance of such a position is physically impossible. We have to make the momentous choice between brief greatness and longer continued mediocrity.

[1] Examiner, May 19th, 1866.

[2] House of Commons, April 17th, 1866.

[3] Fortnightly Review, Dec. 31, 1865, p. 143.

[4] See p. 20 infra.

[5] Vol. xii. p. 547.

[6] P. 94.

[7] P. 97.

[8] See also his Address to the Geological Society, Feb. 19th, 1841, p. 41.

[9] Smiles' Engineers, vol. iii. pp. 18, 22.

[19] A History and Description of Fossil Fuel: 1835, chap. xxiv, p. 454.

[20] Fourth Edition, vol. i. p. 600.

[21] 1846, p. 163.

[22] As suggested by Mr. Sopwith at the British Association in 1838.

[23] Coal-Fields of Great Britain, 2d Ed. p. 187.

[25] Journal of Science, No. I. p. 33.

[26] Journal of Science, No. I. p. 29.

[27] Journal of Science, No. I. p. 30.

[28] Trans. of the North of England Institute of Mining Engineers, vol. x. p. 74. (1862.)

[29] Coal-Fields of Great Britain, 2d Ed. p. 236.

[30] The calculation is not strictly correct.

[31] P. 237.

[32] Journal of Science, No. I. p. 35.

[33] Conybeare and Phillips, Outlines of Geology, pp. 324, 325.

[34] E. Hull, British Association, 1854, Report, p. 87.

[35] The Geology of Parts of Middlesex, Hertfordshire, &c. by William Whitaker, B.A. F.G.S. 1864, p. 107. (Geological Survey.)

[36] Vol. CX. p. 329.

[37] Coal-fields, &c. 2d Ed. p. 219.

[38] Report of Commission on Health of Mines, 1865.

[39] Our Coal and our Coal-pits. London: 1853.

[40] Prof. H. D. Rogers, in Good Words, April, 1864, p. 338.

[41] Trans of the North of England Institute of Mining Engineers, Vol. V.

[42] Brit. Assoc. Report, 1863, pp. 726, 727.

[43] Our Coal and our Coal Pits, p. 113.

[44] Ibid. p. 115.

[45] Manchester Memoirs, 3d series, 1861-2. Vol. II. pp. 256, 257.

[46] Dr. Plot's Natural History of Staffordshire, quoted in the "History of Wednesbury," p. 101.

[47] Evidence of Alex. Raby. First Report on Coal Trade, 1800, pp. 76, 77.

[48] See Chap. XV.

[49] Metallum Martis, p. 8.

[50] Mineral Statistics for 1860, p. xxiii.

[51] The comparison in the First Edition of the change of price of coal with the average change of price of commodities was erroneous, owing to a numerical oversight. The fall of prices between 1794 and 1860 was in the ratio of 100 to 81. See Journal of the Statistical Society, June 1865, p. 294.

[52] Macmillan's Magazine, June, July, 1863.

[53] Smiles' Engineers, vol. i. Pref. p. v.

[54] Taylor's Archæology of the Coal Trade, p. 186, in Memoirs of the British Archæological Association, 1858.

[55] Hooson's Miner's Dictionary, 1747, quoted by Taylor, p. 187.

[56] Scotch Coal Trade, p. 12.

[57] See Burns "On the late Captain Grose's Peregrinations." "A faulding jocteleg." In some parts of Yorkshire a large clasp-knife is still known as a "jack-a-leg's knife."

[58] Smiles' Industrial Biography, p. 68.

[59] Smiles' Industrial Biography, p. 33.

[60] Lives of the Engineers, vol. i. pp. 39, 40.

[61] Ibid. p. 66.

[62] Ibid. Pref. p. vi.

[63] Bald, Scotch Coal Trade, p. 7.

[64] Lives of the Engineers, vol. i. p. 276.

[65] The Trades' Increase, p. 7.

[66] Campbell's Survey, vol. i. p. 15.

[67] Smiles' Engineers, vol. i. Pref. p. vi.

[68] Barlow's Cyclopædia, p. 521.

[69] Joshua Gee, The Trade and Navigation of Great Britain considered. 1738, 4th ed. p. 18.

[70] Taylor's Archæology of the Coal Trade, p. 186.

[71] Jewell House of Art and Nature, No. 21. London.

[72] Life of Watt, 1839, p. 46.

[73] Mr. Dircks in his new Life of the Marquis of Worcester strangely overlooks this work of Isaac de Caus.

[74] Rymer's Fœdera, vol. xviii. p. 992; or, Calendars of the State Paper Office, Domestic Series.

[75] H. Dircks, Life of Worcester, p. 354.

[76] Page 6.

[77] Pages 35, 36

[78] Miner's Friend. Prefatory Address to the Royal Society.

[79] See Dr. Plot's account of the artisans of Wolverhampton, Walsall, and the Neighbourhood, Natural History of Staffordshire, p. 376. Also Smiles' Lives of Boulton and Watt, p. 163.

[80] Briavoinne, De l'Industrie en Belgique, Bruxelles, 1839, p. 201.

[81] Toilliez 'Mémoire sur l'Introduction des Machines à Vapeur dans le Hainaut." Quoted by Briavoinne, p. 226.

[82] Bald on the Scotch Coal Trade, p. 24.

[83] Smiles' Lives of the Engineers, vol. i. p. 206.

[84] Smiles' Lives of the Engineers, vol. i. pp. 344-361.

[85] Ibid. vol. i. p. 401

[86] Coal Viewer's and Engine Builder's Practical Companion, 1797.

[87] Report of British Association, 1863, p. 760.

[88] C. Beaumont, Treatise on the Coal Trade, 1789, p. 2.

[89] Smiles' Engineers, vol. iii. p. 357.

[90] Smiles' Engineers, vol. ii. p. 355.

[91] Ibid. vol. i. p. 126.

[92] Hearn's Plutology, 1864, p. 193.

[93] Two Lectures on Iron and its Applications. Newcastle, 1864, p. 15.

[94] Smiles' Engineers, vol. i. pp. 332, 333.

[95] Fairbairn on Mills and Mill-work.

[96] Smiles' Engineers, vol. iii. p. 440.

[97] Ibid. p. 8.

[98] Liebig's Letters on Chemistry, pp. 152, 153.

[1] See for instance the remarks of Waterston in his Cyclopædia of Commerce, 1846, pp. 163, 164.

[2] Farey, Treatise on the Steam-Engine, p. 117.

[3] Smiles' Engineers, vol. i. pp. 329, 330.

[4] C. W. Williams, The Combustion of Coal, 1841, p. 9.

[5] Taylor's Records of Mining, p. 152, &c. Much confusion has been introduced into these accounts by the change of measure from bushels to cwts. In March 1866 the average duty of 27 Cornish engines was only 51.7 millions per 112 lbs. and the highest duty 64.6 millions. The performance of an engine easily falls back.

[6] W. J. M, Rankine on the Air-Engine. Report of the British Association, 1854, p. 159.

[7] James Nasmyth, in Tooke's History of Prices, vol. vi. p. 533.

[8] W. J. M. Rankine, British Association, 1854, p. 159.

[9] A new air-engine is said to be successfully working, but it burns nearly 4 lbs. of coal per horse-power per hour. Mining Journal—Supplement, 12th May, 1866.

[10] Gentleman's Magazine, 1819, part 2, p. 632.

[11] Porter's Progress, 1851, p. 575.

[12] Chap. xv.

[13] Lardner, On the Steam Engine, 7th ed. 1840, p. 8.

[14] See "Economy of Manufactures," § 17, et passim. In this exquisite work Mr. Babbage anticipates the modern doctrines of the relations of the natural forces.

[15] Life of Telford. Telford's Memorandum Book, p. 671.

[16] Truran on the Iron Manufacture of Great Britain, p. 242.

[17] C. M. Palmer, Report of the British Association, 1863, p. 697.

[18] See a curious account in the British Museum, under the name Stevin, 1652.

[19] Smiles' Engineers, vol. iii. p. 73.

[20] Plutology; or, the Theory of Efforts to satisfy Human Wants. By W. E. Hearn, LL.D. Professor of Political Economy in the University of Melbourne, 1864, p. 199. This work appears to me both in soundness and originality the most advanced treatise on political economy which has appeared, and it should be familiar to every student of the science.

[21] Smiles' Engineers, vol. i. p. 458.

[22] Fairbairn on Mills and Mill-Work, p. 89.

[23] See p. 103.

[24] No. 186, p. 263, Jan. 1687.

[25] See the patent of 1631, in Rymer's Fœdera.

[26] Harleian Miscellany, vol. iv. p. 526.

[27] Miner's Friend, pp. 28, 29.

[28] See chap. xv.

[29] Chadwick, Report of the Brit. Assoc. 1861, p. 210.

[30] Smiles' Engineers, vol. i. p. 67.

[31] Barlow's Cyclopædia.

[32] First edition, p. 105.

[33] See the Journal "Engineering," 30th March, 1866, p. 195.

[34] Letters on Chemistry, No. 12.

[35] Taylor's Archæology of the Coal Trade, p. 176.

[36] Percy's Metallurgy, vol. i. pp. 71, 72.

[37] Watt's Chemical Dictionary, Article Fuel.

[38] Industrial Resources of Ireland, 1st ed. chap. ii.

[39] Economy of Manufactures, 3rd ed. 1833, § 465.

[40] Liebig's Letters on Chemistry, No. 12, p. 154.

[41] See the chapter on Invention in Mr. Hearn's Plutology.

[42] Resources of the three Northern Rivers, quoted in the Quarterly Journal of Science, No. 2, p. 371.

[43] H. Fairbairn, Political Economy of Railroads, 1836, p. 116.

[44] Ibid. p. 108.

[47] General Report upon the Census of 1861. p. 22.

[51] Ed. 1847, p. 96.

[54] Lives of the Engineers, vol. ii. p. 291.

[55] Preliminary Observations to Population Abstracts, 1822, p. xxx.

[56] Quarterly Report of the Registrar-General, 1849.

[57] Bromwell on Immigration, p. 176.

[58] Census of 1861. Population Tables, vol. i. p. xxxii.

[59] Abstract of Seventh Census of the United States, p. 14.

[61] Census, 1861. Appendix to General Report, p. 111.

[62] M. N. Briavoinne, De l'Industrie en Belgique. Bruxelles, 1839, p. 197.

[64] Page 53.

[65] The Prosperity of the Landholders not dependent on the Corn Laws. By Thomas Jevons, 1840, pp. 7-11.

[66] See the able investigation by Frederick Purdy, Esq. of the Statistical Department of the Poor Law Board, On the Decrease of the Agricultural Population, 1851-61; British Association, 1863, p. 157. Journal of the Statistical Society, September, 1864, p. 388

[68] Progress of the Nation, 1847, p. 587.

[69] First Report of the Commissioners of Customs, 1857, p. 108. See the diagram fronting the title-page, in which the divergent character of our progress is shown to the eye by curves representing the numbers of the population, the official value of our imports, and the vend of coal from Newcastle.

[74] T.J. Taylor, Archæology of the Coal Trade, pp. 177 and 204, in Memoirs of the British Archæological Association, 1858. See the diagram fronting the title page.

[76] Mineral Statistics for 1855. Introd. p. vi.

[78] Proposed long ago by Mr. Chapman. See Holmes, Treatise on the Coal Mines of Durham and Northumberland. London, 1816, p. 218.

[80] Mineral Statistics for 1860, p. 99.

[81] P. 68.

[82] The Coal Fields of Great Britain, 2d Ed. pp. 28, 236.

[83] These numbers are represented to the eye in the diagram fronting the title-page.

[84] The sum of the geometrical series, in millions of tons,

or, which is exactly the same, the value of the definite integral

in which the constant 82.17 has been determined so that

[85] See pp. 23-31.

[86] See p. 83.

[87] Mineral Statistics, Passim.

[88] P. Cooper, Mining Journal, Jan. 21, 1865.

[1] Situation de l'Industrie Houillère en 1859, p. 8.

[2] Situation de l'Industrie Houillère en 1859, p. 53.

[3] Ryder. Treatise on the Economy of Fuel on board Men-of-War Steamers, p. 3.

[4] Second Report on the Coal-Trade, 1800, p. 22.

[5] Brand's History of Newcastle, vol. ii. p. 286.

[6] Babbage in Barlow's Cyclopædia, 1851, p. 55.

[7] Dunn on the Winning and Working of Coal Mines, p. 338.

[8] Smiles' Lives of the Engineers, vol. iii. pp. 38-41.

[9] Report on the Coal-Trade, 1830.

[10] Trans. N. of England Institute of Mining Engineers, vol. vi. p. 106.

[11] Observations on the proposed Duties on the Exportation of Coals. London, 1842, pp. 14, 15.

[12] The Present State of the Manufacture of Salt Explained. By the Earl of Dundonald. London: 1785.

[13] Braithwaite Poole. On the Commerce of Liverpool, 1854, p. 33.

[14] Smiles' Engineers, vol. i. p. 447.

[15] Hearn's Plutology, p. 310, quoting Journal of the Statistical Society, vol. xx. p. 134.

[16] Commercial Reports from Foreign Consuls, 1862, p. 155

[17] Committee on Manufactures, 1833. Queries, 7,420-5, &c.

[18] The Trades' Increase, p. 25.

[19] The Trades' Increase, p. 2.

[20] The Mischief of the Five-Shilling Tax upon Coal. London, 1699, p. 3

[21] Ibid. p. 5.

[22] The Mischief of the Five-Shilling Tax upon Coal. London, 1699, p. 5.

[23] Ibid. p. 6.

[24] Situation de l'Ind. &c. p. 27.

[25] Memorial of the Manufacturers of the Tyne, of iron, lead, glass, rope, alkali, sail-cloth, &c. (1842?)

[26] Situation de l'Industrie Houillère en 1859.

[29] Edinburgh Review, vol. cxi. p. 88

[30] 1st ed. 1848; 2d ed. revised by S. O. Haldeman

[31] Situation de l'Industrie Houillère en 1859, p. 9.

[32] Report of the South Shields Committee, 1843.

[33] Situation de l'Industrie Houillère en 1859, p. 15.

[34] Statistics of Coal, 1st ed. p. 275, quoted by the Edinburgh Review, vol. xc. p. 534.

[37] Coal-Fields of Great Britain, 2d ed. p. 208.

[38] Lyell, Manual of Elementary Geology, 1852, p. 333.

[39] Overman, On the Manufacture of Iron. p. 102.

[40] Overman, On the Manufacture of Iron, p. 462.

[41] Gesner, Practical Treatise on Coal, Petroleum, &c. New York 1861, p. 30.

[42] Bacon.

[43] Hansard's Debates, vol. vii. p. 79

[44] See pp. 217-8.

[45] Newland and Backbarrow in Lancashire, Duddon in Cumberland, and Loon in Scotland, are the only charcoal furnaces in the United Kingdom. Mineral Statistics, 1863, p. 70.

[46] Quoted by M. A. Lower. Contributions to Literature, 1854, p. 120.

[47] Quoted by Smiles. Lives of the Engineers, vol. i. p. 292.

[48] Stowe's Annals, 1632, p. 1025.

[49] Surveyor's Dialogue, p. 175.

[50] Commercial Dictionary, Art. coal.

[51] Pp. 94, &c.

[52] Essay upon the Advancement of Trade in Ireland, Works, 1720, vol. i. p. 119.

[53] Statistics and Geography of the Production of Iron: New York, 1856, p. 7.

[54] Trade and Navigation of Great Britain, 1738, p. 104.

[55] Considerations on the making of Bar Iron with Pit or Sea Coal Fire, 1747.

[56] Houghton's Collection of Letters for the Improvement of Husbandry and Trade, 1727-1728, vol. iv. p. 259.

[57] The Costlie Whore, quoted by Percy, Metallurgy of Iron and Steel, p. 144.

[58] Metallum Martis, London, 1665, p. 8.

[59] Smiles' Industrial Biography, p. 77.

[60] Literature of Political Economy, p. 238.

[61] Chapter xi

[62] Report of the British Association, 1863, p. 738

[63] Smiles' Engineers, vol. ii. p. 61

[64] Percy's Metallurgy, Iron, p. 889.

[65] History of Wednesbury, p. 116.

[66] H. Blackwell, Iron-making Resources of the United Kingdom, 1852, p. 174

[67] Percy's Metallurgy of Iron and Steel, p. 187.

[68] Scrivenor on the Iron Trade, p. 301.

[69] Page 150.

[70] Blackwell, p. 165.

[71] Percy's Metallurgy of Iron, p. 564.

[72] Truran on the Iron Manufacture of Great Britain, pp. iii. iv.

[73] Canada at the Universal Exhibition of 1855, p. 296.

[74] Percy's Metallurgy, Iron and Steel, p. 382. The last remarks are mistaken in their present application, as will be explained in the following chapter.

[75] Percy's Metallurgy of Iron, p. 381.

[76] H. Fairbairn, Political Economy of Railroads, p. 113.

[77] Principles of Political Economy, book iii. chap. xvii; or, Essays on some unsettled Questions of Political Economy. Essay No 1.

The subject "Of the Competition of different Countries in the same Market" is treated by J. S. Mill. Principles, book iii. chap. xxv.

[78] John Houghton. Collection of Letters for the Improvement of Husbandry and Trade. London, 1681, pp. 35, 36.

[79] See the admirable lecture of Prof. J. E. Cairnes to the Dublin Young Men's Christian Association, "On Colonization and Colonial Government," Oct. 26th, 1864.

[80] Three Lectures on Wages. Preface, p. v.

[81] Chapter x.

[82] See American Finances and Resources. Letter No. V. of R. J. Walker, M.A. London, 1864, p. 13.

[83] Principles, &c. Book v. chap. x., Third edition, vol. ii. pp. 507,508.

[84] P. 308.

[85] Hansard's Debates, third series, vol. lxxvii. p. 478.

[86] Hansard's Debates, third series, vol. lxi. p. 448.

[87] Hansard's Parliamentary History, vol. xxiv. p. 1215.

[88] On the Scotch Coal Trade, p. 197.

[89] J. S. Mill, Principles of Political Economy, 3d Ed. vol. ii. p. 455.

[90] J. S. Mill, Principles of Political Economy, Book v. chap. vii. § 3.