XXII. 1830. deprived the immediate neighbourhood of the capital and CHAP. large towns of the exclusive advantages which they have so long enjoyed. The markets of London are supplied with beef from Aberdeenshire, pork from Ireland, and vegetables and milk from the midland counties of England, as regularly as they used to be from the fields of Surrey or the downs of Sussex. Immense and entirely beneficial have been the effects of this equalisation; and they have already become most conspicuous in the improved cultivation and extended resources of the distant parts of the empire. Nor have the moral and social effects of the increased facilities of communication been less important, or less conducive to human happiness. By reducing to a third the expense, and to a fourth the time of travelling, they have extended its benefits to a proportionally wider circle, and, in particular, brought them within the reach of the middle class, to whom they were previously almost unknown. A tradesman or mechanic can now make the tour of the British Islands, or even of Europe, in a few weeks, which formerly was never attempted but by the nobility, and accomplished in as many years. Immense has been the effect of this happy facility, alike in dispelling prejudice, refining manners, and improving taste; and these changes have powerfully reacted upon capital cities. It is from the railway system, and the desires to which it gave rise among a new and wide circle, that the Great Exhibition of London in 1851, the subsequent ones at New York and Paris, and the glorious Crystal Palace at Sydenham, have taken their rise. 65. effects of In a political point of view, the effects of the railway system have been not less important. By bringing the Political distant provinces of our empire, comparatively speaking, the railinto close proximity with the metropolis, it has augmented way systheir intelligence, and in the same proportion increased their political power. The constant intercourse from travelling, the increased facility for the transmission of books and newspapers, the almost instantaneous trans XXII. 1830. CHAP. mission of intelligence by the electric telegraph, which soon after followed, have powerfully contributed to equalise the advantages of situation, and give to the provinces a large portion, if not the whole, of the intellectual activity which formerly was peculiar to the metropolis. By enabling troops or police to be sent rapidly from one part of the country to another, it has augmented the efficiency of the central government, and enabled it to provide with fewer men, and at a less cost, both for defence against external enemies, and the maintenance of domestic tranquillity. That worst of all ascendancies in a community, the sway of the mob of the capital over the legislature, from the mere force of proximity of situation, so fatally experienced in Athens, Rome, and Paris, has been in a great measure destroyed. A more striking proof of this cannot be figured than was furnished by the fact, that when the disarmament of the National Guard in Belleville and Montmartre was carried into execution, after the suppression of the great insurrection in July 1848, it was effected by the National Guards of La Vendée, brought up by the Orleans railway from that distant and secluded province. 66. There is no unmixed good in human affairs. AdvanIts evils and tages, how great soever, are invariably attended by corthe undue responding evils. The railway system is no exception to sway of the this general rule; on the contrary, it affords one of the dangers in capital. most striking illustrations of it. It is the greatest promoter that ever came into operation of the centralising system; but it has induced its evils as well as its advantages. As much as it has brought the physical force of the provinces to the support of Government in the capital, has it brought the intellectual influence of the metropolis down to the provinces. The chief talent of the nation being there concentrated, from the objects of ambition, political, literary, or legal, which are presented, the sway of mind in a particular quarter has become well-nigh irresistible. The empire has become a huge metropolis, which XXII. the London press rules with despotic sway. Originality CHAP. or independence of thought in the provinces is crushed in all save a few intrepid minds, by the overwhelming weight of the capital. 1830. effects, Nor has the material and political influence of great 67. cities been less increased by the change than their intel- Its political lectual sway. The facility of reaching the metropolis has caused the great and the affluent to transfer nearly all their purchases to London; the attractions of Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool, and Glasgow, have drawn the most part of the purchases of the middle classes in the provinces to these great emporiums of wealth and industry. The small towns have dwindled, or become stationary, because they have lost their purchasers; the great ones have swelled into Babylons because they have tripled theirs. Politically speaking, the change has been of incalculable importance. The landed proprietors have ceased to influence the small boroughs, because all their purchases are made in the great ones, or the metropolis. The great manufacturing towns have become the rulers, because it is from them that the employment which feeds the lesser towns flows. The only influence which can be reckoned on as durable is that which gives bread or employment. When it is recollected that three-fifths of the House of Commons consist of the members for boroughs, it may be conceived how important an influence this change has come to have on the balance of parties in the State. 68. results of Experience has not yet enabled us to determine what influence the railway system, when generally introduced, Military is fitted to have on military operations-the attack or the railway defence of nations; for the only great wars which have system. taken place since its introduction-viz., those in Italy and Hungary in 1849, and Turkey in 1854-took place in countries where it had not been at all, or only partially introduced. It is usually considered as having strengthened the means of defence rather than attack, by facili XXII. 1830. CHAP. tating the concentration of troops, which it certainly does, on the menaced point. Yet must this be taken with some limitations; for if it facilitates the concentration of the defending, it in an equal degree aids the accumulation of the attacking force: if it will bring the military strength of all France in three days to the menaced point in Belgium or the Rhine, it will not less certainly bring the whole invading force of Germany in as short a time to the same point. If generally introduced into Russia, it would double the already overgrown military strength of the Czar, by more than halving the distance which his troops have to march, and rendering the translation of them from the Baltic to the Euxine, or from Poland to the Caucasus, the work of a few days only, and of no fatigue or loss to the men. 69. On the whole, it Undoubtedly, however, upon the whole, it favours the arms of civilisation in a contest with barbarism; for it augments requires an effort of skill and expenditure of capital for of defend its general adoption which can only be looked for in a ing nations. wealthy and enlightened state. If it is equally adopted by two countries in a similar state of civilisation, as France and Germany, and suffered to exist, it may cause war to resemble more closely a game at chess, by enabling the players to make the moves at pleasure. But if one, when invaded, has the courage or the patriotic spirit to break up the system, it may give a very great, perhaps a decisive advantage, to the party making the sacrifice; for if the retiring army tears up the railway lines and breaks down the bridges, it retains the advantages of the system to itself, and takes them away from its opponent. In this way it may be rendered an essential element in the defence, and important in maintaining the independence of nations. Probably, to take advantage of it, fortresses will come hereafter to be constructed in the heart rather than the frontiers of kingdoms, in order that an invading enemy may find his own facilities diminish, and the forces of his adversary increase as he approaches the centre of CHAP. his power. XXII. 1830. 70. ances and ism in the Before the great strife of parties began in Parliament, symptoms of discontent, attended with some danger and Disturbmore alarm, began in some of the agricultural counties. incendiarMany of the numerous county petitions, which had been southern presented on the subject of agricultural distress for some counties. years past, had predicted that, if some measures calculated to afford relief were not adopted, it would be impossible to prevent the working classes from breaking into open acts of violence. This prediction was now too fatally verified. The disturbances began in Kent, from whence they rapidly spread to Surrey, Sussex, Hampshire, Wiltshire, and Buckinghamshire. Night after night new conflagrations were lighted up by bands of incendiaries; corn-stacks, barns, farm-buildings, and live cattle, were indiscriminately consumed. Bolder bands attacked mills and demolished machinery; thrashing-mills were in an especial manner the object of their hostility. During October and November, these acts of incendiarism became so frequent as to excite universal alarm. The first rioters who were seized were treated, from feelings of humanity, with undue lenity by the county magistrates, which, of course, augmented the disorders; and it was not till severe examples were made, by a special commission sent into the disturbed districts, and a large body of military was quartered in them, that they were at length put down. From what came out at the trials, it did not appear that these outrages had been the result of any general political design against the Government, but had rather arisen from great distress among the working 1 Mirror of classes, stimulated into acts of violence by the example of Parliament, 1830, § 2, successful revolution at Paris, and similar acts of Jacobin p. 9; Ann. Reg. 1830, atrocity in Normandy, where they had been very frequent.1 149, 150; The Duke of Richmond stated the truth when he said in ii. 12. Parliament, "I believe a feeling now exists among the Martineau, |