"The whole number of males included under these heads, amounts to
1,137,270. Of _these_, 608,712 were actually employed in labour,
which although, usually speaking, it was neither manufacturing nor
trading, was yet necessary in the successful prosecution of some
branch of trade or manufactures, _such as mining, road-making,
canal-digging, inland navigation, &c._"

Of these 600,000, now probably augmented by a tenth, how many can be
spared from their several employments for the construction of the
railways, and how many are at this moment so employed, with their
labour mortgaged for years? This is a question which Parliament ought
most certainly--if it can be done--to get answered in a satisfactory
manner. It must be remarked, that in this class are included the
miners, who certainly cannot be withdrawn from their present work,
which in fact is indispensable for the completion of the railways. If
possible, their numbers must be augmented. The stored iron of the
country is now exhausted, and the masters are using every diligence in
their power to facilitate the supply, which still, as the advancing
price of that great commodity will testify, is short of, and
insufficient for the demand. From the agricultural labourers you
cannot receive any material number of recruits. The land, above all
things, must be tilled; and--notwithstanding the trashy assertions of
popular slip-slop authors and Cockney sentimentalists, who have
favored us with pictures of the Will Ferns of the kingdom, as unlike
the reality as may be--the condition of those who cultivate the soil
of Britain is superior to that of the peasantry in every other country
of Europe. The inevitable increase of demand for labour will even
better their condition, according to the operation of a law apparent
to every man of common sense, but which is hopelessly concealed from
the eyes of these spurious regenerators of the times. It is impossible
to transform the manufacturer, even were that trade slack, into a
railway labourer; the habits and constitution of the two classes
being essentially different and distinct. Indeed, as the writer we
have already quoted well remarks--"Experience has shown that
uneducated men pass with difficulty, and unwillingly, from occupations
to which they have been long accustomed," and nothing, consequently,
is more difficult than to augment materially and suddenly the numbers
of any industrial class, when an unexpecte