14] deprive her labouring children of legitimate employment and just remuneration, (all that the industrious classes of our fellow-countrymen require.) But the undertaking proposed has even a higher claim to our attention. _It is the great link required to unite in one powerful chain the whole English race_. Let then our Railway Kings, and our Iron Kings, our princely merchants, and our lords millionnaires--let the stirring and active spirits of the age--the great reformers and the modern politicians, many of whom are now proclaiming through the land that economy alone can save the country--[see Note 15]condescend for a short time even, to consider the undertaking here proposed; and say, if they can, that (even should it be executed at an immense expense) it would not produce a great and beneficial forward movement, and be a present happy employment, and a future perpetual source of wealth to England and her children. Let them consider also that "the social advancement which the modern improvement of Railways is calculated to effect has added a new faculty to man in the facilities which it affords of communication between province and province, and between nation and nation. Nor does it seem too much to say, that it will be the means of binding all the nations of the earth into one family, with mutual interests, and with the mutual desire of promoting the prosperity of their neighbours, in order that they may enhance their own, and forming thereby the most powerful antagonistic principle to war that the earth has ever known." [_Bradshaw's Almanack, 1849._] Again, what says the Quarterly: "We trust our readers of all politics will cordially join with us in a desire, not inappropriate at the commencement of a new year, that the wonderful discovery which it has pleased the Almighty to impart to us, instead of becoming amongst us a subject of angry dispute, may in every region of the globe bring the human family into friendly communication; that it may dispel national prejudices; assuage animosities--in short, that, by creating a feeling of universal gratitude to the powers from which it has proceeded, it may produce on earth peace and good-will towards men." And where, let it be asked, can this wonderful discovery, this great power of steam,[see Note 16] be called into action so effectually and so usefully, not only for Great Britain, but for mankind in general, than in that parallel of latitude[see Note 17] in which (_all barrier difficulties and all cause for war being now removed_) would naturally flow in full tide the civilization, arts and sciences that invariably follow in the wake of Englishmen? Then as to the difficulties of the undertaking, let us recollect that an eminent engineer, previous to the construction of the Liverpool and Manchester Line, said, "No man in his senses would attempt a Railroad over Chat Moss:" his calculation was that it would cost L270,000. Yet the genius of George Stephenson afterwards surmounted the