June 1846 to January 1847, £5,139 000 January 1847 to July 1847, 14,184,000 July to October, 14,240,000 ----------- Total, £33,563,000 Then as to the capital absorbed in railroads, it had been in each year, from 1840, on an average, to 1843, £4,500,000 1844, 6,000,000 1845, 14,000,000 1846 { First half-year, 9,000,800 { Second half-year, 26,600,000 1847, First half-year, 25,770,000 1847, Last half-year, 38,000,000 the latter being, of course, estimated on the supposition of the expenditure having continued at the same rates."--_Morning Post_, December 1, 1847. Now of all the marvellous statements that ever were put forth by a government to explain a great public disaster, we do not hesitate to say this is the most marvellous. For let it be conceded that these are the real causes of the distress,--that it is the railways and the importation of foreign corn which have done it all--Who introduced the railways and let in an unlimited supply of foreign corn? Who passed all the railway bills, and encouraged the nation in the undertakings which are now held forth as so entirely disproportioned to its strength? Who took credit to themselves for the prosperity which the construction of railways at first occasioned, and dwelt with peculiar complacency, in the opening of the Session of 1846, on the increased produce of the excise, and diminution of crime, as indicating at once the augmented enjoyments and diminished disorders of the poor? Who disregarded the cautious, and as the event has proved, wise warnings of Lord Dalhousie at the Board of Trade? Who opened the railway of the Trent Valley with a silver trowel, and enlarged in eloquent terms on the immense advantages which that and similar undertakings would bring to the country? Sir Robert Peel and the party who now put down the whole evils which have ensued to the foreign corn and railways. Was a single word heard from them condemnatory of the mania which had seized the nation, and prophetic of the disasters which would ensue from its continuance? Did Sir Robert Peel warn the people that the currency was put on a new footing; that the act of 1844 had forbid its extension beyond thirty-two millions issuable on securities, and that as credit was thus materially abridged, the capital of the nation would be found inadequate to the undertakings in which it had engaged? Quite the reverse; he did none of these things. He encouraged the embarking of the capital of the nation in railways to the extent of above two hundred millions,[17] all to be executed in the next four years; and now we are told that the disasters which have ensued are mainly owing to that very unmanageable railway progeny which he himself produced!