The question we will next consider is the amount of capital required for making such a road. The London and Birmingham Railway is stated at 3,000,000_l._ This is taken from the most accurate estimates; but for the satisfaction of those who would like to have corroborative statements, we will compare it with the cost of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. This undertaking, it is stated, may cost, including its carrying department and engines, carriages, &c., 1,000,000_l._; and the railway is thirty-two miles in length. (For particulars see Appendix, No. I.) The London and Birmingham Railway will be 105 miles in length; and therefore, constructed on the same scale, and its cost calculated at the same rate per mile, it would require, including every expense, rather more than 3,000,000_l._ But it must be recollected that materials and wages are at least twenty per cent. lower now than at the time the Liverpool and Manchester Railway was constructing. The cost of the rails for the Liverpool and Manchester Railway was 12_l._ 10_s._ per ton; they may now be purchased for 8_l._ 10_s._ per ton. The considerable reduction that has taken place in the wages of labour must be taken into account, particularly as three-fourths of the whole cost will be in an expenditure of this nature upon the line. The great reduction that has taken place in all kinds of ironwork will tend to reduce the cost of the engines, and the machinery required in the construction of the road. It must not be forgotten, that the Liverpool and Manchester being the first line of the same magnitude that had ever been constructed, many expenses occurred, which are always attendant upon works of a new kind, and which are much reduced when the same kind of work has to be executed again. It was formerly the opinion of those who are best acquainted with these subjects, that railways might be constructed at as little expense as canals: and when we consider that a canal requires a perfect level; occupies an equal width of land with a railway; must have its embankments made of materials impervious to water;—and when, again, it is known that an expensive lock is required at almost every mile, as well as numerous drains and reservoirs to collect the water from the surrounding country, and powerful engines to raise the water from the lower to the summit levels;—it does appear a natural supposition, that such a work must require a greater outlay than a road, which, to a degree, has the inclination suited to the level of the country over which it passes; whose embankments, instead of being washed by a river, have only to carry two or four bars of iron; and, moreover, in whose banks no injury from leakage can arise to the country lying below it; which invariably happens to land at the foot of canal embankments.