Easy communication lessens the time occupied in the transport; and a saving of time lessens the distance, or our notion of distance. This effects a saving of money: and a saving of money permits of a greater employment of capital. The man who can only afford to keep one traveller soliciting orders for his goods, will thus be enabled to keep two; because the expense of travelling will be reduced a half. Or it may be, he will find it more advantageous to employ the saving in the production of a more delicate and desirable article in the way of his trade. The increased traffic from place to place will give likewise an impulse to business, which, in the present stagnant times, is most desirable. The manufacturer in Scotland will find the London market more easily arrived at: and the merchant in the metropolis will be able to get his orders more rapidly given and executed. A conveyance which, in good management, would be a weekly one, is, in bad management, a monthly one: and the carrier is obliged to quadruple his charge for the transport. To meet this charge the merchant has to add to the cost of the article, and so on throughout the various gradations of mercantile transition, until the consumer pays the necessarily increased price. Hence, whatever reduces the price of transportation, reduces the price of the commodity transported. Whatever reduces the traveller's time, reduces his claim for compensation, and (competition being always at work) he is content with a smaller profit upon his merchandise. If a scarcity of any article occurs at one point of the kingdom, the monopolist there cannot continue his increased price for any duration of time. Commerce may, in this respect, be resembled to water, for, if not obstructed, it will always circulate till it finds its level. An opening or channel being furnished, an equalised supply will make its way wherever required. Thus we see that the strength, wealth, and happiness of a nation, depend very much upon facility of communication. The ill-defended spot in the empire is alive to the reality, that subsidies having bad roads or a tedious navigation to pass may arrive too late to present an effectual resistance to a plundering enemy. The hard-working emigrant of a remote settlement, distant from a market, feels the difficulty and loss he sustains in bringing produce to the spot where merchants and dealers meet for the purposes of exchange. A spot uncommunicated with may be visited by the honors of famine, and no channel exist for conveying thither the food required. A grievous pestilence may sweep off an isolated people before the aid of the physician can arrive to arrest its progress.