PROGRESS OF LIBERALISM. 719 jury to both was aggravated by distance and freightage. They suffered also in political government, from the same mistaken spirit of monopoly, and effort to protect exclusive interests. There were family preferences in their administration; disqualification of creed or race, ineligibility to be electors or members of executive or legislative councils, by which classes were kept divided and hostile, partial interests bolstered up, and the general weal of colonies neglected or compromised. All, or nearly all, these invidious sources of jealousy, internal disturbance, and obstruction to colonial progress, have been swept away, and ample beyond expectation has been the return. The Canadas have almost doubled in wealth and population since 1840 under the liberal system. In numbers, commerce, riches, canal navigation, and railways, the British American possessions are fast accumulating all the elements of a flourishing empire, and are already not greatly inferior in resources to what the United States were on the outset of their career of independence. The same free and vivifying spirit has extended to the Polynesian islands. Free constitutions have been sought and granted to New Zealand and the provinces of Australia. Even if they sought independence, England, it is probable, would not be greatly adverse, provided they were competent to self-government and international defence, and severance was the general wish. Free or dependent British interests are identical with those of her colonies. If they thrive, she is certain, next to themselves, to obtain the largest share in their prosperity. These have become the avowed maxims of colonial policy, in full confidence that our lien upon them is indissoluble, from the ties of a common origin, language, laws, traditions, interests, and wants. Time's effacing fingers cannot erase these; they will last, it is probable, till the parent isle of so many states and empires shall be lost in some myth or second Iona as distant and obscure but less unreal than the fables of the Homeric age. I have dwelt upon this subject from its forming a memorable feature of progress under Queen Victoria. It certainly had not its first beginning in the present reign. But among the leading statesmen under George III. and his successor, it met with only a limited reception. Like all great truths adverse to prevalent opinions, Free Trade has had its days of infancy, trial, and slow development. But the period of its final triumph, and of a full appreciation of its benefits to individuals, colonies, and nations, unquestionably pertains to her majesty's government. Among ourselves, few conversions remain to be made; and on the Continent an international congress, composed of representatives from different states, assembles annually at Brussels to aid the diffusion of freetrade doctrines. Conversions are rapid under despotisms; and sovereigns have only to wave their sceptres, and a new faith, new code of laws, or new system of political economy is promptly inaugurated in their dominions. CHAP. XXXIII. QUEEN VICTORIA. PUBLIC IMPROVEMENTS AND Tendency of recent Discoveries to equalise Social Benefits. Retrospective Glance at late Advances in Material and Mental Appliances; Mechanical Inventions pertaining to Literature. - Improvements in Internal Communications and Modes of Travelling. - Roads of Telford, M'Adam, and Macneill.-Suspension and Tubular Bridges. Railways and Locomotives.-The Electric Telegraph.—Probable Influence of augmented Means of Intercourse on International Relations.-Novelties of Travel and Sporting Excursions. THE successful application of the principles of commercial freedom, which was the concluding topic of the last chapter, formed only one of many advances that have culminated in the present reign. It has been an era remarkable not only for extraordinary discoveries, but the consummation of many improvements which, in different degrees, had long been silently progressive, without attaining to maturity of development. If it were desirable by one word to characterise the main tendency of the civilisation in which we live, move, and have our being, I think "Equalisation" would be as apt and comprehensive a term as could be employed. The preeminent distinctions of our age consist in its material, intellectual, and artistical progress ; and in each of these lines of pursuit, the striking result has been to render more accessible to all, benefits which had been previously exclusive or non-existent. Under the two denominations either of Physical advantages, or those pertaining to Thought, modern discoveries may be generally classed; and it is impossible to reflect for a moment on the history of either without being impressed with the issue just remarked, namely, the resulting tendency of both to multiply and make more generally equal the conveniences and enjoyments of social existence. A truth so patent it may be superfluous to illustrate. But I cannot help just glancing at each current of our acquisitions in mental and material science converging in the direction indicated. I will, however, not indulge in detail, for the subjects themselves have been made familiar by the common utilities to which they have ministered. They are the handle to the axe which cut down the forest; part of the thing done, cause and effect in the production of available benefits. Instead of losing myself and readers in a wide field, I shall simply count the steps of the ladder that has conducted us to the existing platform, upon which it must be the pride and pleasure of every one to contemplate the life around him. To begin, then, with the first of the two divisions, that of Thought, how vastly its instrumentality has been augmented from the period of the discovery of printing by the auxiliary agency of stereotyping and steam-press working. These, however, would have been nullities without paper; but here the needful was forthcoming, by improvements in its manufacture, quality, and dimensions without limit. Consequent on these discoveries has been the multiplication of books of all kinds; and the marvels wrought in Journalism, both in respect of contents, size, and intrinsic cheapness. This offers only one phase of the subject; another is connected with the series of postal improvements, from the mail carts to the mail coaches of ADVANCES IN MATERIAL APPLIANCES. 723 Palmer in 1784, onward to those of Rowland Hill, by which not only the diffusion of ideas by books and newspapers, but in private correspondence, has been so immensely facilitated. Not remotely connected with the augmented means for the communication of mind is the rapid series of discoveries for the illustration and embellishment of literature by wood engraving, lithography, steel-plate engraving, daguerreotype, and photography. Then followed the greatest and most inscrutable of all auxiliaries in mental transmissions, that of the electric telegraph. Volumes have been written, and deservedly, in the amplification of these topics, in illustration of their infinite uses, by their tendency to elevate and unite mankind, and open to them new sources of delight and felicity. It would be amusing, not less than instructive, to trace the progress of the Material discoveries, in which by successive advances they have attained, in common with the more intellectual appliances, their climax of improvement. They surround us everywhere: in cathedral cities and manufacturing towns, in noble ports and harbours, in works of art, grandeur, and utility, in ecclesiastical or palatial edifices, in gigantic factories, capacious docks, and warehouses innumerable. Absorbed in the pleasure or profit of these wonderful creations, we seldom think of their first beginnings any more than those of the peerage or the monarchy. They have, however, been all alike of humble paternity; and very curious would it be to revert to the earlier germs of their development. He must have been something of a Wren or a Rumbold who invented chimneys to houses, and which appear, from Hallam, not to have been earlier than the thirteenth or fourteenth century; nor less blessed was the genius who contrived, first for patrician, next for plebeian comfort, to let in the solar |
