There was an expenditure of, say,
L13,000 per mile; and to what did the right hon. gentleman suppose the
remaining L27,000 were devoted? That was a line of great expense and
large works; but there was the York and North Midland, a line of
comparatively small expense and small works, and that line cost an
average of L23,000 per mile; the land having cost not more than L1,800
per mile, and the permanent way L5,500. Now, he wanted to know in what
the remainder was spent? Why, undoubtedly, in labour. In the Leeds and
Bradford, again--a more recently constructed line--of which the expenses
had been L33,000 per mile, there had been L17,000 per mile to be
calculated on the side of labour. The permanent way included sleepers
and other things connected with the works. They might, perhaps, say
there was a great consumption of bricks; but they could not make bricks
without the employment of much labour--and with such facts as these
before them, how was it possible they could doubt the accuracy of the
statements of the noble lord who had brought forward this measure, and
that the right hon. gentleman, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, was
grossly mistaken. The right hon.
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