pro

duced by one fourth of the labour now necessary to their duction, they would probably fall seventy-five per cent; but so far is it from being true, that the labourer would thereby be enabled permanently to consume four coats or four pair of shoes instead of one, his wages would in no long time be adjusted by the effects of competition. (Pol. Econ.) What a fool is man in the present state of society, says Mr. Gray, to tell his employer how his loom, for instance, may be improved! It is tantamount to saying, “Master, I can show you how I and my family may be allowed to starve." (Social System.)

113. The oppressed labourer, in order to get a little more wages, works extra hours, sends his children to factories, and is sometimes compelled to profane the sabbath, by turning it into a day of labour; but all these things aggravate the evil by bringing a still larger supply of labour into the market. A reduction of wages, says Mr. Wade, compels a workman either to reduce his expenditure, or by increased exertion make up the diminution in his income. But as the reduction in the price of labour has probably arisen from slackness in the demand for its products, it follows that lengthening the hours of work, or similar expedients, only aggravates the evil of scarcity of employment, and thereby accelerates the downward tendency of wages. An increased number of females, and of such poor children of both sexes, as are fit to work, are obliged to quit their homes, or to engage in some species of employment; while those labourers who work by the piece, endeavour, by increasing the quantity of their work, to obtain the means of purchasing their accustomed quantity of food. These causes continue to operate to the disadvantage of the working classes. (Hist. of the Middle and Working Classes.) There exists, says a journalist, in the very heart of this country, a cruel and destructive species of bondage, which blights and withers all humanity exposed to its noxious influence; the young are its victims,-the unprotected children of the poor are its hopeless slaves. At a tender age they are taken from the care of parents, from the opportunities of instruction, from the ordinary recreations of youthful life; imprisoned in the Bastiles of modern manufactures, pent up in foul air, worked in cheerless and exhausting drudgery, until the powers of nature give way, and they sink into the grave, or drag on a lingering existence, the prey of bodily infirmities and moral degradation. This is the system of our factories, a system created by that selfish spirit of mammon, which makes the misery and debasement of thousands subservient to the sordid nterests of one. (Morning Herald, Feb. 4, 1832.) It is, says another journalist, dreadful to reflect on the ruinous effects of the factory system, in bringing thousands to a premature grave, and filling our manufacturing towns with pale, debilitated, and haggard wretches, the living skeletons of the once robust and

H

hardy English people. A nation's strength must depend in a very material degree upon the health and bodily vigour of its population. Nor is it on this account alone, that the country is bound to prohibit a system that produces a numerous race of degenerated and rickety beings; the mind suffers with the body, and weakness of intellect generally accompanies the imperfect formation of the outward man; gross sensuality, and reckless vice, and thievish disposition, may be expected as a matter of course, among unhappy beings, who, to use the emphatic expression of a Manchester manufacturer, "have no leisure to be wise, and have only the form of their species." West India slavery is far less atrocious than the slavery of English children in factories. (Times, March 5, 1832.) To children, the writer might with equal propriety have added, and men, and women; though, as he was considering only the young, the treatment of adults was foreign to his subject.

114. Notwithstanding, surprising improvements have been made in this country in almost every branch of manufacture within the last half century, the great body of the people, is little more benefited by them than the antediluvians were ; though it is through the instrumentality of the body of the people that these improvements have been made. Multitudes have thus the misery of witnessing, that every thing they can possibly require is to be had at a trifling cost; but small as it is, the exchangeable value of their labour is so forced down, as for it to be beyond their means. During the last sixteen or seventeen years, or since the peace, says an anonymous writer, most common fabrics of cotton manufacture have fallen fully one half in value. And as this reduced value has principally been achieved by subtracting wages of one kind or other, the conse quence has been, that the labourers employed on those fabrics, and the lower orders generally, have ceased to be consumers of the article altogether; although their increased necessities even to obtain a morsel of bread, has compelled them to produce double the quantity. (Public Econ. Concentrated.)

115. We saw by the perfeet mode of association, that all the associates, whatever their numbers, worked together for the benefit of each other; here it is exactly opposite: each has the combined powers of wealth, and machinery, and talent, and numbers, operating against instead of for him; all are trying to produce as cheaply as possible, and thus to lower the exchangeable value of the labour of all concerned in production. In one case it is the many for the one; in the other, the many against the one-fearful odds for the pauperized productive labourer to contend with:-and the more the population increases on a given extent of territory-the larger the secondary associations become,-the greater the wealth, the more extensive the credit,-the more powerful the machinery,-the

greater the talents and application of the masters who have the direction of these mighty means,-the greater is the oppression and the competition. And this, by the most wonderful of all wonderful perversions, the greater is the poverty induced! If two bodies of a hundred thousand men each, were opposed to each other in the field of battle, a few hours would, probably, put an end to the strugle; but by the land-engrossing, and oppressing, and competing system, we have hundreds of millions carrying on a warfare-not of a day, or a month, or a year only, but for the whole lives of the combatants, and every hour of their lives!-a battle to be continued by their successors, and again by theirs,-and so on interminably;-a few only of the leaders being enriched, and all the rest of the mighty host, in a less or greater degree; pauperized :—though, if all the combatants would place themselves in a state of perfect or imperfect asociation, instead of the unnatural one of opposition, every individual might be wealthy and happy, and the whole community removed from any danger, except that of the accumulation of wealth becoming too great!

116. The low value of some articles of produce may arise from their manufacture being assisted by powerful machinery, as well as the supply of labour preponderating. When the exchangeable value of goods is reduced from a combination of these causes, it affords undoubted evidence of the producers having the capacity to be rich, but that they are actually poor. This is now the case with the greater part of the population of the British Isles. Notwithstanding we have, at this moment, a people possessing within themselves the means of producing an exuberance for all;-no inconsiderable part of the nation is so impoverished, that men run everywhere to purchase the coarser kinds of goods, and the smallest quantity, and at the lowest price. All this necessarily reduces the demand for produce. As this is reduced, the demand for labour is reduced, the supply preponderates, and its exchangeable value is forced down; and as this is lowered, the people are impoverished. In this fatal circle things run-and not the least extraordinary part of the strange history is, that men wonder at their being so poor!-though nothing could be more astonishing than that they were not. The most effectual measures are taken to bring about a certain end, and when this is obtained, men are surprised that quite an opposite one has not been educed! Some may expect to remedy the evils under which they groan by parsimonious living; but this is unavailing, as the humblest means are to them too frequently not attainable, though they are ready to give their whole labour in return. So true is it, that the destruction of the poor is their poverty. But the system of parsimonious living is manifestly a wrong one, from the causes just considered.

117. Unavoidable poverty can arise only from famine, or the Divine Being smiting the earth with a curse,' so that it will require much greater labour for production of all kinds than at present. Those, consequently, who are poor where there is plenty of labour, are precisely in the condition of men impoverishing themselves, or being so acted on by others. By not rightly associating, we are guilty of conduct equivalent to throwing whole cargoes of corn, and wine, and oil, and every other good thing, into the sea. Can we refrain from denouncing the destroyers of all these bounties of Heaven, as well as those who silently witness such proceedings, as monsters of wickedness? If we saw this done once only, could we hesitate? But if we see this destruction going on every day, every hour, every moment, and during our whole lives, and in all places what must we say? What language is sufficiently energetic, adequately to describe such frightful abominations, which exist in a less or greater degree throughout the whole nation? It may, we believe, be asserted without hazard of confutation, that the history of the world affords no parallel to that seen in the misapplication of the mighty energies of the British nation in our times. We call, then, both men and angels to witness our solemn protestation against multitudes having the property in the land abstracted from them, and being thence so placed, that they necessarily oppress one another, and compete with one another, in direct contradiction to the great law of their being, which renders it imperative on all, in their whole conduct, to educe nothing but the highest degree of good to each other. We are told that there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth. If, then, these happy beings sympathize in the good that happens to us, they necessarily must likewise in the ill. How profound, therefore, must be their sorrow at the ignorance, confusion, wickedness, and misery, every where abounding among men. Had the heavenly host corporeal organs, we may suppose each of them thus adopting the language of a prophet; Mine eye runneth down with rivers of water;' 'mine eye trickleth down, and ceaseth not, without any intermission.'

118. By far the greatest part of those goods, says Ricardo, which are the objects of desire, are procured by labour; and may be multiplied not in one country alone, but in many, almost without any assignable limit. (Pol. Econ.) Never, says an anonymous writer, was such a paradox exhibited before since the world began; and still we proceed in the same course, wondering all the time, as well we may, what it is that occasions all the distress. With resources such as no nation ever before possessed, a rich and extensive soil,-a situation so calculated for commerce that the world cannot produce its parallel,-a

people proverbial for industry,-colonies spread over both hemispheres, the finest navy to be met with,—an unlimited capital, and yet amidst all this one universal cry of distress. Was there ever such an infatuated system pursued, or such an anomalous state of things exhibited, in the history of civilized nations? (Public Econ. Concentrated.) We have already adverted to the cotton trade (iii, 5), and may here quote some observations of an anonymous writer upon it. The various machinery now used in manufacturing cotton, says he, has enabled one man to perform the work of one hundred and fifty. The lowest computation supposes 280,000 men, some say 350,000 men; to be employed in it, hence the work now performed in this single branch, would, half a century ago, have required 42,000,000 of men, according to some 53,000,000; that is to say, at the lowest computation, more than twice as many men, women, and children, as now people the British Islands. Supposing the labour of each of these men to cost, at this hour, the very moderate sum of one shilling per day, or £18 per annum, the pay of 42,000,000 of labourers would be £756,000,000 per annum, or a little more than thirteen times the annual revenue of England. Deducting from the sum the pay of the labourers now really employed, at the above annual rate, 280,000×£18=5,040,000; and allowing the enormous sum of 50,000,000 sterling for the wear and tear of machiney, buildings, and incidental expences; the result is, that the machinery employed in the cotton manufacture saves £700,000,000 sterling to the British nation.-(Quar. Rev.) The average productive power of our people may be estimated as one thousand to one over the average productive power of mankind at large,-is further remarked by this writer.

119. Our present situation, says another writer, appears to be altogether anomalous, since there never was a period recorded in history, when abundance and pauperism were so paradoxically co-existent. It is universally acknowledged, that the present productive powers of the country employed in creating articles of necessity, convenience, and luxury, have never been equalled; -that the means of procuring food and clothing for a population much greater than our own, are now at our disposal;-in short, that we have, by our immense power of production in manufactures, overstocked every market to which we could gain access. [The manufacturing system,] which, fifty years ago, could scarcely keep pace with the wants of Great Britain alone, has been able by the aid derived from its new allies, to spread abundance and excess throughout the four quarters of the globe; until its overwhelming produce has at length created the very evils which result from privation itself. When the invention of the steam engine and those innumerable machines to which it gave birth, were imparted to society, either the greatest blessing