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either a window or a chimney.-On the first introduction of the potatoe in 1610, the peasantry, then very much degraded, and without any elevated notions of what was necessary for their comfortable subsistence, eagerly resorted to so cheap a species of food; and, owing to the unfortunate circumstances under which they have ever since been placed, they have never endeavoured to attain to any thing higher. Provided they have sufficient supplies of potatoes, they are content to vegetate, for they cannot be said to live, in rags and wretchedness. Mr. Maurice Fitzgerald, M. P., mentions, "that he had known the peasantry of Kerry quit their houses in search of employment, offering to work for the merest subsistence that could be obtained-for two-pence a day; in short, for any thing that would purchase food enough to keep them alive for the ensuing twenty-four hours."-You may take from an Englishman, but you cannot take from an Irishman. The latter is already so low, he can fall no lower! he is placed on the very verge of existence! His wages being regulated by the price of potatoes, will not buy him wheat, or barley, or oats; and whenever, therefore, the supply of potatoes fails, it is next to impossible he can escape falling a sacrifice to famine !-(Princip. Pol. Econ.)

18. The Irish in England.-Mr. Doyle thus speaks of the Irish poor in Southwark. Many and many of these have no bed to lie on. They sleep at night on the floor, without any other covering than the clothes, such as they are, which they have on them during the day; others are almost in a state of nudity, and are compelled to keep within doors. These are poor widows with their destitute children. In very deed, so disastrous is the condition of many whom I know, that they seem stupified and bewildered, and hardly know what they do. Imagine, what is often a reality, a poor widow and her children in Glean Alley, or the by-courts in the Mint or Kent Street, in an unfurnished room; without fire, without clothes, without food, without hope in this world! The misery among the poor Irish in Southwark is so exceedingly great, that no one would believe me did I attempt to describe it.-(Times, 1st March, 1832.)

19. The French.-The following is a description of a class of workmen at Lyons:-This is a most laborious class, whose bodies and minds are both deteriorated by the nature of their occupation and confined habits of life; their movements are slow, and their speech drawling, their countenances dull and heavy, and their complexion sallow. They are like stunted plants, without vigour or strength, their only activity is in their fingers; their favourite residences are the Croix Rousse, St. George, and the heart of the town, because, there the rents are most moderate. Each weaver employs one or more workmen under him. The silk is weighed out to the Canuts, who are bound to return

the same weight in stuffs wove according to the given pattern; they have sometimes two and even three looms in one chamber, which is warmed in winter by means of an iron stove; and not unfrequently this one room, which is rarely or ever swept, serves them for bed-chamber, kitchen, and workshop. Yet in these miserable places are manufactured those brilliant and delicate silks, which are so easily spoiled, and must be delivered to the master manufacturer without the slightest spot. The Canuts have a difficulty in expressing themselves, which does not solely arise from their timidity or narrow intellect, but is occasioned by their habits of almost constant silence; for during six days in the week they make almost as little use of their tongues, as of their legs; but they look impatiently for sunday, that they may leave their prisons, stretch their cramped limbs, breathe the pure air of the country, and enjoy the light of the sun.-(Morn. Chron. 12th Dec. 1831.)

20. The East Indians.-In some parts of India, says Broughton, when grain is dear, hundreds of poor families are driven to the most distressing shifts to obtain a bare subsistence; at such times, I have often seen women and children employed in picking out the undigested grains of corn, from the dung of the different animals in the camp; it is scarcely possible to move out of the limits of our own camp, without witnessing the most shocking proofs of poverty and wretchedness. I was returning from a ride the other morning, when two miserable looking women followed me for charity; each had a little infant in her arms, and one of them repeatedly offered to sell hers for the trifling sum of two rupees. (Letters written in a Mahratta camp.)

21. Let us hear what the Scriptures tell us of these English, Irish, French, and East Indians. We read that God made man upright,'-'in his own image,'-'a little lower than the angels,—and has 'crowned him with glory and honour.-Thou madest him', says the psalmist, addressing the Divine Being; 'to have dominion over the work of thy hands, thou hast put all things under his feet.' And we are elsewhere told that God instructs him, keeps him as the apple of his eye; as an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings; so the Lord alone' does 'lead him.' 'Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will' not God forget him. John styles good men the sons of God;' Paul calls them the temples of the Holy Ghost, and assures them that they are to be eternally and inconceivably happy. What congruity, it may be asked, is there between the present and future state of men, placed in reference to the former, as in the examples we have just given? How can it be imagined that a single individual so circumstanced, can necessarily exist under a constitu

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tion of things in accordance with the divine will; and God be infinitely wise, powerful, and benevolent? For if one may be thus placed, another may, and consequently all others, in all ages and places; whence we see the impiety of such a suppo

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22. Had there been one being of the whole human race, that ever wanted a morsel of bread through insufficient provision on the part of Heaven, it would have cast a shadow over the divine glory! But this is not to be imagined.

23. There can be no doubt that it is equally a breach of the law of God, and of course of human laws made in accordance with this holy rule, to place men, by the abstraction of their right to the land, in that state of slavery, where they are obliged to sell their labour, at any price which oppression and competition oblige them to take; as it is to place them in that state, in which they are led about the streets and cried for sale. This great principle may one day be recognized in the laws of all nations. (Isa. LX. 21.)

24. In 1102, it was declared unlawful,-in the great council of England held at Westminster, for any man to sell slaves openly in the market. When will England declare it to be unlawful, to make slaves of men, by abstractiug from them their right to the land?

25. So long as the land of any nation is allowed to be engrossed by a few, that men cannot but viciously associate, will appear from what follows.

26. The laws which ought to regulate such an association as has been elsewhere mentioned of three hundred productive labourers, and one that contains hundreds of millions, are precisely the same.-Whether men associate according to the perfect, imperfect, or vicious mode; is altogether irrespective of time, place, number of labourers, branches or divisions into which they are ramified, or kinds or quantities of merchandize produced. We have supposed, as to our little association, that there are three great branches of production: i. e., food, clothing, and habitation, and several divisions. It is not easy accurately to classify either the branches or divisions in real life, but this is wholly immaterial: the branches and divisions make no difference whatever, as to their influence on each other, as far as their number is concerned. Extending the foreign commerce of any nation, it must not be forgotten, is simply enlarging the boundaries of its association. All the foreigners dealt with, becoming with the natives, members one of another.' It is necessary to impress on the reader the idea of the unity of an association: i. e., that it is impossible for any man in any age to live out of association. In it, he and all his fellows cannot but be constantly operating on one another, whether for good or for ill. (Mat. xii. 30.) If the contrary was the case, they

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would be no longer members one of another.' And these observations necessarily apply, whatever the numbers are, whether three hundred, or hundreds of millions; all the members of the same association, therefore, influence one another in a less or greater degree, however remote some of the members may be situated from one another. If it can be affirmed of any one member of our little association, that there is not a reciprocal dependence between him and his fellows, it may of two, or three, or any greater number, until the whole three hundred are rejected; and this reasoning obviously applies to an association of hundreds of millions, or any greater number.

27. The multifarious nature and vast extent of the commercial transactions of mankind; the various branches and divisions into which they are ramified; the number of secondary associations in each branch and division; the vast number of persons employed in them, in the various nations that interchange; the great distance which intervenes between the places where many of the exchanged productions are made and consumed; the vast variety of articles produced and exchanged; the time occupied in producing and exchanging them; the exchanges being made through the instrumentality of a metallic or paper currency;-all these things throw a less or greater degree of obscurity on the affair, to those who are either unwilling or unable to investigate it; though, however the diversified nature of them may prevent the inattentive from perceiving their operation, it cannot but be uniform; and the effects of the most complicated commercial transactions, when analyzed, are as obvious as the most simple.

28. The nations of the world that interchange, can be looked on only as one great association. Thus, suppose no legislative enactments in any nation interfered in reference to the exportation or importation of grain, the growers who live in the most remote part of Scotland, would influence and be influenced by growers who live in any part of Europe, America, or elsewhere; and this necessarily applies to other kinds of merchandize. If, therefore, all produce was transportable with the same facility as the lightest and least bulky, and no legislative enactments interfered, the difference in value would be but little, in much of the productive labour of the world. In its great market the various secondary associations have more or less interchange, necessarily, according to their proximity: i. e., other things being equal, the nearer they are, the more business they do with each other.

29. The great plurality of men having their right to the land abstracted-as many in the productive classes as have the power, turn master growers, manufacturers, wholesale dealers, &c.,and by oppression and competition make a profit of the labour of their fellow men, or of the produce of such labour. Each of

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the masters, in each branch and division, usually wants to do as much business as possible,-that he may get much profit. The most compendious mode of accomplishing this, ordinarily, is for each, as far as he can, to undersell those in his division. To sell cheaply, the masters do with the least number of servants, and with respect to those that are indispensable, get their labour at the lowest rate. Both these modes cause the supply to preponderate beyond the demand, and consequently its value to decline; their operation being more oppressive, as population increases, as will hereafter be more fully seen. The servants or under labourers are wholly without remedy, the only course they can adopt being to hire themselves to some master; at any rate, the competition into which (from the abstraction of the land) they are obliged to enter, reduces wages in the division to which they apply themselves. A few among the productive classes, acting for themselves, cannot be said to be either masters or servants. The operation of such single persons is, however, precisely the same as the associations, except that these are more powerful. Thus, whether one shopkeeper in a country town does all his business himself, or another has ten assistants, the concern of each is conducted on exactly similar principles. - 30. Men thus operated on, in one division, have no alternative, but to buy whatever they require as cheaply as possible in other branches or divisions. And all being acted on alike, the persons in all the different branches and divisions, both masters and servants, from the growers of the raw produce to the retailers of the manufactured goods, are reducing as much as possible the value of each other's labour; in other words, pauperizing one another!-though to all, whether masters or servants, the value of their labour is the all important consideration.

31. For example, our retail drapers throughout the country, ordinarily endeavour to undersell one another. This necessarily depreciates the profits of all the masters, and wages of all the servants, concerned in producing and distributing drapery. In other words-the drapers lower the value of the labour of each other, their own servants,-the wholesale dealers and their servants, the manufacturers and their servants, the grower of the raw produce and their servants, and that of merchants, carriers, &c., and those in their service. And hereby all their exchangers are affected.

32. The growers and manufacturers have the most to do in lowering the value of the labour that enters into produce, as these two classes of persons necessarily hire the greater part of such labour.

33. Our merchants, whether in doing business with their own countrymen, or foreigners, disregard the labour things cost. Thus, suppose the produce of four days' labour of Englishmen, exchanges only for what cost foreigners the labour of one day; all the merchants ordinarily care about, is, what profit will

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