cept in so far as taxes may affect the rate of wages, their indirect operation on manufacturing industry is unimportant.

There is one way, indeed, in which it is but too probable that high taxes, and high wages caused by them, will be deeply injurious,—that is, by reducing the rate of profit, and tempting capitalists to transfer their stocks to other countries. This, however, cannot, under any circumstances, affect the cotton manufacturers more than it must affect the agriculturists, and all who are engaged in industrious undertakings; while, from the superior facilities which we enjoy for the prosecution of the cotton manufacture, it is probable that it will be less affected by an efflux of capital, should it ever take place to an injurious extent, than most other businesses.

Although, therefore, we do not pretend to cast the horoscope of the cotton manufacture, we are happy to say that we see no good grounds for supposing that it is built on an insecure foundation, or that it is destined progressively to languish and decline. At the same time, however, it is most certainly true, that nothing should be omitted on our part, that may in any degree serve to give it additional stability and vigour. And we are quite sure, that nothing can be so effectual for that purpose as the establishment of a perfectly liberal commercial system. By excluding the equivalents which foreigners have to give in exchange for our products, we hinder them from becoming our customers, and consequently force them to manufacture for themselves. The adoption of an exclusive system is, in all cases, injurious; but it is pre-eminently so in the case of a country which has greatly outstripped its neighbours in the career of manufacturing industry. Great Britain ought to open her ports, under moderate duties, imposed for the sake of revenue only, to all the products of all the countries of the world. It would be a contradiction and an absurdity to suppose, that the freest competition could have any injurious operation on those branches of industry in which we have a superiority. On the contrary, our sales of domestic produce must necessarily be extended, precisely as we extend our purchases of that which is foreign; while, by acting on a system thus productive of mutual advantage, we should take from foreigners all motive to endeavour to rival us in those branches in which we have a superiority, and would teach them to exert their efforts to perfect themselves in those in which the advantage is already on their side.

Besides the idea of insecurity, a variety of pernicious consequences have been supposed to flow from the extension of the manufacturing system. The golden age of England is said to

have been that which preceded the invention of the jenny and the spinning frame. Manufactures were then dispersed over the country, and were carried on in single families, who, in addition to their other sources of emolument, generally possessed a small patch of ground, sufficient to keep a cow, and serve as a garden. It is unnecessary, we are told, to endeavour to prove by argument, how incomparably more favourable such a state of things must be to the health and morals of the people than the present system, where crowds of children, and of persons of both sexes, are perpetually immured in the contagious atmosphere of cotton mills, and are early initiated into every species of vice!

But in general there is a very wide difference between conclusions drawn from appearances only, and those which are deduced from a careful examination of facts. And, however extraordinary it may appear to those who have learned to judge of the condition of the population from the "Deserted Village," or the equally philosophical, though less poetical, diatribes of the Laureate, we scruple not to affirm, that the Health, Morals, and Intelligence of the population have all gained by the establishment of the present manufacturing system.

With respect, in the first place, to the question of Health: it is proved, by the returns made under the population acts, that the average mortality in England and Wales, in 1780, was one in every 40 of the population: But notwithstanding the extraordinary increase, in the intermediate period, of what we have been in the habit of considering unhealthy employments, the average mortality in 1810 amounted to only one in every 52, and, in 1820, to only one in every 58 of the entire population. This diminution of mortality has been going on gradually since 1750, and has been owing to a variety of causes;-partly to the greater prevalence of cleanliness and sobriety among the poor, and the improvements that have been made in their diet, dress, and houses-partly to the drainage of bogs and marshes, -and partly, and since 1800 chiefly perhaps, to the discoveries in medical science, and the extirpation of the small-pox. But to whatever causes the increase of healthiness that has taken place may have been owing, there is abundant evidence to show, that it has not been in any degree counteracted, but that, on the contrary, it has been greatly promoted, by the extension of manufactures. Had their extension been unfavourable to health, the improvement must have been decidedly less in the towns where manufactures are principally carried on, than in the country: But the very reverse is the case. It appears, from an elaborate and valuable paper of Dr Percival, an VOL. XLVI. No. 91.

C

intelligent physician, who resided long in Manchester, that the proportion of deaths to the whole population of the town, in 1770, amounted to about one in every 28. But though the population of the town has been nearly quadrupled since 1770, and myriads of cotton mills been erected, the average rate of mortality is now reduced to about one in every 45! In 1750, the entire population of Lancashire amounted to only 297,040; in 1801, it had increased to 672,565, and the deaths that year amounted to 19,363, being rather more than one in every 34; but as 1801 was, owing to the scarcity of that year, a season of unusual mortality, let us compare the population with the deaths in 1802, amounting to 16,570, and we shall have one in every 40 as the proportion of deaths to the entire population. But in 1820, when the population had increased to the prodigious amount of 1,052,859, and when what are called unhealthy employments had been multiplied to an almost inconceivable extent, the deaths only amounted to one in every 55 of the entire population!

These facts are decisive with respect to the credit to be attached to the statements so often rung in our ears, as to the unhealthiness of manufactures. But the same thing may be set in a still clearer point of view, by comparing Lancashire and Westmoreland together. The former may be said, almost without a metaphor, to be one immense workshop; for it contains, besides an infinity of populous villages, the large manufacturing and commercial towns of Manchester, Liverpool, Bolton, Preston, Blackburn, Bury, Warrington, Wigan, &c.; whereas the latter is almost exclusively an agricultural county, and besides being entirely destitute of large towns and great manufacturing establishments, it is chiefly occupied by a class of small proprietors, who, it is said, preserve, in a preeminent degree, all the simplicity and purity of the old English manners. But, notwithstanding this vast difference in the circumstances of the two counties, the proportion of deaths to the whole population in Westmoreland is only about FIVE per cent less than in Lancashire! The baptisms are in Westmoreland, to the whole population, as one to 35, the deaths as one to 58, and the marriages as one to 154; while, in Lancashire, the baptisms are, to the whole population, as one to 32, the deaths as one to 55, and the marriages as one to 126.*

Amidst a vast deal of exaggeration, there certainly was some foundation for the complaints with respect to the privations

Baines' History, Gazetteer, &c. of Lancashire, vol. i. p. 141.

imposed on children under sixteen years of age employed in cotton mills. And though we are decidedly adverse to all interference on the part of government as to the terms of the contract between workmen and their employers, still we think that the legislature acted right in interfering to limit the number of hours during which children should be kept at work. It is for the public advantage that those who are unable, from their immature years, to protect themselves, should be protected by the legislature. But no farther interference ought, on any account, to be either attempted or tolerated. If any particular business or process be peculiarly noxious, no one who has attained to the years of discretion will engage in it, unless he obtains comparatively high wages. And this circumstance

will always prevent such employments from being carried to a greater extent than is required for the general advantage of society.

With respect, in the second place, to the state of Morals in the manufacturing districts; this is a point as to which it is much more difficult to obtain accurate information, than as to the state of health. We have no doubt, however, were the means of making a correct estimate equally accessible in both cases, that it would be found that the morals of the people have been as much improved, during the last 50 years, as their health. It is admitted on all hands, that crimes of violence have greatly diminished since the accession of his late Majesty; and the increased sobriety and cleanliness of the people-habits which cannot easily be strengthened without improving morality, are invariably assigned as prominent causes of the late increase of healthiness. There is, to say the least, as much moral restraint evinced in the intercourse between the sexes in Lancashire, as in most agricultural districts of England. The latter, indeed, would be but an indifferent standard of comparison, if we suppose that the morality of other districts bears any considerable resemblance to that of a purely agricultural district in Norfolk, where, we are told by the Reverend Mr Brereton, there were 77 births in a given period, of which 23 only were legitimate!* No such picture of profligacy, or anything approaching to it, can be exhibited in any quarter of Lancashire.

In comparing the state of morals in the manufacturing districts, as Lancashire in England, and Lanarkshire in Scotland, with their state in the agricultural districts, it must not be forgotten that the former are exposed to a most prolific source

* Brereton on the Administration of the Poor Laws, p. 50.

of crime and demoralization, from which the latter are comparatively exempted-we allude to the excessive influx of Irish labourers that has taken place of late years. These miserable creatures, without property, without connexions, and most frequently ignorant in the extreme, are in all respects decidedly more profligate and immoral than the native inhabitants-And the only thing to be wondered at is, that, notwithstanding the vast influx of Irish poor into Manchester and Glasgow, the morals and habits of the people should have been so greatly improved. We are satisfied, that had it not been for this influx, the inhabitants of these cities would have had but little to fear, in comparing themselves with those of any agricultural district in the empire, with respect to health, and nothing with respect to morality.

With respect, in the third place, to the Intelligence of the manufacturing population: we apprehend our readers would deem it a mere waste of labour were we to set about making any lengthened statements to prove their infinite superiority in this respect over the peasantry of the country. This, indeed, is only what every unprejudiced inquirer would a priori have anticipated would be the case. The elementary instruction of the lower classes in towns and villages is, generally speaking, preferable to the elementary instruction of the same classes in the country. But it is in after-life that the superior advantages of the former, for acquiring a greater extent of information, are chiefly observable. The peasantry dispersed over a wide extent of country, are without the means of assembling, except on some rare occasions, for the purposes either of amusement or instruction. But, by working together, the workmen in manufacturing establishments have, what the agriculturists almost uniformly want, constant opportunities of discussing all topics of interest and importance. They are thus gradually trained to habits of thinking and reflection; their intellects are sharpened by the collision of conflicting opinions; and a small contribution from each individual enables them to establish lectureships and libraries, and to obtain a large supply of the cheaper class of periodical publications. But whatever difference of opinion may exist as to the cause, there can be no doubt of the fact, that the intelligence of the workmen employed in manufactures has increased according as their numbers have increased, and as their employments have been more and more subdivided-And this circumstance would of itself go far to account for the more rapid increase of healthiness and of better morals amongst them. Nine-tenths of the evils that afflict the mass of society have their source in ignorance; and when it has been shown that the intelligence of any class