OF THE DUTY OF THE PEOPLE OF ENGLAND.
The English politico-economical system denounced by Adam Smith had not
failed before the close of the last century to be productive of
results in the highest degree unfavourable to man; and to account for
them it became necessary to discover that they were the inevitable
result of certain great natural laws; and to this necessity it was
that the world was indebted for the Ricardo-Malthusian system, which
may be briefly stated in the following propositions:--
First: That in the commencement of cultivation, when population is
small and land consequently abundant, the best soils--those capable of
yielding the largest return, say one hundred quarters to a given
quantity of labour--alone are cultivated.
Second: That with the progress of population, the fertile lands are
all occupied, and there arises a necessity for cultivating those
yielding a smaller return; and that resort is then had to a second,
and afterward to a third and a fourth class of soils, yielding
respectively ninety, eighty, and seventy quarters to the same quantity
of labour.
Third: That with the necessity for applying labour less productively,
which thus accompanies the growth of population, rent arises: the
owner of land No. 1 being enabled to demand and to obtain, in return
for its use, ten quarters when resort is had to that of second
quality; twenty when No. 3 is brought into use, and thirty when it
becomes necessary to cultivate No. 4.
Fourth: That the _proportion_ of the landlord tends thus steadily to
increase as the productiveness of labour decreases, the division being
as follows, to wit:--
Total
At the: Product Labour Rent
------- ------- ------ ----
first period, when No. 1 alone is cultivated.. 100 100 00
second period " No. 1 and 2 are cultivated. 190 180 10
third period " No. 1, 2, and 3 ".. 270 240 30
fourth period " No. 1, 2, 3 and 4 ".. 340 280 60
fifth period " No. 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 ".. 400 300 100
sixth period " No. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6".. 450 300 150
seventh period " No. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 ".. 490 280 210
and that there is thus a tendency to the ultimate absorption of the
whole produce by the owner of the land, and to a steadily increasing
inequality of condition; the power of the labourer to consume the
commodities which he produces steadily diminishing, while that of the
land-owner to claim them, as rent, is steadily increasing.
Fifth: That this tendency toward a diminution in the return of labour,
and toward an increase of the landlord's proportion, always exists
where population increases, and most exists where population increases
most rapidly; but is in a certain degree counteracted by increase of
wealth, producing improvement of cultivation.
Sixth: That every such improvement tends to retard the growth of
rents, while every obstacle to improvement tends to increase that
growth: and that, therefore, the interests of the land-owner and
labourer are always opposed to each other, rents rising as labour
falls, and _vice-versa_.
A brief examination of these propositions will satisfy the reader that
they tend inevitably to the centralization of all power in the hands
of the few at the cost of the many, who are thus reduced to the
condition of slaves, mere hewers of wood and drawers of water for
their masters, as will now be shown.
I. In the commencement of cultivation labour is largely productive,
and the labourer takes for himself the whole of his product, paying no
rent.
II. With the increase of population, and the increased power to
associate, labour becomes less productive, and the labourer is
required to give a part of the diminished product to the land-owner,
who thus grows rich at his expense.
III. With further growth of population land acquires further value,
and that value increases with every increase of the _necessity_ for
applying labour less productively; and the less the product, the
larger becomes the proportion of the proprietor, whose wealth and
power increase precisely as the labourer becomes poorer and less able
to defend his rights, or, in other words, as he becomes enslaved.
This state of things leads of course to the expulsion of poor men, to
seek at a distance those rich soils which, according to the theory,
are the first cultivated. The more they are expelled, the greater must
of course be the consolidation of the land, the larger the income of
the few great farmers and land-owners, and the poorer the labourers.
Hence universal discord, such as is seen in England, and has recently
been so well described by the _Times_.[213]
The poorer the people, the greater must be the necessity for
emigration; and the greater the anxiety of the landed or other
capitalist for their expulsion, because they are thus relieved from
the necessity for supporting them; and the greater the rejoicing of
the trader, because he supposes they go from the cultivation of poor
to that of rich soils. Here we have dispersion, the opposite of that
association to which man has everywhere been indebted for his wealth;
for the development of his moral and intellectual faculties, and for
his freedom.
The soils left behind being supposed to be the poor ones, and those
first appropriated abroad being supposed to be the rich ones, it is
next held that all the people who go abroad, should do nothing but
cultivate the land, sending their corn and their wool to a distance of
thousands of miles in search of the little spindle and the loom; and
thus does the Ricardo system lead to the adoption of a policy directly
the reverse of that taught by Adam Smith.
The necessary effect of this is the discouragement of English
agriculture, and the closing of the market for English capital; and
the smaller the market for it at home the less must be the demand for
labour, and the greater must be the tendency of the labourer to become
the mere slave of those who do employ capital. This of course produces
further expulsion of both labour and capital; and the more they go
abroad, the less, as a matter of course, is the power of the community
that is left behind: and thus the Ricardo-Malthusian system tends
necessarily to the diminution of the importance of the nation in the
eyes of the world.
That system teaches that God in his infinite wisdom has given to
matter in the form of man a reproductive power greater than he has
given to the source from which that matter is derived, the earth
itself; and that, with a view to the correction of that error, man
must close his ear and his heart to the tale of suffering--must forget
that great law of Christ, "Do unto others as ye would that others
should do unto you,"--must persuade himself that it is "to his
advantage" that the negro slave "shall wear his chains in peace,"--and
must always recollect that if men _will_ marry; and have children, and
he "stands between the error and its consequence," granting relief to
the poor or the sick in their distress, except so far as to prevent
"positive death," he "perpetuates the sin." This is the science of
repulsion, despair, and death; and it has been well denominated "the
dismal science." It is taught in many of the schools of Europe, but
England alone has made it the basis of a system of policy; and the
result is seen in the fact that throughout all that portion of the
world subject to her influence, we see nothing but repulsion, slavery,
despair, and death, with steadily increasing weakness of the
communities in the general system of the world, as witness Ireland and
India, from, which men are flying as from pestilence--the West Indies,
Portugal, and Turkey, in all of which population declines, and the
communities themselves seem likely soon to perish of inanition.[214]
From every country that is strong enough to protect itself, she is
being gradually shut out; and in every one that is strong enough to
carry into effect the exclusion, we see a steady increase of the power
and the habit of association, and of the strength of the nation. The
little German Union of 1827 led to the great one of 1835; and at this
moment we have advices of the completion of the still greater one that
is to give freedom of internal trade to sixty millions of people, and
that is to do for all Germany what the _Zoll-Verein_ has done for its
northern portion. The habit of peace and of combined action thus grows
in all the countries of the world which protect themselves, while
repulsion and discord increase in every one that is unprotected. In
one we see a daily tendency toward freedom, while in the other slavery
grows from day to day.
It is the complaint of England that, much as she has done for other
countries, she receives no kindness in return. She stands at this day
without a friend; and this is not so much the fault of any error of
intention as of error of doctrine. Many of those who have directed her
affairs have been men of generous impulses--men who would scorn to do
what they thought to be wrong--but they have, been led away by a
system that teaches the rankest selfishness. The Creator of man
provided for his use great natural agents, the command of which was to
be obtained as the reward of the cultivation of his intellectual
powers; and that he might obtain leisure for their improvement, great
stores of fuel were accumulated, and iron ore was furnished in
unlimited quantity, to enable him, by combining the two, to obtain
machinery to aid him in the cultivation of the soil and the conversion
of its products. England, however, desires to restrict the use of
those great natural agents; and whenever or wherever other nations
undertake to call them to their aid, she is seen using every effort in
her power to annihilate competition, and thus maintain her monopoly.
Of this, the recent proceedings in relation to steam intercourse
between this country and Europe present a striking instance; but the
maintenance of numerous colonies, avowedly for the purpose of
"stifling in its infancy" every effort on the part of other nations to
obtain power to convert their coal and their ore into iron, or to
convert their iron into machinery that would enable them to command
the aid of steam, and thus lighten the labours of their people, while
increasing the efficiency of their exertions, is a thing not only not
disavowed, but gloried in by her most eminent and enlightened men. The
exceeding selfishness of this effort to retain a monopoly of those
great natural agents should, of itself, afford proof conclusive to
every Englishman that the system that is to be so maintained could not
be right; and it would do so, were it not that their system of
political economy teaches that every man must live by "snatching the
bread from his neighbour's mouth" that the land-owner grows rich at
the expense of the labourer; that profits rise only at the cost of
wages, and wages only at the cost of profits; and, therefore, that the
only way to ensure a fair rate for the use of capital is to keep the
price of labour down.
This system is to be carried out by producing "unlimited competition"
and in what is it to exist? In the sale of labour; and the greater
that competition, the greater will be the profits of the capitalist,
and the lower will be the wages of the labourer. The more the
competition for the sale of cotton, the cheaper will be the labourer
who produces it; and the more perfect the monopoly of machinery, the
cheaper must be the labourer who performs the work of spinning the
wool and weaving the cloth, but the larger will be the share of the
man who owns the spindles and the looms. The fewer the spindles and
looms of the world, the cheaper will be cotton and the dearer will be
cloth, and the greater the profits of what is called capital; but the
less will be the value of the stock in that great bank from which all
capital is derived--the earth; and the poorer and more enslaved must
be all those who have shares in it, and all who desire to obtain loans
from it--the land-owners and the labourers. Such being the tendencies
of the system, need we wonder, that it produces repulsion abroad, or
that England is now so entirely without friends that in this age of
the world--one that should be so enlightened--she talks of increased
armaments with a view to defending herself from invasion, and calls on
other nations for help? Certainly not. Were it otherwise, it would be
wonderful. She is expelling her whole people from the land, and the
more they go, the more she is rejoiced. "Extensive as has been the
emigration from Ireland which has already taken place, there is," we
are told--
"A remarkable proof that it has not been carried too far. There is
still no regular demand for labour in the West of Ireland, and wages
are still at the low starvation rate which prevailed before the
famine."--_Economist_, (London,) Feb. 12, 1853.
Again, we are told that
"The departure of the redundant population of the Highlands of
Scotland is an indispensable preliminary to every kind of
improvement."--_Ibid_.
Further, we are informed that the emigration from England, Wales, and
the Lowlands of Scotland has "almost entirely consisted of able-bodied
agricultural labourers," and that few or none of the manufacturing
population have emigrated, except "a few Spitalfields and Paisley
hand-loom weavers."[215] The loss of all these agriculturists, and the
rapid conversion of the whole people of the kingdom into mere buyers
and sellers of the products of other nations, is regarded as not only
not to be regretted, but as a thing to be rejoiced at; and another
influential journal assures its readers that the "mere anticipation"
of any deficiency in the export of man from the kingdom "would lead to
the most disastrous suspension of industry and enterprise," and that
"the emigration must not only continue, but it must be maintained with
all possible steadiness and activity."[216]
Little effort would seem to be required to bring about the abandonment
of England, as well as of Ireland. Of the latter the latest journals
furnish accounts of which the following is a fair specimen:--
"The people are fast passing away from the land in the West of
Ireland. The landlords of Connaught are tacitly combined to weed out
all the smaller occupiers, against whom a regular systematic war of
extermination is being waged. * * * The most heart-rending cruelties
are daily practised in this province, of which the public are not at
all aware."--_Galway Mercury_.
In the former, we are told that
"The wheel of 'improvement' is now seizing another class, the most
stationary class in England. A startling emigration movement has
sprung up among the smaller English farmers, especially those holding
heavy clay soils, who, with bad prospects for the coming harvest, and
in want of sufficient capital to make the great improvements on their
farms which would enable them to pay their old rents, have no other
alternative but to cross the sea in search of a new country and of
new lands. I am not speaking now of the emigration caused by the gold
mania, but only of the compulsory emigration produced by landlordism,
concentration of farms, application of machinery to the soil, and
introduction of the modern system of agriculture on a great
scale."--_Correspondence of the New York Tribune_.
Nevertheless, wages do not rise. Hundreds of thousands, and even
millions, of the poor people of the kingdom have now been expelled,
and yet there is "no regular demand for labour," and wages continue as
low as ever. That such should be the case is not extraordinary, but it
will be so if this diminution of the power of association do not
result in lowering the reward of labour, and accelerating the
dispersion of the labourers. Every man that goes was a producer of
something, to be given in exchange for another thing that he required,
that was produced by others; and from the moment of his departure he
ceases to be a producer, with correspondent diminution in the demand
for the cloth, the iron, or the salt produced by his neighbours. The
less the competition for purchase the more becomes the competition for
sale, and the lower must be the compensation of the labourer. A recent
journal informs us that the condition of one class of operatives, the
salt-boilers, has "gradually become most deplorable."
"Their wages at present do not average 15s. a week, because they are
not employed full time; 2s. 6d. a day is the highest price given, and
one of these days consists of fourteen or sixteen hours. In addition
to this, some of the employers have latterly introduced a new mode of
diminishing the actual payment in wages. As has already been stated,
the salt-pans in the course of a few days require cleansing from the
impurities and dross thrown down with the process of boiling. The
accumulation may vary from one-eighth of an inch to one foot,
according to the quality of the brine. Therefore, every fortnight the
fires are let out and the pans picked and cleaned, a process which
occupies a full day; and this unavoidable and necessary work it is
becoming the fashion to require the men to perform without any
remuneration whatever; or, in other words, to demand one month's work
out of the twelve from them without giving any wages in
return!"--_Dawson's Merchants' Magazine_, February, 1853, 98.
The more steady and active the emigration of the agricultural
labourers, and the larger the remainder of factory operatives, the
greater must be the necessity for depending on other countries for
supplies, and the less must be the power of the nation in the
community of nations, the richer must grow the great manufacturer, and
the poorer must become the labourer; and, as this system is now being
so vigorously carried out, the cause of weakness may readily be
understood. It is a natural consequence of the purely selfish policy
to which the Ricardo-Malthusian doctrines inevitably lead.
Can such a system be a natural one? Is it possible that an all-wise,
all-powerful, and all-merciful Being, having constructed this world
for the occupation of man, should have inflicted upon it such a curse
as is found in a system of laws the study of which leads to the
conclusion that men can live only "by snatching the bread out of the
mouths" of their fellow-men? Assuredly not. What, then, _are_ the laws
under which man "lives and moves and has his being?" To obtain an
answer to this question, we must go back to the proposition which lies
at the base of the British system--that which teaches that men begin
the work of cultivation with the rich soils of the earth, and are
afterward compelled to resort to inferior ones the most important one
in political economy; so important, says Mr. J. S. Mill, that were it
otherwise, "almost all the phenomena of the production and
distribution of wealth would be other than they are."
Admitting, now, that the law _were_ different, and that instead of
commencing on the rich soils and then passing toward the poor ones,
they commenced on the poor soils of the hills and gradually made their
way down to the rich ones of the swamps and river-bottoms, would not
one of the differences referred to by Mr. Mill consist in this, that
whereas the old theory tended to establish a constant increase in the
_necessities_ of man, with constant deterioration, of his condition
and growing inequality among men, the new one would tend to establish
a constant increase of his _powers_, with constant improvement of
condition and growing equality among men, wherever the laws of God
were permitted to control their operations?
Again, might not another of those differences consist in the
establishment of the facts that instead of there having been a mistake
on the part of the Creator, there had been a serious one on that of
the economists, in attributing to those little scraps of the earth
that man forms into wagons, ships, and steam-engines, and which he
calls capital, an importance greater than is assigned to the earth of
which they are so trivial a portion; and that the latter was the real
bank, the source of all capital, from which he can have loans to an
extent almost unlimited, provided he recollects that they _are_ loans,
and not gifts, and that his credit with this banker, as well as with
all others, cannot be maintained without a punctual repayment of the
matter borrowed when he has ceased to need it?
Further, as the old theory furnishes propositions to, which the
exceptions are seen to be so numerous that every new writer finds
himself compelled to modify it in some manner with a view to cover
those exceptions, might not another, of the differences consist in its
furnishing laws as universally true as are those of Copernicus,
Kepler, or Newton--laws that gave proof of their truth by being
everywhere in harmony with each other, and productive everywhere of
harmony; and would not the following form a part of them?--
I. That the poor and solitary man commences everywhere with poor
machinery, and that everywhere, as population and wealth increase, he
obtains better machinery, and production is increased. The first poor
settler has no cup, and he takes up water in his hand. He has no hogs
or cattle to yield him oil, and he is compelled to depend on
pine-knots for artificial light. He has no axe, and he cannot fell a
tree, either to supply himself with fuel or to clear his land. He has
no saw, and he is compelled to seek shelter under a rock, because he
is unable to build himself a house. He has no spade, and he is
compelled to cultivate land that is too poor to need clearing, and too
dry to require drainage. He has no horse, and is obliged to carry his
little crop of grain on his shoulders. He has no mill, and is
compelled to pound his grain between stones, or to eat it unground, as
did the Romans for so many centuries. With the growth of wealth and
population he obtains machinery that enables him to _command_ the
services of the various natural agents by which he is surrounded; and
he now obtains more water, more light, more heat, and more power at
less cost of labour; and he cultivates rich lands that yield food more
largely, while he transports its products, by means of a wagon or a
railroad car, converts it into flour by aid of steam, and exchanges it
readily with, the man who converts his food and his wool into cloth,
or food and ore into iron,--and thus passes from poor to better
machinery of production, transportation, and exchange, with increasing
reward of labour, and diminishing value of all the products of labour.
II. That the poor settler gives a large _proportion_ of the produce of
his labour for the use of poor machinery of production,
transportation, and exchange; but the produce being small, the
_quantity_ of rent then paid is very small. He is a slave to the owner
of landed or other capital.
III. That with the increased productiveness of labour there is
increased facility for the reproduction of machinery required for the
production of water, light, fuel, and food; and that this diminution
in the cost _of reproduction_ is attended with a constant diminution
in the value of all such machinery previously accumulated, and
diminution in the proportion of the product of labour that can be
demanded as rent for their use; and thus, while labour steadily
increases in its power to yield commodities of every kind required by
man, capital as steadily diminishes in its power over the labourer.
Present labour obtains a constantly increasing proportion of a
constantly increasing quantity, while the claims of the accumulations
of past labour (capital) are rewarded with an increasing quantity, but
rapidly diminishing proportion; and that there is thus, with the
growth of population and wealth, a daily tendency toward improvement
and equality of condition.
IV. That increase in the _quantity_ of the landlord or other
capitalist is evidence of increase in the labourer's _proportion_, and
of large increase of his quantity, with constantly increasing tendency
toward freedom of thought, speech, action, and trade, and that it is
precisely as land acquires value that man becomes free.
Here is a system, all the parts of which are in perfect harmony with
each other, and all tending to the production of harmony among the
various portions of society, and the different nations of the earth.
Under them, we see men beginning on the higher and poorer lands and
gradually coming together in the valleys, with steady tendency to
increase in the power of association, and in the power to assert the
right Of perfect self-government. It is thus the system of freedom.
Population enables men to cultivate the richer soils, and food tends
to increase more rapidly than population, giving men leisure for the
cultivation of their minds and those of their children. Increased
intelligence enables man from year to year to obtain larger loans from
the great bank--the earth--while with the increased diversification of
labour he is enabled more and more to repay them by the restoration of
the manure to the place from which the food had been derived.
Here are laws tending to the promotion of kindly feelings, and to the
enabling of man to carry fully into effect the great law which lies at
the base of Christianity--doing to his neighbours as he would that
they should do unto him. They are laws whose constant and uniform
truth may be seen in reference to every description of capital and of
labour, and in all the communities of the world, large and small, in
present and in past times. Being _laws_, they admit of no exceptions
any more than do the great astronomical ones. They recognise the whole
product of labour as being the property of the labourer of the past
and the present; the former represented by the proprietor of the
machine, and the latter by the man who uses it, and who finds himself
every day more and more able to accumulate the means of becoming
himself a proprietor.
The English system does not recognise the existence of universal laws.
According to it, land, labour, and capital, are the three instruments
of production, and they are governed by different laws. Labour, when
it seeks aid from land, is supposed to begin with good machinery and
to pass toward the worst, with constantly increasing power in the
owner of the land; whereas, when it seeks aid from the steam-engine,
it passes from poor to good, with diminishing power in the owner of
capital. There is thus one set of laws for the government of the great
machine itself--the earth--and another for that of all its parts.
Under the first, value is supposed to increase because of the
diminished productiveness of labour, whereas under the last it is
supposed to diminish because of the increased productiveness of
labour. The two point to opposite poles of the compass, and the only
mode of reconciling them is found in the supposition that as the power
of production diminishes with the increasing necessity for resorting
to inferior soils, the power of accumulating capital tends to
increase, and thus counterbalances the disadvantages resulting from
the necessity for applying labour less and less advantageously. Who is
it, however, that is to furnish this capital? Is it the labourer? He
cannot do it, for he cultivates "the inferior soils," and retains for
himself a constantly diminishing proportion of a constantly
diminishing product. Is it the landlord? His proportion increases, it
is true, but his _quantity_ diminishes in its proportion to
population, as his tenants are forced to resort to less productive
soils. The power to accumulate is dependent on the quantity of time
and labour required for obtaining present subsistence; and as that
increases with the necessity for resorting to poorer machinery, the
power to obtain machines to be used in aid of labour dies away. Such
being the case, it is clear that if men are obliged, in obedience to a
great natural law, to pass steadily from rich soils to poor ones
yielding less returns to labour, no compensation can anywhere be
found, and that the elder Mill was right when he said that the power
of accumulation must cease, and wages must fall so low that men "would
perish of want;" in preference to doing which they would, of course,
sell themselves, their wives, and children, into, slavery. Of all the
English writers on this subject, he is the only one that has had the
courage to follow out the Ricardo-Malthusian system to its necessary
conclusions, and proclaim to the world the existence of a great law of
nature leading _inevitably_ to the division of society into two great
portions, the very rich and the very poor--the master and the slave.
There are thus two systems--one of which proclaims that men can thrive
only at the expense of their neighbours, and the other that they
"prosper with the prosperity of those neighbours--one that teaches
utter selfishness, and another teaching that enlightened selfishness
which prompts men to rejoice in the advances of their fellow-men
toward wealth and civilization--one that leads to internal discord and
foreign war, and another teaching peace, union, and brotherly kindness
throughout--the world--one that teaches the doctrine of despair and
death, and another teaching joy and hope--one that is anti-christian
in all its tendencies, teaching that we must _not_ do to our neighbour
in distress as we would that he should do to us, but that, on the
contrary our duty requires that we should see him suffer, unrelieved,
every calamity short of "positive death," and another teaching in its
every page that if individuals or nations would thrive, they can do so
_only_ on the condition of carrying into full effect the great law of
Christ--"That which ye would that others should do unto you, do ye
unto them."
Both of these systems cannot be true. Which of them is so is to be
settled by the determination of the great fact whether the Creator
made a mistake in providing that the poor settler should commence on
the low and rich lands, leaving the poor soils of the hills to his
successors, who obtain from them a constantly diminishing supply of
food--or whether, in his infinite wisdom, he provided that the poor
man, destitute, of axe and spade, should go to the poor and dry land
of the hills, requiring neither clearing nor drainage, leaving the
heavily timbered and swamp lands for his wealthy successors. If the
first, then the laws of God tend to the perpetuation of slavery, and
the English political economy is right in all its parts, and should be
maintained. If the last, then is it wrong in all its parts, and duty
to themselves, to their fellow-men throughout the world, and to the
great Giver of all good things, requires that it be at once and for
ever abandoned.
It is time that enlightened Englishmen should examine into this
question. When they shall do so, it will require little time to
satisfy themselves that every portion of their own island furnishes
proof that cultivation commenced on the poor soils, and that from the
day when King Arthur held his court in a remote part of Cornwall to
that on which Chatfield Moss was drained, men have been steadily
obtaining _more productive_ soils at _less cost_ of labour, and that
not only are they now doing so, but that it is difficult to estimate
how far it may be carried. Every discovery in science tends to
facilitate the making of those combinations of matter requisite for
the production of food, giving better soils at diminished cost. Every
new one tends to give to man increased power to command the use of
those great natural agents provided for his service, and to enable him
to obtain more and better food, more and better clothing, more and
better house-room, in exchange for less labour, leaving him more time
for the improvement of his mind, for the education of his children,
and for the enjoyment of those recreations which tend to render life
pleasurable. The reverse of all this is seen under the English system.
The more numerous the discoveries in science, and the greater the
command of man over the powerful natural agents given for diminishing
labour, the more severe and unintermitting becomes his toil, the less
becomes his supply of food, the poorer becomes his clothing, the more
wretched becomes his lodging, the less time can be given to the
improvement of his mind, the more barbarous grow up his children, the
more is his wife compelled to work in the field, and the less is his
time for enjoyment;--as witness all those countries over which England
now exercises dominion, and as witness to so great an extent the
present condition of her own people, as exhibited by those of her own
writers quoted in a former chapter.
Selfishness and Christianity cannot go together, nor can selfishness
and national prosperity. It is purely selfish in the people of England
to desire to prevent the people of the various nations of the world
from profiting by their natural advantages, whether of coal, iron ore,
copper, tin, or lead. It is injurious to themselves, because it keeps
their neighbours poor, while they are subjected to vast expense in the
effort to keep them from rebelling against taxation. They maintain
great fleets and armies, at enormous expense, for the purpose of
keeping up a system that destroys their customers and themselves; and
this they must continue to do so long as they shall hold to the
doctrine which teaches that the only way to secure a fair remuneration
to capital is to keep the price of labour down, because it is one that
produces discord and slavery, abroad and at home; whereas, under that
of peace, hope, and freedom, they would need neither fleets nor
armies.
It is to the country of Hampden and Sidney that the world _should_ be
enabled to look for advice in all matters affecting the cause of
freedom; and it is to her that all _would_ look, could her statesmen
bring themselves to understand how destructive to herself and them is
the system of centralization she now seeks to establish. As it is,
slavery grows in all the countries under her control, and freedom
grows in no single country of the world but those which protect
themselves against her system. It is time that the enlightened and
liberal men of England should study the cause of this fact; and
whenever they shall do so they will find a ready explanation of the
growing pauperism, immorality, gloom, and slavery of their own
country; and they will then have little difficulty in understanding
that the protective tariffs of all the advancing nations of Europe are
but measures of resistance to a system of enormous oppression, and
that it is in that direction that the people of this country are to
look for _the true and only road to freedom of trade and the freedom
of man_.
It is time that such men should ask themselves whether or not their
commercial policy can, by any possibility, aid the cause of freedom,
abroad or at home. The nations of the world are told of the "free and
happy people" of England; but when they look to that country to
ascertain the benefits of freedom, they meet with frightful pauperism,
gross immorality, infanticide to an extent unknown in any other part
of the civilized world, and a steadily increasing division of the
people into two great classes--the very rich and the very poor--with
an universal tendency to "fly from ills they know," in the hope of
obtaining abroad the comfort and happiness denied them at home. Can
this benefit the cause of freedom?--The nations are told of the
enlightened character of the British government, and yet, when they
look to Ireland, they can see nothing but poverty, famine, and
pestilence, to end in the utter annihilation of a nation that has
given to England herself many of her most distinguished men. If they
look to India, they see nothing but poverty, pestilence, famine, and
slavery; and if they cast their eyes toward China, they see the whole
power of the nation put forth to compel a great people to submit to
the fraudulent introduction of a commodity, the domestic production of
which is forbidden because of its destructive effects upon the morals,
the happiness, and the lives of the community.[217]
--The nations are told that England
"Is the asylum of nations, and that it _will defend the asylum to the
last ounce of its treasure and the last drop of its blood_. There
is," continues _The Times_, "no point whatever on which we are
prouder or more resolute."
Nevertheless, when they look to the countries of Europe that furnish
the refugees who claim a place in this asylum, they see that England
is everywhere at work to prevent the people from obtaining the means
of raising themselves in the social scale. So long as they shall
continue purely agricultural, they must remain poor, weak, and
enslaved, and their only hope for improvement is from that association
of the loom and the plough which gave to England her freedom; and yet
England is everywhere their opponent, seeking to annihilate the power
of association.--The nations are told of the vast improvement of
machinery, by aid of which man is enabled to call to his service the
great powers of nature, and thus improve not only his material but his
intellectual condition; but, when they look to the colonies and to the
allies of England, they see everywhere a decay of intellect; and when
they look to the independent countries, they see her whole power put
forth to prevent them from doing any thing but cultivate the earth and
exhaust the soil. It is time that enlightened Englishmen should look
carefully at these things, and answer to themselves whether or not
they are thus promoting the cause of freedom. That they are not, must
be the answer of each and every such man. That question answered, it
will be for them to look to see in which direction lies the path of
duty; and fortunate will it be if they can see that interest and duty
can be made to travel in company with each other.
To the women of England much credit is due for having brought this
question before the world. It is one that should have for them the
deepest interest. Wherever man is unable to obtain machinery, he is
forced to depend on mere brute labour; and he is then so poor that his
wife must aid him in the labours of the field, to her own degradation,
and to the neglect of her home, her husband, her children, and
herself. She is then the most oppressed of slaves. As men obtain
machinery, they obtain command of great natural agents, and mind
gradually takes the place of physical force; and then labour in the
field becomes more productive, and the woman passes from out-of-door
to in-door employments, and with each step in this direction she is
enabled to give more care to her children, her husband, and herself.
From being a slave, and the mother of slaves, she passes to becoming a
free woman, the mother of daughters that are free, and the instructor
of those to whom the next generation is to look for instruction.
The English system looks to confining the women of the world to the
labours of the field, and such is its effect everywhere. It looks,
therefore, to debasing and enslaving them and their children. The
other looks to their emancipation from slavery, and their elevation in
the social scale; and it can scarcely fail to be regarded by the women
as well as by the men of England as a matter of duty to inquire into
the grounds upon which their policy is based, and to satisfy
themselves if it can be possible that there is any truth in a system
which tends everywhere to the production of slavery, and therefore to
the maintenance of the slave trade throughout the world.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Edwards' West Indies, vol. i. p. 255.
[2] Macpherson's Annals of Commerce, vol. iii. 575.
[3] Macpherson's Annals of Commerce, vol. iv. 155.
[4] Martin's Colonial Library, West Indies, vol. i. 90.
[5] Macpherson, vol. iv. 155.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Montgomery's West Indies, vol. ii. 114
[8] Macpherson, vol. iv. 155, 228.
[9] Macpherson, vol. iv. 155.
[10] The export to the foreign West Indies, from 1783 to 1787, is
given by Macpherson at nearly 20,000.
[11] The causes of these diminutions will be exhibited in a future
chapter.
[12] Macpherson, vol. iv. 144.
[13] The Cape and the Kaffirs, by Harriet Ward, London, 1852.
[14] Notes on Jamaica in 1850, p. 64.
[15] Ibid. 68.
[16] State and Prospects of Jamaica.
[17] The Corentyne.
[18] East bank of Berbice river.
[19] West ditto.
[20] West coast of Berbice.
[21] Prospective Review, Nov. 1852, 504.
[22] The Celt, the Roman, and the Saxon, by Thomas Wright, p. 87.
[23] Ibid. p. 56.
[24] Where population and wealth diminish, the rich soils are
abandoned and men retire to the poorer ones, as is seen in the
abandonment of the delta of Egypt, of the Campagna, of the valley
of Mexico, and of the valleys of the Tigris and the Euphrates.
[25] The land of England itself has become and is becoming more
consolidated, the cause of which will be shown in a future
chapter.
[26] Dallas's History of the Maroons, vol. i. page c.
[27] Macpherson, vol. iii. 394.
[28] Ibid. 574.
[29] Ibid. vol. iv. 255.
[30] Dallas's History of the Maroons, vol. i. cvii.
[31] Ibid. cv.
[32] Dallas's History of the Maroons, vol. ii. 358.
[33] See page 14, _ante_.
[34] Coleridge's "Six Months in the West Indies," 131.
[35] See pages 71-2, _ante_.
[36] Martin's West Indies.
[37] Tooke's History of Prices, vol. ii. 412.
[38] The reader who may desire to see this law fully demonstrated, may
do so on referring to the author's Principles of Political
Economy, vol. i. chap. v.
[39] Bigelow, Notes, 129.
[40] Ibid, 31.
[41] Ibid, 69.
[42] Bigelow, 125.
[43] Speech of Mr. James Wilson, December 10, 1852. On the same
occasion it was stated that "the lower orders" are daily "putting
aside all decency," while "the better class appear to have lost
all hope," and that the Governor, Sir Charles Grey, "described
things as going on from bad to worse." The cholera had carried
off, as was stated, 40,000 persons.
[44] The following case illustrates in a very striking manner the
value that is given to things that must be wasted among an
exclusively agricultural population,--and it is but one of
thousands that might be adduced:
WHAT OLD BONES AND BITS OF SKIN MAY BE GOOD FOR.--How to get a
penny-worth of beauty out of old bones and bits of skin, is a
problem which the French gelatine makers have solved very
prettily. Does the reader remember some gorgeous sheets of
colored gelatine in the French department of the Great
Exhibition? We owed them to the slaughter-houses of Paris. These
establishments are so well organized and conducted, that all the
refuse is carefully preserved, to be applied to any purposes for
which it may be deemed fitting. Very pure gelatine is made from
the waste fragments of skin, bone, tendon, ligature, and
gelatinous tissue of the animals slaughtered in the Parisian
_abbatoirs_, and thin sheets of this gelatine are made to receive
very rich and beautiful colors. As a gelatinous liquid, when
melted, it is used in the dressing of woven stuffs, and in the
clarification of wine; and as a solid, it is cut into threads for
the ornamental uses of the confectioner, or made into very thin
white sheets of _papier glace_, for copying, drawing, or applied
to the making of artificial flowers, or used as a substitute for
paper, on which gold printing may be executed. In good sooth,
when an ox has given us our beef, and our leather, and our
tallow, his career of usefulness is by no means ended; we can get
a penny out of him as long as there is a scrap of his substance
above ground--_Household Words_.
[45] The superficial area of the State is 64,000 square miles, being
greater than that of England, and double that of Ireland.
[46] Despotism in America, 127.
[47] De Bow's Commercial Review, new series, vol. ii. 137.
[48] The tobacco grower "has the mortification of seeing his tobacco,
bought from him at sixpence in bond, charged three shillings
duty, and therefore costing the broker but 3s. 6d. and selling in
the shops of London at ten, twelve, and sixteen shillings."
(Urquhart's Turkey, 194.) The same writer informs his readers
that the tobacco dealers were greatly alarmed when it was
proposed that the duty should be reduced, because then everybody
with £10 capital could set up a shop. The slave who works in the
tobacco-field is among the largest taxpayers for the maintenance
of foreign traders and foreign governments.
[49] Statistique de l'Agriculture de la France, 129.
[50] Urquhart's Resources of Turkey, 179.
[51] Equivalent to light port-charges, the anchorage being only
sixteen cents per ship.
[52] Beaujour's Tableau du Commerce de la Greece, quoted by Urquhart,
47.
[53] Urquhart, 150.
[54] The recent proceedings in regard to the Turkish loan are
strikingly illustrative of the exhausting effects of a system that
looks wholly to the export of the raw produce of the earth, and
thus tends to the ruin of the soil and of its owner.
[55] Urquhart, 257.
[56] Ibid. 202.
[57] Turkey, and its Destiny, by C. Mac Farlane, Esq., 1850.
[58] Mac Farlane, vol. i, 46.
[59] Mac Farlane, vol. ii, 242.
[60] Ibid. 296.
[61] Ibid. vol. i. 37.
[62] History of British India, vol. i. 46.
[63] Historical Fragments, 402.
[64] "The country was laid waste with fire and sword, and that land
distinguished above most others by the cheerful face of fraternal
government and protected labour, the chosen seat of cultivation
and plenty, is now almost throughout a dreary desert covered with
rushes and briers, and jungles full of wild beasts. * * * That
universal, systematic breach of treaties, which had made the
British faith proverbial in the East! These intended rebellions
are one of the Company's standing resources. When money has been
thought to be hoarded up anywhere, its owners are universally
accused of rebellion, until they are acquitted of their money and
their treasons at once! The money once taken, all accusation,
trial, and punishment ends."--_Speech on Fox's East India Bill_.
[65] Quoted in Thompson's Lectures on India, 61.
[66] Colonel Sykes states the proportion collected in the Deccan as
much less than is above given
[67] Rickards, vol. i. 288.
[68] Vol. ii. 218.
[69] Rickards, vol i. 500.
[70] Ibid. 559.
[71] Ibid. 558.
[72] Ibid. 558.
[73] Campbell's Modern India, London, 1852, 356.
[74] Campbell's Modern India, 357.
[75] Baines's History of the Cotton Manufacture.
[76] Campbell's Modern India, 332.
[77] Ibid. 381.
[78] Campbell's Modern India, 105.
[79] Rambles in India, by Col. Sleeman, vol. i. p. 296.
[80] Speech of Mr. G. Thompson in the House of Commons.
[81] See page 133 _ante_.
[82] Chapman's Commerce and Cotton of India, 74.
[83] Chapman, Cotton and Commerce of India, 28.
[84] Taking the last six of the thirteen years, the price of cotton
was 2d. a pound, and if the produce of a beegah was 6s. 6d., of
this the government took sixty-eight per cent. of the gross
produce; and taking the two years 1841 and 1842, cotton was 1-3/4
d. a pound, and the produce of a beegah was 5s. 8d. On this the
assessment was actually equal to seventy-eight per cent. on the
gross produce of the land.--_Speech of Mr. Bright in the House of
Commons_.
[85] Chapman's Commerce and Cotton of India, 110.
[86] Chapman, 167.
[87] Rambles, vol. i. 205.
[88] Ibid. 268.
[89] Ibid. vol. ii. 147.
[90] Ibid. 153.
[91] Ibid. 185.
[92] Ibid. 199.
[93] Chapman, 97.
[94] Thompson's Lectures on India, 57.
[95] Ibid. 185.
[96] Chapman, 22.
[97] Ibid, 25.
[98] Rambles in India, vol. ii. 109.
[99] Modern India, 394
[100] Thompson, Lectures on India, 25.
[101] The destruction of life in China from this extension of the
market for the produce of India is stated at no less than 400,000
per annum. How this trade is regarded in India itself, by
Christian men, may be seen from the following extract from a
review, recently published in the Bombay _Telegraph_, of papers
in regard to it published in Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, in which
the review is now republished:--
"That a professedly Christian government should, by its sole
authority and on its sole responsibility, produce a drug which is
not only contraband, but essentially detrimental to the best
interests of humanity; that it should annually receive into its
treasury crores of rupees, which, if they cannot, save by a too
licentious figure, be termed 'the price of blood,' yet are
demonstrably the price of the physical waste, the social
wretchedness, and moral destruction of the Chinese; and yet that
no sustained remonstrances from the press, secular or spiritual,
nor from society, should issue forth against the unrighteous
system, is surely an astonishing fact in the history of our
Christian ethics.
"_An American, accustomed to receive from us impassioned
arguments against his own nation on account of slavery, might
well be pardoned were he to say to us, with somewhat of
intemperate feeling, 'Physician, heal thyself_,' and to expose
with bitterness the awful inconsistency of Britain's vehement
denunciation of American slavery, while, by most deadly measures,
furthering Chinese demoralization."
The review, in referring to the waste of human life, closes as
follows:-.
"What unparalleled destruction! The immolations of an Indian
Juggernauth dwindle into insignificance before it! We again
repeat, nothing but slavery is worthy to be compared for its
horrors with this monstrous system of iniquity. As we write, we
are amazed at the enormity of its unprincipledness, and the large
extent of its destructiveness. Its very enormity seems in some
measure to protect it. Were it a minor evil, it seems as though
one might grapple with it. As it is, it is beyond the compass of
our grasp. No words are adequate to expose its evil, no fires of
indignant feeling are fierce enough to blast it.
"The enormous wealth it brings into our coffers is its only
justification, the cheers of vice-enslaved wretches its only
welcome; the curses of all that is moral and virtuous in an
empire of three hundred and sixty millions attend its
introduction; the prayers of enlightened Christians deprecate its
course; the indignation of all righteous minds is its only
'God-speed.'
"It takes with it fire and sword, slaughter and death; it leaves
behind it bankrupt fortunes, idiotized minds, broken hearts, and
ruined souls. Foe to all the interests of humanity, hostile to
the scanty virtues of earth; and warring against the overflowing
benevolence of heaven, may we soon have to rejoice over its
abolition!"
[102] Campbell, 390.
[103] Ibid. 393.
[104] Campbell, 384.
[105] Ibid. 377.
[106] Campbell, 359.
[107] Ibid. 332.
[108] Ibid. 345
[109] Chapman on the Commerce of India, 88.
[110] Lawson's Merchants' Magazine, January, 1853, 58.
[111] Ibid. 51.
[112] See page 140, _ante_.
[113] Backhouse's Visit to the Mauritius, 35.
[114] The danger of interference, even with the best intentions, when
unaccompanied by knowledge, is thus shown by the same author, in
speaking of Madagascar:--
"Dreadful wars are waged by the queen against other parts of the
island, in which all the male prisoners above a certain stature
are put to death, and the rest made slaves. This she is enabled
to effect, by means of the standing army which her predecessor
Radama was recommended to keep by the British. * * How lamentable
is the reflection that the British nation, with the good
intention of abolishing the slave trade, should have strengthened
despotic authority and made way for all its oppressive and
depopulating results, by encouraging the arts of war instead of
those of peace!"--P. 24.
[115] Thompson's Lectures on British India, 187.
[116] Lawson's Merchants' Magazine, January, 1853, 14.
[117] Bigelow's "Jamaica in 1850," 17.
[118] Sophisms of Free Trade, by J. Barnard Byles, Esq.
[119] Speech of Mr. T. F. Meagher, 1847.
[120] The following paragraph from an Irish journal exhibits
strikingly the amount of political freedom exercised at the scene
of these evictions:--
"Lord Erne held his annual show in Ballindreat, on Monday, the
25th ult, and after having delivered himself much as usual in
regard to agricultural matters, he proceeded to lecture the
assembled tenants on the necessity of implicit obedience to those
who were placed over them, in reference not only to practical
agriculture, but the elective franchise. To such of the tenants
as his lordship considered to be of the right stamp, and who
proved themselves so by voting for Sir Edmund Hayes and Thomas
Connolly, Esq., the 15 per cent. in full would be allowed--to
those who split their votes between one or other of these
gentlemen and Campbell Johnston, Esq., 7-1/2 per cent.; but to
the men who had the manliness to 'plump' for Johnston, no
reduction of rents would be allowed this year, or any other until
such parties might redeem their character at another
election."--_Cork Examiner_, Nov. 8, 1852.
[121] Thornton on Over-population, 248.
[122] Ibid. 250.
[123] McCulloch, Stat. Acct. of British Empire, vol. I. 315.
[124] Times Newspaper, June 7th, 1844.
[125] Report of Highland Emigration Committee, 1841.
[126] Lectures on the Social and Moral Condition of the People, by
various Ministers of the Gospel. Glasgow.
[127] See page 71, _ante_.
[128] Kay's Social Condition of England and of Europe, vol. i. 70
[129] Ibid. 359.
[130] Kay's Social Condition of England and of Europe, vol. 1, 183.
[131] On a recent occasion in the House of Lords, it was declared to
be important to retain Canada, on the express ground that it
greatly facilitated smuggling.
[132] Alton Locke.
[133] Lord Ashley informs us that there are 30,000 poor children such
as these in London alone.
[134] Reports of the Health of Towns Commission, vol. i. 127.
[135] City Mission Magazine, Oct. 1847.
[136] See page 224, _ante_.
[137] The import of 1850 was 103,713 lbs., and that of 1852, 251,792
lbs.
[138] The reader who may desire to see this more fully exhibited is
referred to the author's work, "The Past, the Present, and the
Future."
[139] See page 59, _ante_.
[140] "It may be doubted, considering the circumstances under which
most Irish landlords acquired their estates, the difference
between their religious tenets and those of their tenants, the
peculiar tenures under which the latter hold their lands, and the
political condition of the country, whether their residence would
have been of any considerable advantage. * * * The question
really at issue refers merely to the _spending_ of revenue, and
has nothing to do with the improvement of estates; and
notwithstanding all that has been said to the contrary, I am not
yet convinced that absenteeism is, in this respect, at all
injurious."--_Principles_, 157.
[141] Treatises and Essays on Subjects connected with Economical
Policy.
[142] Chapman, Commerce of India.
[143] During all this time there was a large increase in the import of
food from Ireland; and this, of course, constituted a portion of
domestic produce exported in the shape of manufactures, the whole
proceeds of which were to be retained at home. Since 1846, the
change in that country has been so great that she is now a large
importer of foreign grain. The official return for 1849 shows a
diminution in the quantity raised, as compared with 1844, of no
less than 9,304,607 quarters; and instead of sending to England,
as she had been accustomed to do, more than three millions of
quarters, she was an importer in that year and the following one
of more than a million. This deficiency had to be made up from
abroad, and thus was the United Kingdom transformed from the
position of seller of four or five millions of quarters--say about
40 millions of our bushels--of which it retained the _whole
proceeds_, to that of the mere shopkeeper, who retains only the
_profit_ on the same quantity. A similar state of things might be
shown in regard to many of the other articles of produce above
enumerated.
[144] in 1834, Mr. McCulloch estimated the produce of the land of
great Britain at 146 millions, but at that time wheat was
calculated at 50s. A quarter, or almost one-half more than the
average of the last two or three years. Other and larger
calculations may readily be found; but it would be difficult to
determine what becomes of the product if it be not found in rent,
farmers' profits, or labourers' wages.
[145] By reference to the report of the Assistant Commissioner,
charged with the inquiry into the condition of women and children
employed in agriculture, it will be seen that a change of clothes
seems to be out of the question. The upper parts of the
under-clothes of women at work, even their stays, quickly become
wet with perspiration, while the lower parts cannot escape getting
equally wet in nearly every kind of work in which they are
employed, except in the driest weather. It not unfrequently
happens that a woman, on returning from work, is obliged to go to
bed for an hour or two to allow her clothes to be dried. It is
also by no means uncommon for her, if she does not do this, to put
them on again the next morning nearly as wet as when she took them
off.
[146] _London Labour and London Poor_.
[147] The returns of imports into Great Britain are given according to
an official value, established more than a century since, and
thus the sum of the values is an exact measure of the quantities
imported.
[148] The reader will remark that of all the machinery of England but
a small portion is required for the _forced_ foreign trade that is
thus produced.
[149] The whole appropriation for the education of ten millions of
people in Western India is stated, in recent memorial from Bombay,
to be only £12,500, or $60,000, being six cents for every ten
persons.
[150] North British Review, Nov. 1852.
[151] Edinburgh Review, Oct. 1849. The italics are those of the
reviewer.
[152] See page 160, _ante_.
[153] Lawson's Merchants' Mag., Dec. 1852.
[154] Senior, Outlines of Political Economy, 152.
[155] At a recent discussion in the London Statistical Society, land
in England was valued at thirty years' purchase, houses at
fifteen, and land in Ireland at eighteen.
[156] This will appear a very small estimate when compared with those
usually made, but it is equal to the total production of the land
and labour of the country for a year and a half, if not for a
longer period; and it would be difficult to prove that if the
whole labour and capital of the country were applied to that
purpose--food and clothing being supplied from abroad--it could
not produce a quantity of commodities equal in value to those now
accumulated in England. Even, however, were the amount placed at a
thousand millions, the amount of wealth would still be small,
under the circumstances of the case.
[157] See page 105 _ante_.
[158] The latest number of the Bankers' Magazine contains statements
of two banks whose joint capitals and reserved funds are about
£200,000, while their investments are about a million!--and this,
would seem to be about the usual state of affairs with most of the
English banks.
[159] Bankers' Magazine, Sept. 1852
[160] The amount of expenditure for English railroads is put down at
from two to three hundreds of millions of pounds; and yet the
real investment was only that of the labour employed in grading
the roads, building the bridges, driving the tunnels, and making
the iron; and if we take that at £8000 per mile, we obtain only
54 millions. All the balance was merely a transfer of property
already existing from one owner to another, as in the case of the
land, which in some cases cost ten or twelve thousands of pounds
per mile.
[161] See page 240, _ante_.
[162] North British Review, Nov. 1852.
[163] This tendency is exhibited in most of the books that treat of
the system. Thus, Mr. McCulloch insists on the beneficial effect
of _the fear_ of taxation, as will be seen in the following
passage:--
"To the desire of rising in the world, implanted in the breast of
every individual, an increase of taxation superadds the fear of
being cast down to a lower station, of being deprived of
conveniences and gratifications which habit has rendered all but
indispensable--and the combined influence of the two principles
produces results that could not be produced by the unassisted
agency of either."
This is only the lash of the slave-driver in another form.
[164] Barter, The Dorp and the Veld.
[165] Estimating the average cost of raising men and women at only
$1000 each, the present forced export is equal to sending abroad a
capital of four hundred millions of dollars, no return from which
is to be looked for.
[166] The recent movement of this institution in raising the rate of
interest affords a striking example of its power, and of the
absence of the judgment required for its exercise. For two years
past the bank has aided in raising prices, but now it desires to
reduce them, and at the cost, necessarily, of the weaker portions
of the community, for the rich can always take care of
themselves. The whole tendency of its operations is toward making
the rich richer and the poor poorer. Sir Robert Peel undertook to
regulate the great machine, but his scheme for that purpose
failed, because he totally misconceived the cause of the evil,
and of course applied the wrong remedy. It was one that could
only aggravate the mischief, as he could scarcely have failed to
see, had he studied the subject with the care its importance
merited.
[167] Page 230, _ante_.
[168] Chap. VII. _ante_.
[169] Message of President Roberts, Dec. 1849
[170] Lecture on the Relations of Free and Slave Labour, by David
Christy, p. 46.
[171] The Social Condition and Education of the People of England and
Europe, i. 256.
[172] Handbuch der Allgemeinen Staatskunde, vol. ii. 5, quoted by Kay,
vol. i., 120.
[173] Until recently, the increase of Great Britain has been slightly
greater than that of Prussia, the former having grown at the rate
of 1.95 per cent. per annum, and the latter at that of 1.84; but
the rate of growth of the former has recently much diminished, and
all growth has now probably ceased.
[174] Die Agrarfrage.
[175] Etudes sur l'Economie Politique.
[176] Page 51, _ante_.
[177] In no other country than England would the editor of a daily
journal inflict upon his readers throughout the kingdom whole
columns occupied with the names of persons present at a private
entertainment, and with the dresses of the ladies. Where
centralization has reached a height like this, we need scarcely
be surprised to learn that there is but one _paying_ daily
newspaper for a population of more than seventeen millions.
[178] Rural and Domestic Life in Germany, 27.
[179] Pictures from St. Petersburg, by E. Jerrmann, 22.
[180] Pictures from St. Petersburg, 23.
[181] The cargo of a ship that has recently sailed is stated to have
consisted of more than a thousand females.
[182] Laing's Denmark and the Duchies, London, 1852, 299.
[183] Quoted by Kay, Social and Political Condition of England and the
Continent, vol. i. 91.
[184] Denmark and the Duchies, 42.
[185] Ibid. 136.
[186] Denmark and the Duchies, 368.
[187] Ibid. 394.
[188] Ibid. 388.
[189] Denmark and the Duchies, 362.
[190] Denmark and the Duchies, 294.
[191] Denmark and the Duchies, 269.
[192] _L'Espàgne en_ 1850, par M. Maurice Block, 145.
[193] Ibid. pp. 157-159.
[194] Bayard Taylor, in the _N. Y. Tribune_.
[195] _L'Espàgne en_ 1850, 160.
[196] Spain, her Institutions, her Politics, and her Public Men, by
S. T. Wallis, 341.
[197] The exact amount given by M. Block is 2,194,269,000 francs, but
he does not state in what year the return was made.
[198] By an official document published in 1849, it appears that while
wheat sold in Barcelona and Tarragona (places of consumption) at
an average of more than 25 francs, the price at Segovia, in Old
Castile, (a place of production,) not 300 miles distant, was less
than 10 francs for the same quantity.--_L'Espàgne en_ 1850, 131.
[199] North British Review, Nov. 1852, art. _The Modern Exodus_.
[200] M. de Jonnes, quoted by Mr. Wallis, p. 295.
[201] Wallis's Spain, chap: ix.
[202] It is a striking evidence of the injurious moral effect produced
by the system which looks to the conversion of all the other
nations of the world into mere farmers and planters, that
Mr. Macgregor, in his work of Commercial Statistics, says, in
speaking of the Methuen treaty, "we do not deny that there were
advantages in having a market for our woollens in Portugal,
especially one, of which, if not the principal, was the means
afforded of sending them afterward by contraband into
Spain."--Vol. ii. 1122.
[203] In the first half of this period the export was small, whereas
in the last one, 1836 to 1840, it must have been in excess of the
growth of population.
[204] From 1842 to 1845 the average crop was 2,250,000 bales, or half
a million more than the average of the four previous years. From
1847 to 1850 the average was only 2,260,000 bales, and the price
rose, which could not have been the case had the slave trade been
as brisk between 1840 and 1845 as it had been between 1835 and
1840.
[205] See page 108, _ante_, for the sale of the negroes of the Saluda
Manufacturing Company.
[206] The following passage from one of the journals of the day is
worthy of careful perusal by those who desire to understand the
working of the present system of revenue duties, under which the
mills and furnaces of the country have to so great an extent been
closed, and the farmers and planters of the country to so great
an extent been driven to New York to make all their exchanges:--
"Mr. Matsell [chief of police, New York] tells us that during the
six months ending 31st December, 1852, there have been 19,901
persons arrested for various offences, giving a yearly figure of
nearly 40,000 arrests. * * * The number of arrests being 40,000,
or thereabouts, in a population of say 600,000, gives a
percentage of 6.6 on the whole number of inhabitants. We have no
data to estimate the state of crime in Paris under the imperial
_régime_; but in London the returns of the metropolitan police
for 1850, show 70,827 arrests, out of a population of some two
millions and a half, giving a percentage of less than three on
the whole number of inhabitants. Thus crimes are in New York
rather more than twice as frequent as in London. Indeed, if we
make proper allowance for the superior vigilance, and
organization of the metropolitan police of London, and for the
notorious inefficiency of our own police force, we shall
probably find that, in proportion to the population, there is in
New York twice as much crime as in London. This is an appalling
fact--a disgraceful disclosure."--_New York Herald_, March 21,
1853.
[207] North British Review, Nov. 1852.
[208] See Uncle Tom's Cabin, chap. xxxi.
[209] Letters to Lord Aberdeen, by the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, 9,
10, 12.
[210] Rev. Sidney Smith.
[211] See page 109, _ante_.
[212] It is commonly supposed that the road toward freedom lies
through cheapening the products of slave labour; but the reader
may readily satisfy himself that it is in that direction lies
slavery. Freedom grows with growing wealth, not growing
poverty. To increase the cost of raising slaves, and thus to
_increase the value of man at home_, produces exactly the effect
anticipated from the other course of operation, because the value
of the land and its produce grows more rapidly than the value of
that portion of the negro's powers that can be obtained from him
as a slave--that is, without the payment of wages.
[213] See page 280, _ante_.
[214] The following statement of the operations of the past year
completes the picture presented in Chapter IV.:--
"A tabular return, prepared by order of the House of Assembly of
Jamaica, exhibiting the properties in that island 'upon which
cultivation has been wholly or partially abandoned since the 1st
day of January, 1852,' presents in a striking light one of the
many injurious consequences that have followed the measure of
negro emancipation in the British West Indies. The return, which
is dated January 27, 1853, shows that 128 sugar estates have been
totally abandoned during the year, and 71 partially abandoned; of
coffee plantations, 96 have been totally, and 56 partially,
abandoned; of country seats--residences of planters or their
agents--30 have been totally, and 22 partially, abandoned. The
properties thus nearly or wholly ruined by the ill-considered
legislation of the British Parliament cover an area of 391,187
acres."
[215] _Economist_, (London,) Feb. 12, 1863.
[216] Spectator, Feb. 12, 1853.
[217] The net revenue from the opium trade, for the current year, is
stated to be no less than four millions of pounds sterling, or
nearly twenty millions of dollars; and it is to that revenue,
says _The Friend of India_, Nov. 25, 1852, that the Indian
government has been indebted for its power to carry on the wars
since 1838, those of Affghanistan, Seinde, Gwalior, the Punjab,
and that now existing with Burmah. Well is it asked by Dr. Allen,
in his pamphlet on "The Opium Trade," (Lowell, 1853,) "Can such
an unrighteous course in a nation always prosper?" "How," says
the same author, "can the Chinese
"Regard the English in any other light than wholesale smugglers
and wholesale dealers in poison? The latter can expend annually
over two millions of dollars on the coast of Great Britain to
protect its own revenue laws, but at the same time set at bold
defiance similar laws of protection enacted by the former. The
English are constantly supplying the Chinese a deadly poison,
with which thousands yearly put an end to their existence. In
England, even the druggists are expressly forbidden to sell
arsenic, laudanum, or other poison, if they have the least
suspicion that their customer intends to commit suicide. But in
China every facility is afforded and material supplied under the
British flag, and sanctioned by Parliament itself, for wholesale
slaughter. How long will an enlightened and Christian nation
continue to farm and grow a means of vice, with the proceeds of
which, even when in her possession, a benighted and pagan nation
disdains to replenish her treasury, being drawn from the ruin and
misery of her people? Where is the consistency or humanity of a
nation supporting armed vessels on the coast of Africa to
intercept and rescue a few hundreds of her sons from a foreign
bondage, when, at the same time, she is forging chains to hold
millions on the coast of China in a far more hopeless bondage?
And what must the world think of the religion of a nation that
consecrates churches, ordains ministers of the gospel, and sends
abroad missionaries of the cross, while, in the mean time, it
encourages and upholds a vice which is daily inflicting misery
and death upon more than four millions of heathen? And what must
be the verdict of future generations, as they peruse the history
of these wrongs and outrages? Will not the page of history, which
now records £20,000,000 as consecrated on the altar of humanity
to emancipate 800,000 slaves, lose all its splendour and become
positively odious, when it shall be known that this very money
was obtained from the proceeds of a contraband traffic on the
shores of a weak and defenceless heathen empire, at the
sacrifice, too, of millions upon millions of lives?"