are considering, is to compare the state of a society when food is cheap
with the state of that same society when food is dear; and this is a
comparison which we can very easily make. We have only to recall to our
memory what we have ourselves seen within the last ten years. Take the
year 1835. Food was cheap then; and the capitalist prospered greatly.
But was the labouring man miserable? On the contrary, it is notorious
that work was plentiful, that wages were high, that the common people
were thriving and contented. Then came a change like that in Pharaoh's
dream. The thin ears had blighted the full ears; the lean kine had
devoured the fat kine; the days of plenty were over; and the days of
dearth had arrived. In 1841 the capitalist was doubtless distressed. But
will anybody tell me that the capitalist was the only sufferer, or the
chief sufferer? Have we forgotten what was the condition of the
working people in that unhappy year? So visible was the misery of the
manufacturing towns that a man of sensibility could hardly bear to pass
through them. Everywhere he found filth and nakedness, and plaintive
voices, and wasted forms, and haggard faces. Politicians who had never
been thought alarmists began to tremble for the very foundations of
society. First the mills were put on short time. Then they ceased to
work at all. Then went to pledge the scanty property of the artisan:
first his little luxuries, then his comforts, then his necessaries. The
hovels were stripped till they were as bare as the wigwam of a Dogribbed
Indian. Alone, amidst the general misery, the shop with the three golden
balls prospered, and was crammed from cellar to garret with the clocks,
and the tables, and the kettles, and the blankets, and the bibles of
the poor. I remember well the effect which was produced in London by the
unwonted sight of the huge pieces of cannon which were going northward
to overawe the starving population of Lancashire. These evil days passed
away. Since that time we have again had cheap bread. The capitalist has
been a gainer. It was fit that he should be a gainer. But has he been
the only gainer? Will those who are always telling us that the Polish
labourer is worse off than the English labourer venture to tell us that
the English labourer was worse off in 1844 than in 1841? Have we not
everywhere seen the goods of the poor coming back from the magazine of
the pawnbroker? Have we not seen in the house of the working man, in his
clothing, in his very looks as he passed us in the streets, that he
was a happier being? As to his pleasures, and especially as to the
most innocent, the most salutary, of his pleasures, ask your own most
intelligent and useful fellow citizen Mr Robert Chambers what sale
popular books had in the year 1841, and what sale they had last year.
I am assured that, in one week of 1845, the sums paid in wages within
twenty miles of Manchester exceeded by a million and a half the sums
paid in the corresponding week of 1841.
Gentlemen, both the capitalist and the labourer have been gainers,
as they ought to have been gainers, by the diminution in the price of
bread. But there is a third party, which ought not to have gained by
that diminution, and yet has gained very greatly by it; and that party
is Her Majesty's present Government. It is for the interest of rulers
that those whom they rule should be prosperous. But the prosperity which
we have lately enjoyed was a prosperity for which we were not indebted
to our rulers. It came in spite of them. It was produced by the
cheapness of that which they had laboured to render dear. Under pretence
of making us independent of foreign supply, they have established a
system which makes us dependent in the worst possible way. As my valued
friend, the Lord Provost (Mr Adam Black.), has justly said, there is
a mutual dependence among nations of which we cannot get rid. That
Providence has assigned different productions to different climates is a
truth with which everybody is familiar. But this is not all. Even in
the same climate different productions belong to different stages of
civilisation. As one latitude is favourable to the vine and another to
the sugar cane, so there is, in the same latitude, a state of society in
which it is desirable that the industry of men should be almost entirely
directed towards the cultivation of the earth, and another state of
society in which it is desirable that a large part of the population
should be employed in manufactures. No dependence can be conceived more
natural, more salutary, more free from everything like degradation
than the mutual dependence which exists between a nation which has a
boundless extent of fertile land, and a nation which has a boundless
command of machinery; between a nation whose business is to turn deserts
into corn fields, and a nation whose business is to increase tenfold by
ingenious processes the value of the fleece and of the rude iron ore.
Even if that dependence were less beneficial than it is, we must
submit to it; for it is inevitable. Make what laws we will, we must be
dependent on other countries for a large part of our food. That point
was decided when England ceased to be an exporting country. For,
gentlemen, it is demonstrable that none but a country which ordinarily
exports food can be independent of foreign supplies. If a manufacturer
determines to produce ten thousand pair of stockings, he will produce
the ten thousand, and neither more nor less. But an agriculturist
cannot determine that he will produce ten thousand quarters of corn,
and neither more nor less. That he may be sure of having ten thousand
quarters in a bad year, he must sow such a quantity of land that he will
have much more than ten thousand in a good year. It is evident that, if
our island does not in ordinary years produce many more quarters than we
want, it will in bad years produce fewer quarters than we want. And it
is equally evident that our cultivators will not produce more quarters
of corn than we want, unless they can export the surplus at a profit.
Nobody ventures to tell us that Great Britain can be ordinarily an
exporting country. It follows that we must be dependent: and the only
question is, Which is the best mode of dependence? That question it is
not difficult to answer. Go to Lancashire; see that multitude of cities,
some of them equal in size to the capitals of large kingdoms. Look at
the warehouses, the machinery, the canals, the railways, the docks.
See the stir of that hive of human beings busily employed in making,
packing, conveying stuffs which are to be worn in Canada and Caffraria,
in Chili and Java. You naturally ask, How is this immense population,
collected on an area which will not yield food for one tenth part of
them, to be nourished? But change the scene. Go beyond the Ohio, and
there you will see another species of industry, equally extensive and
equally flourishing. You will see the wilderness receding fast before
the advancing tide of life and civilisation, vast harvests waving round
the black stumps of what a few months ago was a pathless forest, and
cottages, barns, mills, rising amidst the haunts of the wolf and the
bear. Here is more than enough corn to feed the artisans of our thickly
peopled island; and most gladly would the grower of that corn exchange
it for a Sheffield knife, a Birmingham spoon, a warm coat of Leeds
woollen cloth, a light dress of Manchester cotton. But this exchange our
rulers prohibit. They say to our manufacturing population, "You would
willingly weave clothes for the people of America, and they would gladly
sow wheat for you; but we prohibit this intercourse. We condemn both
your looms and their ploughs to inaction. We will compel you to pay a
high price for a stinted meal. We will compel those who would gladly be
your purveyors and your customers to be your rivals. We will compel them
to turn manufacturers in self-defence; and when, in close imitation of
us, they impose high duties on British goods for the protection of their
own produce, we will, in our speeches and despatches, express wonder and
pity at their strange ignorance of political economy."
Such has been the policy of Her Majesty's Ministers; but it has not yet
been fairly brought to the trial. Good harvests have prevented bad laws
from producing their full effect. The Government has had a run of luck;
and vulgar observers have mistaken luck for wisdom. But such runs of
luck do not last forever. Providence will not always send the rain and
the sunshine just at such a time and in such a quantity as to save
the reputation of shortsighted statesmen. There is too much reason to
believe that evil days are approaching. On such a subject it is a
sacred duty to avoid exaggeration; and I shall do so. I observe that
the writers,--wretched writers they are,--who defend the present
Administration, assert that there is no probability of a considerable
rise in the price of provisions, and that the Whigs and the
Anti-Corn-Law League are busily engaged in circulating false reports for
the vile purpose of raising a panic. Now, gentlemen, it shall not be
in the power of anybody to throw any such imputation on me; for I shall
describe our prospects in the words of the Ministers themselves. I
hold in my hand a letter in which Sir Thomas Freemantle, Secretary for
Ireland, asks for information touching the potato crop in that country.
His words are these. "Her Majesty's Government is seeking to learn the
opinion of judges and well informed persons in every part of Ireland
regarding the probability of the supply being sufficient for the support
of the people during the ensuing winter and spring, provided care be
taken in preserving the stock, and economy used in its consumption."
Here, you will observe, it is taken for granted that the supply is
not sufficient for a year's consumption: it is taken for granted that,
without care and economy, the supply will not last to the end of the
spring; and a doubt is expressed whether, with care and economy, the
supply will last even through the winter. In this letter the Ministers
of the Crown tell us that famine is close at hand; and yet, when this
letter was written, the duty on foreign corn was seventeen shillings
a quarter. Is it necessary to say more about the merits of the sliding
scale? We were assured that this wonderful piece of machinery would
secure us against all danger of scarcity. But unhappily we find that
there is a hitch; the sliding scale will not slide; the Ministers are
crying "Famine," while the index which they themselves devised is still
pointing to "Plenty."
And thus, Sir, I come back to the resolution which I hold in my hand, A
dear year is before us. The price of meal is already, I believe, half as
much again as it was a few months ago. Again, unhappily, we are able
to bring to the test of facts the doctrine, that the dearness of food
benefits the labourer and injures only the capitalist. The price of
food is rising. Are wages rising? On the contrary, they are falling. In
numerous districts the symptoms of distress are already perceptible.
The manufacturers are already beginning to work short time. Warned by
repeated experience, they know well what is coming, and expect that 1846
will be a second 1841.
If these things do not teach us wisdom, we are past all teaching. Twice
in ten years we have seen the price of corn go up; and, as it went up,
the wages of the labouring classes went down. Twice in the same period
we have seen the price of corn go down; and, as it went down, the wages
of the labouring classes went up. Surely such experiments as these would
in any science be considered as decisive.
The prospect, gentlemen, is, doubtless, gloomy. Yet it has its bright
part. I have already congratulated you on the important fact that
Lord John Russell and those who have hitherto acted on this subject in
concert with him, have given up all thoughts of fixed duty. I have to
congratulate you on another fact not less important. I am assured that
the working people of the manufacturing districts have at last come to
understand this question. The sharp discipline which they have undergone
has produced this good effect; that they will never again listen to any
orator who shall have the effrontery to tell them that their wages rise
and fall with the price of the loaf. Thus we shall go into the contest
under such leading and with such a following as we never had before. The
best part of the aristocracy will be at our head. Millions of labouring
men, who had been separated from us by the arts of impostors, will be
in our rear. So led and so followed, we may, I think, look forward to
victory, if not in this, yet in the next Parliament. But, whether our
triumph be near or remote, I assure you that I shall not fail as regards
this question, to prove myself your true representative. I will now, my
Lord, put into your hands this resolution, "That the present corn law
presses with especial severity on the poorer classes."
*****
THE TEN HOURS BILL. (MAY 22, 1846) A SPEECH DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF
COMMONS ON THE 22D OF MAY 1846.
On the twenty-ninth of April, 1846, Mr Fielden, Member for Oldham, moved
the second reading of a Bill for limiting the labour of young persons
in factories to ten hours a day. The debate was adjourned, and was
repeatedly resumed at long intervals. At length, on the twenty-second of
May the Bill was rejected by 203 votes to 193. On that day the following
Speech was made.
It is impossible, Sir, that I can remain silent after the appeal which
has been made to me in so pointed a manner by my honourable friend, the
Member for Sheffield (Mr Ward.), and even if that appeal had not been
made to me, I should have been very desirous to have an opportunity of
explaining the grounds on which I shall vote for the second reading of
this bill.
It is, I hope, unnecessary for me to assure my honourable friend that
I utterly disapprove of those aspersions which have, both in this House
and out of it, been thrown on the owners of factories. For that valuable
class of men I have no feeling but respect and good will. I am convinced
that with their interests the interests of the whole community, and
especially of the labouring classes, are inseparably bound up. I can
also with perfect sincerity declare that the vote which I shall give
to-night will not be a factious vote. In no circumstances indeed should
I think that the laws of political hostility warranted me in treating
this question as a party question. But at the present moment I would
much rather strengthen than weaken the hands of Her Majesty's Ministers.
It is by no means pleasant to me to be under the necessity of opposing
them. I assure them, I assure my friends on this side of the House with
whom I am so unfortunate as to differ, and especially my honourable
friend the Member for Sheffield, who spoke, I must say, in rather too
plaintive a tone, that I have no desire to obtain credit for humanity at
their expense. I fully believe that their feeling towards the labouring
people is quite as kind as mine. There is no difference between us as
to ends: there is an honest difference of opinion as to means: and we
surely ought to be able to discuss the points on which we differ without
one angry emotion or one acrimonious word.
The details of the bill, Sir, will be more conveniently and more
regularly discussed when we consider it in Committee. Our business at
present is with the principle: and the principle, we are told by many
gentlemen of great authority, is unsound. In their opinion, neither
this bill, nor any other bill regulating the hours of labour, can be
defended. This, they say, is one of those matters about which we ought
not to legislate at all; one of those matters which settle themselves
far better than any government can settle them. Now it is most important
that this point should be fully cleared up. We certainly ought not to
usurp functions which do not properly belong to us: but, on the other
hand, we ought not to abdicate functions which do properly belong to
us. I hardly know which is the greater pest to society, a paternal
government, that is to say a prying, meddlesome government, which
intrudes itself into every part of human life, and which thinks that it
can do everything for everybody better than anybody can do anything for
himself; or a careless, lounging government, which suffers grievances,
such as it could at once remove, to grow and multiply, and which to
all complaint and remonstrance has only one answer: "We must let things
alone: we must let things take their course: we must let things find
their level." There is no more important problem in politics than to
ascertain the just mean between these two most pernicious extremes, to
draw correctly the line which divides those cases in which it is the
duty of the State to interfere from those cases in which it is the duty
of the State to abstain from interference. In old times the besetting
sin of rulers was undoubtedly an inordinate disposition to meddle. The
lawgiver was always telling people how to keep their shops, how to till
their fields, how to educate their children, how many dishes to have
on their tables, how much a yard to give for the cloth which made their
coats. He was always trying to remedy some evil which did not properly
fall within his province: and the consequence was that he increased
the evils which he attempted to remedy. He was so much shocked by
the distress inseparable from scarcity that he made statutes against
forestalling and regrating, and so turned the scarcity into a famine. He
was so much shocked by the cunning and hardheartedness of money-lenders
that he made laws against usury; and the consequence was that the
borrower, who, if he had been left unprotected, would have got money at
ten per cent., could hardly, when protected, get it at fifteen per cent.
Some eminent political philosophers of the last century exposed with
great ability the folly of such legislation, and, by doing so, rendered
a great service to mankind. There has been a reaction, a reaction which
has doubtless produced much good, but which like most reactions, has not
been without evils and dangers. Our statesmen cannot now be accused of
being busybodies. But I am afraid that there is, even in some of the
ablest and most upright among them a tendency to the opposite fault.
I will give an instance of what I mean. Fifteen years ago it became
evident that railroads would soon, in every part of the kingdom,
supersede to a great extent the old highways. The tracing of the
new routes which were to join all the chief cities, ports, and naval
arsenals of the island was a matter of the highest national importance.
But, unfortunately, those who should have acted for the nation, refused
to interfere. Consequently, numerous questions which were really public,
questions which concerned the public convenience, the public prosperity,
the public security, were treated as private questions. That the whole
society was interested in having a good system of internal communication
seemed to be forgotten. The speculator who wanted a large dividend
on his shares, the landowner who wanted a large price for his acres,
obtained a full hearing. But nobody applied to be heard on behalf of
the community. The effects of that great error we feel, and we shall not
soon cease to feel. Unless I am greatly mistaken, we are in danger of
committing to-night an error of the same kind. The honourable member for
Montrose (Mr Hume.) and my honourable friend the Member for Sheffield
think that the question before us is merely a question between the old
and the new theories of commerce. They cannot understand how any
friend of free trade can wish the Legislature to interfere between the
capitalist and the labourer. They say, "You do not make a law to settle
the price of gloves, or the texture of gloves, or the length of credit
which the glover shall give. You leave it to him to determine whether
he will charge high or low prices, whether he will use strong or
flimsy materials, whether he will trust or insist on ready money. You
acknowledge that these are matters which he ought to be left to settle
with his customers, and that we ought not to interfere. It is possible
that he may manage his shop ill. But it is certain that we shall manage
it ill. On the same grounds on which you leave the seller of gloves and
the buyer of gloves to make their own contract, you ought to leave the
seller of labour and the buyer of labour to make their own contract."
I have a great respect, Sir, for those who reason thus: but I cannot see
this matter in the light in which it appears to them; and, though I may
distrust my own judgment, I must be guided by it. I am, I believe, as
strongly attached as any member of this House to the principle of free
trade, rightly understood. Trade, considered merely as trade, considered
merely with reference to the pecuniary interest of the contracting
parties, can hardly be too free. But there is a great deal of trade
which cannot be considered merely as trade, and which affects higher
than pecuniary interests. And to say that Government never ought to
regulate such trade is a monstrous proposition, a proposition at which
Adam Smith would have stood aghast. We impose some restrictions on trade
for purposes of police. Thus, we do not suffer everybody who has a cab
and a horse to ply for passengers in the streets of London. We do not
leave the fare to be determined by the supply and the demand. We do not
permit a driver to extort a guinea for going half a mile on a rainy day
when there is no other vehicle on the stand. We impose some restrictions
on trade for the sake of revenue. Thus, we forbid a farmer to cultivate
tobacco on his own ground. We impose some restrictions on trade for
the sake of national defence. Thus we compel a man who would rather be
ploughing or weaving to go into the militia; and we fix the amount of
pay which he shall receive without asking his consent. Nor is there in
all this anything inconsistent with the soundest political economy. For
the science of political economy teaches us only that we ought not on
commercial grounds to interfere with the liberty of commerce; and we,
in the cases which I have put, interfere with the liberty of commerce on
higher than commercial grounds.