[147] In the review of an essay on _Observations on the injurious
Consequences of the Restrictions upon Foreign Commerce, by a Member of
the late Parliament, London, 1820_ (_Edinburgh Review_, vol. lxvi, pp.
331 ff.). This interesting document, from which the following extracts
are taken, an essay with a Free Trade bias, paints the general position
of the workers in England in the most dismal colours. It gives the facts
as follows: 'The manufacturing classes in Great Britain ... have been
suddenly reduced from affluence and prosperity to the extreme of poverty
and misery. In one of the debates in the late Session of Parliament, it
was stated that the wages of weavers of Glasgow and its vicinity which,
when highest, had averaged about 25_s._ or 27_s._ a week, had been
reduced in 1816 to 10_s._; and in 1819 to the wretched pittance of
5-6_s._ or 6_s._ They have not since been materially augmented.' In
Lancashire, according to the same evidence, the direct weekly wage of
the weavers was from 6_s._ to 12_s._ a week for 15 hours' labour a day,
whilst half-starved children worked 12 to 16 hours a day for 2_s._ or
3_s._ a week. Distress in Yorkshire was, if possible, even greater. As
to the address by the frame-work knitters of Nottingham, the author says
that he himself investigated conditions and had come to the conclusion
that the declarations of the workers 'were not in the slightest degree
exaggerated'.
[148] Ibid., p. 334.
[149] Paris, 1827.
[150] Preface to the second edition. Translation by M. Mignet, in
_Political Economy and the Philosophy of Government_ (London, 1847), pp.
114 ff.
[151] _Nouveaux Principes_ ... (2nd ed.), vol. i, p. 79.
[152] _Nouveaux Principes_ ... (2nd ed.), vol. i, p. xv.
[153] Ibid., p. 92.
[154] Ibid., pp. 111-12.
[155] Ibid., p. 335.
[156] Op. cit., vol. ii, p. 435.
[157] Ibid., p. 463.
[158] Op. cit., vol. i, p. xiii (pp. 120-1 of Mignet's translation).
[159] _Nouveaux Principes_ ... (2nd ed.), vol. i, p. 84.
[160] Ibid., p. 85.
[161] Ibid., p. 86.
[162] Ibid., pp. 86-7.
[163] _Nouveaux Principes_ ..., vol. i, p. 87.
[164] Ibid., pp. 87-8.
[165] Ibid., pp. 88-9.
[166] _Nouveaux Principes_ ..., vol. i, pp. 108-9.
[167] Ibid., pp. 93-4.
[168] Ibid., p. 95.
[169] _Nouveaux Principes_ ..., vol. i, pp. 95-6.
[170] Ibid., pp. 104-5.
[171] Ibid., p. 105.
[172] Ibid., pp. 105-6.
[173] Ibid., pp. 113, 120.
[174] _Nouveaux Principes_ ..., vol. i, p. 121.
[175] Vladimir Ilyich [Lenin], _Economic Studies and Essays_, _St.
Petersburg_, 1899.
_CHAPTER XI_