receiving bills in advance, and discounting those bills with monied persons, which has led to a greater extension of the trade than would otherwise have taken place. I do not think the profits have held out any inducement to extend of late; but with reference to the question of there being anything unhealthy in the state of trade, I place the whole unhealthy character of the trade upon that branch of it.'*

It need not be remarked that the word unhealthy is used here entirely in reference to profit and loss.

The manufacturers in England,' says Mr. Shaw,' are obliged to operate upon a very large scale; they have a regular demand for twothirds or three-fourths of what they make; and the rest they ship; and their reason for shipping it is, that they do not choose to depreciate their own article, and they do not choose to compete with their customers. They can only sell a certain quantity at a fit price, and the rest they export. That trade has increased: the scale upon which the manufacturers operate, I understand, is increasing, and consequently the surplus is likely to increase also. Suppose that a manufacturer makes 100,000 pieces of calico; he has only a regular demand for 75,000; but he finds that, with a little additional expense, he makes the other 25,000; that arises from the scale upon which he operates. I can state an illustration of the economy arising from an extended scale of operation. A person in the iron business, a few years ago, wanted money; his friends advanced him 20,000l.: he found that, operating with this, he could only make 6 per cent.; but he showed clearly, that if he had 40,000l. instead of 20,000l., he could introduce such savings into his business as would yield him a profit of 9 per cent. It is those savings which induce the cotton-manufacturer to operate upon the large scale that he does, and which is the cause of this excess. It is not a sacrifice that he makes, because, if he sells those goods at an apparent considerable loss, as compared with the goods he sells to his customers, still the general result is profitable to him, on account of those savings. Suppose I make 100,000 pieces of goods, and make 10 per cent. upon 75,000; this is a positive gain: then I export the residue, and incur a small loss: I am fully compensated for that loss by the profits I realize upon the three-fourths. I produce the whole cheaper. Our cotton manufactures are very much upon the increase; the excess is likely to be greater every year. The manufacturer must export, or he must depart from the system of operating upon a large scale.'+

It is stated before the committee, that the labour of the handloom weavers is incessant; and in consequence of this excessive labour, these people produce a fourth more goods than they would otherwise do if they got better wages! They are obliged to work longer hours.

How do you account for their condition being worse with this increase * Report on Manufactures, p. 35. ‡ Ibid. p. 296. of

Ibid. pp. 93-4-5.

of production?-Because the production of their article has been beyond the demand for it. What has caused that over-production?-The natural increase of the manufacturing population, with the improvements of machinery acting together. Has not the increased quantity produced caused the markets to be glutted, and the prices to fall?-No doubt of it. Then how do you reconcile that with your opinion of the advantage derived from this increase?-Because capital, though not returning large profits, has always been, I believe, profitably employed upon the whole.-Though the capital has done better by this increase, how has it affected the persons engaged in making the articles?—I believe the natural consequence of mercantile or manufac turing prosperity is to concentrate the wealth into a few hands.—Is that beneficial to the community ?-That is a question of political economy. Is that consistent with your former opinion, that the working classes are not worse off than they were before?—The working classes have not the same chance of rising now from their situation that they had some years ago; but I spoke of their comforts.— Do you call that a better or a worse state of society?—It is the course of nature, and legislation would rather add to the evil than improve it. Do not you think that an advance of wages, so as to enable the working men in this country to procure more of the articles they produce, would operate more beneficially to society as a whole, than to reduce their wages in order to enable us to compete with foreigners?— Nobody would wish to reduce their wages; but it is better that there should be a small reduction of their wages, than that they should get no employment at all.-Why should their employment cease in consequence of their having higher wages?—Because we have a foreign competition; we make a great deal more goods than we can consume, and, therefore, we must have a foreign market. If those who have produced those goods received higher wages, would not they be able to consume more, and would not that lessen the necessity for their export? They cannot consume the surplus quantity of our manufactures; they could not give us a return for them.-Why could they not consume, provided they possessed the means?—I should be glad to answer these questions; but it appears to me so utterly impossible that the people of this country can consume all the manufactures of the country, and that we should raise their wages that they may have money to do it, that I cannot understand the argument.'-Report, p. 333.

There is, however, one argument which every one can understand; if the agricultural labourers are in great numbers thrown out of employ, and the rest badly paid,-if the farmers are ruined, and the landholders reduced to distress,-the home market for our manufactured goods must be injured to a greater extent than any increase of demand in the foreign market could compensate. The agricultural classes constitute nearly a third part of our whole population; the number of trades and occupations mainly dependent upon them is very considerable; and no commonwealth can

flourish

flourish if its agriculture falls to decay. The decay is then in the root, and heart of oak itself cannot resist the rot which commences there. This also is intelligible, that when agricultural produce is lowered beneath a remunerating price, the farmer has no means of indemnifying himself, though he were to work his horses and his men sixteen hours per day, or without intermission through the night as well as the day, in order to increase the quantity of his produce.

Factories, we are told, are increasing ;-the manufacturers are extending their business-they desire to work night and day-they must make a profit, or they must be ruined: if the profit be small, they will make as many goods as they can-the very depression of prices compels them to greater exertions for stimulating their trade. (p. 301.) To the evil of over-production, that of excessive competition is added. A witness from Birmingham says,—

'The small manufacturers undersell the great; and then the greater, in the course of a few months, undersell them. The small ones have every disadvantage; in purchasing in small quantities they purchase at a higher price; and in manufacturing in small quantities, they manufacture with less economy, and they cannot resort to the division of labour, nor to the same convenient machinery. . . In Birmingham, when a large manufactory is broken up, the tools generally go to the brokers, and are sold at such a very low price, that a mere trifle buys them; and sometimes a dealer will give a little workman money to buy the tools he wants. They do their business thus: they go to a merchant, and he gives them an order for metal somewhere, taking first of all the profit upon it, and then he gives them a little money to go on with, and then they bring their goods in just at what prices he pleases. So that a merchant purchases lower in this way than he can of a large manufacturer; but the large manufacturer very often comes down to that price, and thus there is a continual degradation of both parties.'-Report, p. 281.

This person was speaking more particularly of the brass-foundry. In the year 1773, there were but six brass-founders in that town; in 1830, there were a hundred and thirty-six. There are now no profits,' said he, in our trade, upon industry,-if there is any profit remaining, it is upon capital, not upon industry.' Being asked his meaning, he explained it thus: If I purchase for ready money, the advantage I get by that, or by selling for credit, I call that a profit upon capital. For instance, if I, with capital, find an industrious man that has made goods ready to sell, very eager to get money, and I make a hard bargain with him; on the other hand, if I am selling, and I find a needy man who wants to buy, and I make a hard bargain with him, that is a profit upon capital; but if I exert my industry by employing men to manufacture goods, I get no profit upon that.'

Here, indeed, it is that the evil lies, and not in this branch

alone

alone, but in others of far greater extent; the profit is not upon industry, but upon capital. Overgrown wealth and neediness produce the same effect in grinding down the wages of the workman. The great capitalist may be satisfied with small profits, because he draws a large income from the large capital that he employs; the needy manufacturer must be satisfied with any profit that he can get. The Bolton delegates were asked what, in their opinion, was the cause of the continued fall, for the last thirty years, in the wages of the hand-loom weavers? One of them replied,

'There are a deal of pretended causes. One person will say that it was the war; and another the peace and the orders in council; and they will tell you that it was Buonaparte's decrees; and there are people that will say it is the tithe that has caused the wages to come down; and another will say it is the national debt; and another will say it is taxation ;-my own opinion is, that it is internal competition and rivalship; one man underselling another through poverty. The small manufacturers go to merchants three times a-week, to sell their goods; and if they cannot sell them in the morning, they will sell them in the evening at any price; and then they reduce wages.'(Report, p. 705.) 'We have long,' said a witness of the same class from Glasgow, ' considered that part of our grievance was caused by the steam-looms, and by the competition of foreign manufacturers; but we consider that a very trifling matter in comparison with the home competition that exists among our masters, and till there is some remedy for that we shall never be better. Some people will say that, if our provisions were cheaper, we should be better off; but our masters would take advantage of that cheapness, and reduce a penny an ell off a weaver that will work twenty-five or thirty ells, which would amount to 2s. or 2s. 6d. ; and the cheapness of his two pecks of oatmeal would be, perhaps, 6d. or sd.'

This, then, is the sum. Government is called upon to withdraw, either at once or by rapid gradations, all legislative protection from our own agriculture, in order that, by purchasing corn from foreigners, we may enable and induce those foreigners to purchase in return an additional quantity of our manufactured goods. They can supply us with so much corn, that tens of thousands of acres would immediately be thrown out of tillage, and hundreds of thousands of labourers out of employ. The landholders must then pay to these labourers in poor-rates what they now pay in wages; and not the landholders only, but all who are assessed to the poor-tax, will speedily find that they pay a dear price for cheap bread. But will bread continue cheap? It is not one of those commodities for which we can wait till the price falls, or which we can refuse to buy if the price be fixed (and who can doubt that it would be ?) with relation, not to the cost of pro-. duction,

VOL. LI. NO. CI.

T

duction, but to our necessity for buying it. No sooner shall we have made ourselves dependent upon the foreign grower, than he will tax us for his own benefit; and his government, through him, will tax us also. This, if peace continued with the continent, and on the continent, would take place as surely as the generality of men act upon their own views of their own advantage; and bread would very shortly be thus rendered at least as dear as it is now, while the increase of pauperism, caused by our insane experiment, would be so great as to threaten a servile war. This is what must be expected, supposing the continuance of peace and of favourable seasons. As for peace, Great Britain would be, in fact, bound over to keep it, under whatever provocation, on pain of having an embargo laid upon corn, and a prohibition of its manufactures, when a large and continual importation of the one, and exportation of the other, have been rendered necessary for the subsistence of the people and the tranquillity of the state. The continuance of peace, therefore, may be calculated on, as far as pacific counsels in our cabinet could preserve it, for what other counsel could be taken under the sense of dependence, the consciousness of weakness, and the dread of insurrection and rebellion? But then comes a year of dearth; the ungenial weather which injures our own harvest, generally extends to those very countries from which we must look for our supplies. Bad barvests are in the order of the seasons; that they must often occur, we know-we know not how often or how soon. It is one of the first objects of sound policy to provide against them, and under the old order of things this was, in a great degree, effected. Under that order we had frequently a surplus for exportation; and when the new harvest came round, there was commonly a stock on hand sufficient for the consumption of from three to six months. Now an old stock of wheat is no where to be found among us; and it is affirmed by one, who of all men has the fullest information upon the subject, having for many years been called upon officially to consider it in all its bearings, and in all its details, at home and abroad-it is affirmed by that competent witness,* that there has been for the last twenty years an average deficiency of four weeks* consumption; and that if, owing to bad weather, it should be deficient one-tenth more, all the world could not easily supply that deficiency at any price! If the cry for cheap bread is to prevail against the certainty of such consequences, God has indeed demented this nation, and heavier judgments are in store for it than pestilence, which, when it produces the effect of warning, is a dispensation of mercy.

We have heard, in our days, too much of the rights of man and

* See Evidence of Mr. Jacob, in Report of the Committee of 1823.

too