wool at the antipodes, at 20 per cent. profit, and £3 a-week wages.* If the whole of our emigrating capital and labour went to our own colonies, there could be no doubt about the matter the aggregate community would be benefited and enriched precisely in the degree in which the new field of industry was more productive than the old one. "But a large proportion of our emigrants go to America.' Very true: what is the result? The British capital, which otherwise would have employed them here, partially and with difficulty, will follow and find them employment in more productive occupations, and therefore at a higher rate of profit at the other side of the Atlantic. Merchants are well aware of the enormous and increasing amount of English money now employed in America. At the moment we are writing we have received much curious information as to the extent to which Americans are endeavouring, (and succeeding,) as in 1836, to carry on their business with British capital.

is the real object of our alarm, can only
arise from the improved prospects, the en-
larged openings, the raised condition, of our
labouring poor-it therefore simply indi-
cates that they have obtained, through ano-
ther channel, the advantages which it was
the aim and purpose of our manufacturing
activity to secure to them. The increased
rate of wages, which enhances the cost of
our productions, and therefore ceteris pari-
bus, limits the markets for them, is the con-
sequence of a state of things which makes
extended markets, pro tanto, less necessary
than they were. The moment that an ex-
tension of our manufactures becomes again
wanted in order to afford employment for
our artisans either in consequence of their
multiplication, or of the new fields of em-
ployment closing upon them or being filled
up-that moment will wages naturally fall,
the cost of production be again reduced, and
manufactured articles again force themselves
an outlet. This or that manufacturer may
be inconvenienced; this or that branch of
our industry may be temporarily deranged;
great changes may take place in the distri- So far, then, from being disposed to au-
bution of employments; but as the sole gur ill to Great Britain from the extent of
object of industry is to earn the necessaries this Modern Exodus, we augur from it the
and comforts of life-as the sole benefit of greatest and the widest good. We see in
brisk and advancing trade is to afford ample it an opening for a splendid and a happy
and regular reward to those engaged in it,
then if these objects are already present and
attained as the fact of high wages show that
they are what more can we, as a people,
desire? As soon as the check given, or ex-
pected to be given, to manufacturing ac-
tivity, by scanty and high priced labour,
becomes a national evil, labour will imme-
diately and inevitably cease to be-or rather
will have ceased to be either scanty or
high priced.

future such as has rarely, if ever, been
vouchsafed to an old country. We see in
it the solution of most of our social diffi-
culties, the cure of many of our social
sores. It will supersede, render superfluous,
and scatter to the winds all wild and foolish
theories for national regeneration, and ren-
der practicable many sane and sober ones.
Viewed aright, and used aright, it should be
the commencement of a new era, richer,
lovelier, nobler, and grander, than any pre-
Why, in the vast majority of cases, do vious epoch of our history. It is one of
wages rise? Because labour has become those critical "tides in the affairs of men,
more productive. Why are hands difficult which, taken at the flood lead on to for-
to be procured for one trade? Because they tune" one of those glorious opportunities
are in greater demand-more highly tempt- which, if neglected, Providence offers not
ed-that is, more productive in another. again; which, if promptly seized, and judi-
If, indeed, depopulation were going on to ciously and diligently turned to account,
such an extent that manufacturing capital, need no second advent. Let us briefly hint
already invested and fixed, were in danger at a few of the consequences which it will
of being thrown idle for want of hands to or may produce.
work it, then an actual loss of property
might be deplored. But no one con-
ceives that this will be the case. All that
is feared is that we shall not be able to
invest more capital or find more hands (on
the old terms) for an increase of our pro
duction. But why? Simply and obviously
because this capital and these hands find
more tempting occupation elsewhere, and
in some other line. Instead of producing
calico here at 7 per cent. profit, and 10s.
a-week wages, they are producing corn or

1. It will greatly check and reduce within

*Many, we believe, fear that wages may rise so high that all the manufacturer's profit will be swept away, and he will no longer therefore be able to employ his people. But it is obvious that this can never For it is only the manufacturer's profit that enables be the case, (except partially and momentarily.) him to employ people or to pay wages at all. The moment that profit ceases, or falls so low as to be no inducement to carry on business, he ceases to be able to employ the people or to pay them. Employment sarily fall, till the margin of profit is again large then immediately becomes wanted, and wages necesenough to induce the resumption of production.

1847,
1848,

1849,
1850,
1851,

15,008
7607

9507

8012 at a cost of £1386. 8800 2120.

"

In addition to this, the Chairman of the Board of Guardians stated, (in 1851,) that £15,000 was expended annually in relief to Irish paupers.

Thirdly. We have lying before us a report made to the Manchester Board of Guardians by their clerk, Mr. Harrop, from which it appears that while in five years, from 1846 to 1851, the English paupers in that union receiving out-door relief, have increased only from 2463 to 2624 families,

beneficent limits, if not altogether terminate Irish Immigration into England. For half a century back the western shores of our island-especially Lancashire and Glasgow -have been flooded with crowds of halfclad, half-fed, half-civilized Celts, many thousands of whom have settled permanently in our manufacturing towns, reducing wages by their competition, and what is far worse, reducing the standard of living and comfort among our people by their example-spreading squalor and disease by their filthy habits-inciting to turbulence and discontent by their incorrigible hostility to law-incalculably increasing the burden of our poor-rates-and swelling the registers of crime both in police courts and assizes, or less than seven per cent., and in total cost to the great damage of the national character and reputation. The abundant supply of cheap labour which they furnished had no doubt the effect of enabling our manufac turing industry to increase at a rate and to reach a height which, without them, would have been unattainable; and so far they have been of service. In every other respect the Celtic settlers in the west of England have been a source of unmixed evil. We have taken considerable pains to collect a few facts which may serve as a specimen of the extent to which Irish immigration really swells the burden of British pauper ism and the returns of British crime. Here are some of them :

First. We have a carefully prepared document lying before us, from which it appears that in the three years, from November 3, 1848, to October 12, 1851, (omitting a period of nine weeks during which no account was kept,) the number of deck passengers arriving in Liverpool from Ireland, was 756,674, of which 531,459 were emigrants and jobbers, and 225,205, or nearly a quarter of a million, were paupers.

Secondly. The number of paupers passed back to Ireland by the Liverpool overseers, having become chargeable on that parish, were in

only £7, 10s. a week, the Irish paupers have increased from 427 to 1478 families, or more than three hundred per cent., and in total cost £132 weekly, or £6864 per annum !

Fourthly. The number of cases relieved by the District Provident Society of Liverpool in 1843 and 1844, (before the famine, observe.) were 36,403, of which 19,102, or more than half were Irish.

Fifthly. The returns of our assize courts do not unfortunately discriminate the native country of the criminals brought before them, but the police courts of Manchester and Liverpool supply us with a standard of comparison.

Return shewing the Number of Persons taken into
Custody for Offences committed in the Borough of
Manchester in 1850.

A Return shewing the Number of Prisoners brought before the Magistrates for the Borough of Liverpool, distinguishing the different Countries to which they belong, during the following Years :

i

Sixthly. The number of low lodging-shape, as at once a salutary stimulant, a houses in the borough of Manchester (sinks natural check, a trustworthy and self-operaof vice and crime of every sort) are 358, ting guide. We shall no longer be inuncontaining 1017 rooms, and 1953 beds, and dated with well-meant but ill-digested tenanted, on an average, by 3544 lodgers schemes for setting artificial contrivances to every night. The persons who keep these check-mate natural laws, and for purchasing lodging abominations are,

English,
Irish,

Scotch,

Foreigners,

91

252

5

10

358

a bureaucratic utopia by the sacrifice of individual free action. Socialism, Communism, elaborate and magnificent schemes of association-le droit au travail-will all disappear with that disordered condition of "the demand and supply of labour," which alone gave birth to them, or could secure

2. Of the effect which our wholesale emi- them a moment's currency; the axe will gration will produce on the long depressed have been laid to the root of the tree; the agricultural population, we have already evil, which could never have been checked spoken. If the advance in their earnings, by assaults on its secondary and symptomaand the improvement in their position, tic operations, will have been assailed and should, as we trust it will, raise their stand- extinguished at its source. ard of comfort and of wants, instead of 3. The diminution of our population, and merely inducing them to add recklessly to the consequent lightening of the pressure in their numbers, their condition may be per- all branches of industry, will probably go manently and incalculably elevated. The far to rectify what has been pointed out as effect will be still more marked on the a very serious evil by our first living politiclasses dangereuses-the distressed, reproach- cal economist, J. S. Mill, viz., the disproful and criminal classes of our great towns. portionate and needless numbers employed Numbers of those tailors, bootmakers, and in the work, not of production, but of distrineedlewomen, of whose redundant multi-bution of the productions of others. The tudes and severe sufferings we have of late number of retail traders and shopkeepers is years heard so much, will no doubt emi- out of all proportion to the requirements of grate themselves. Many have already done society, or the numbers of the producing so, some through Lord Ashley's aid, and classes. There are in many places ten some through that of Sidney Herbert's shopkeepers to do the work which one society. Numbers more will emigrate out would suffice for such at least is Mr. of the class from which these superabundant Mill's estimate. Now these men, industrihandicraftsmen have hitherto been recruited. ous and energetic as they are, do not add to By the combined operation they will, we the production, and therefore not to the may fairly hope, soon cease to be too nu- wealth, of the community; they merely dismerous for the requirements of the commu- tribute what others produce. Nay more, in nity: Fifteen thousand tailors may find full proportion as they are too numerous, do employment where twenty-three thousand they diminish the wealth of the community. could only become slaves of the "sweaters," They live, it is true, many of them, by or crush each other in the internecine strife." snatching the bread out of each other's We shall no longer hear at least we ought mouths;" but still they do live and often not-of thousands driven into habitual theft, make great profits. These profits are made, from the impossibility of finding any honest it is obvious, by charging a per centage on means of maintenance; of thousands more the article they sell. If therefore there are compelled to seek in prostitution the re- two of these retailers to be supported by a quired addition to the scanty earnings of the community, when one would suffice to do needle. That "unrestricted competition," the work, the articles they sell must cost so beneficent in its healthy and natural re- that community more than need to be the sults, so crushing to the weak when the la- case, and so far the country is impoverished bour market has become filled up, and yet by supporting an "unproductive labourer" when labourers persist in crowding into it too many. Any one who examines into the as before so hateful to benevolent theo- subject is surprised to find how small a porrists, who regard it only in its more super- tion of the price paid by the consumer for ficial workings, and its more anomalous re- any article goes to the producer or importer, sults, and have not insight enough, or faith and how large a portion is absorbed by the enough, to trace "a blessing in disguise,"- distributor.* But these retailers are prethat "unrestricted competition," which it has been of late the fashion so passionately quire, in particular cases, what portion of the price "I think any one who has had occasion to into denounce, will again appear in its true paid at a shop for an article really goes to the per

VOL. XVIII.

11

cisely the class of partially educated, a committed wrong. Now, this unquestionashrewd, energetic men, to whom a new bly has hitherto been our case. By our colony, as soon as colonization has been corn-laws, which enhanced the price of food made attractive and customary, will be-by our restrictive commercial policy, most inviting, and are peculiarly well fitted which curtailed the demand for labour-by to thrive there. our old legislative and administrative follies, 4. Emigration will give us such an oppor- which stimulated multiplication, and thus tunity as probably no nation has ever yet unnaturally increased the supply of labourbeen blessed with, of retracing our many by our false doctrines and neglected duties fatal false steps on the subject of pauperism, which taught the people error, and did not and placing, once for all, our entire Poor educate them till they could perceive the Law system on a sound, innocuous, and de- truth, on subjects which directly bore upon fensible foundation. A poor-law which their social condition-we wronged them, taxes the industrious for the support of the and made ourselves responsible for much of idle the frugal and provident for the sake their poverty and incapacity. As far then, of the wasteful and improvident-those who and as long, as we had caused or aided their have accumulated property by diligence and pauperism, we were morally bound to enself-denial for the behoof of those whom dure it and relieve it. But now we have fecklessness and self-indulgence have kept abjured our blunders, and retraced our steps. poor-is, considered per se, a curse to a We have done much towards educating the country, not a blessing-a sin, not a virtue, people in better habits and in sounder views. in those who have enacted it. To compel We no longer stimulate population by parish the man who has kept himself above poverty allowances regulated according to the mulby abstaining from marriage to maintain the titude of children. We have removed all wife and children of the man who by mar-restrictions on trade, and all taxes on food. riage has sunk himself in destitution, is a The working classes have now, in all respects, monstrous injustice-a clear and crying im- fair play. In future,-i.e., as soon as the policy. One only circumstance can make destitution we have caused shall have died such a poor-law as ours not unjust as well out, and the superabundant population we as not unwise; and that is where it is obli- have tempted into life shall have been abgatory upon us as a compensation for pre-sorbed, the only claim of the poor upon, vious injustice. Where destitution has been the rich for compulsory aid will have been caused by the sole fault or misfortune of the cancelled. And of the mischievous and destitute, a poor-law-i.e. compulsory cha- demoralizing effect of a poor-law, when no rity-is, we conceive, wholly indefensible. longer demanded by justice, nearly every But where pauperism and destitution have man with whom we need to reason is painbeen caused or stimulated by bad laws, by fully convinced. As soon, therefore, as the unjust social arrangements, by the sin of the demand for labour has overtaken the supply, community in short, then the indigent and and there can, in consequence, be no ableincapacitated have a claim on public aid, not bodied pauperism which is not voluntary as an inherent right, but as compensation for and wilful, the moral claim of the able

son who made it, must have been astonished to find how small it is. It is of great importance to consi

der the cause of this. .

It does not arise from

bodied to relief ceases, and their legal claim should cease also. But with the claim of the able-bodied, the claim of the aged and the extravagant remuneration of capital. I think it infirm ceases too. For they are a natural proceeds from two causes: one of them is, the very and providentially ordered burden, not upon great, I may say, the extravagant portion of the whole the community, but on their relatives. The produce of the community which now goes to mere distributors; the immense amount that is taken up by able-bodied man ought by the law of Nathe different classes of dealers, and especially by re- ture, and is enabled by the power which tailers. Competition has, no doubt, some tendency Nature has given him, to support not only to reduce this rate of remuneration still I am afraid himself, but those dependent on him. that, in most cases, and looking at it as a whole, the effect of competition is, as in the case of the fees of the moment ample work and wages are at professional people, rather to divide the amount the command of the able-bodied, that moamong a larger number, and so diminish the share ment does the maintenance of his children, of each, than to lower the scale of what is obtained his sick, his disabled, devolve upon him. by the class generally." "If the business of distri

And

bution, which now employs, taking the different That moment emigration has now brought, or classes of dealers and their families, perhaps more will probably bring. And if our legislators than a million of the inhabitants of this country, do not seize the happy opportunity to undo could be done by a hundred thousand people, I should think the other nine hundred thousand could| a great evil, to amend an enormous blunder, be dispensed with."-J. S. Mill: Evidence before a to repeal a most disastrous, paralyzing, and Committee of the House of Commons, 6th June, 1850. corrupting enactment, on them, and no