begun, by robbery and murder. We might justly add, that, in a country like ours, no man could be reduced to a state in which he had nothing to lose, except through his own dissolute extravagance and carelessness of any thing future. "The poor wretches. in the crowded manufactory, having no steady moral or religious principles, and consequently no command over their sensuality, find themselves without any provision for the future, and become burthensome and dangerous to the community; nor, whilst they are degraded by extreme poverty and dependence, is it to be wondered at that they conceive the world and the world's law,' not to be their friend; and become the enemies of social order."

6

This just remark introduces us to Mr. J. A. Yates's "Letter on the Distresses of the Country," which contains many proofs of a well-principled and vigorous mind, as well as many curious instances of the strong influence that party feelings may insensibly exercise over the reasoning powers. The abject penury by which too much of the labouring population is oppressed, is, without doubt, a very delicate and difficult part of the question regarding the present crisis. The first reflection, certainly, which the state of our manufacturing districts is calculated to suggest, is, that there must be something faulty, in our physical or political state, which has brought a multitude of persons, able and willing to work, under so severe a pressure; which has rendered their labour of so little value, that it will not procure more than a third of its usual reward; nay, that in a very considerable class, it only obtains the pittance which is the present price of five, or four, or even three quartern loaves, as the return for a week's industry, and the support of a family. It is natural to exclaim, on hearing this, that something must be wrong, either in the machinery which supplies the workmen, or in that which disposes of the produce of their work; either that the arrangement of domestic government must be faulty, and calculated to impede the natural distribution of manufactured labour, or that the general principle which ordains the increase of mankind is too active and powerful, and has loaded us with a redundant population. All classes of mankind are extremely ready to attribute their misfortunes to the inadequacy of the laws, or to the fault of the government; or even, if other extenuations fail, to some severe general rules of Providential enactment, which produce individual misery, instead of looking home, and inquiring what faulty government has been acted upon there, what opportunities they have neglected, and what vicious use they have made of their advantages. We are fully, however, of opinion, that a condition of things, like that we see, must necessarily have proceeded from the IMPROVIDENCE, the thoughtless and moral IMPROVIDENCE, which has pervaded the manufacturing body; the consequences have

been increased, perhaps, by accidental coincidences; but the rottenness was in the core, and could not fail, sooner or later, to extend itself through every ramification of the system, unless the course of things had been suddenly altered and reversed, and it had ceased to be the constitution of nature, that a vicious. youth should end in a premature and diseased old age, and that habitual prodigality should lead to inevitable bankruptcy.

We are glad to avail ourselves of Mr. J. A. Yates's local experience in confirmation of our opinion: 3100

"We discover," he says, "a foundation in the necessary structure of all highly civilized communities, for that deterioration of the moral characters of the lower orders, to which we may trace a large portion of that increase of wretchedness and pauperism which we have been lamenting. The division of labour, and the other processes which greatly augment the powers of production, and the means of extending National wealth, contract the intellectual attainments of the individual, and weaken the vigour of the corporeal frame; they destroy those finer sympathies, by which Nature would draw us together in the bands of charity and love; and degrade the moral man into a machine.It is, accordingly, in large cities, and especially in extensive mercantile and manufacturing towns, that the Poor appear in the most debased and disagreeable condition. Whilst our manufactures have flourished more and more, our poor-rates have increased in propor tion; though the wages of the Poor, in the manufacturing districts, are often extravagantly high, they seldom lay any portion by for a time of need; and they appear more regardless of comfort and cleanliness than the poor husbandman who receives, perhaps, not more than half their wages. A character of insolence, and unfeeling pride, prevails among them; and a tendency to political anarchy has frequently manifested itself, which it seems almost impossible to repress by any moral or religious influence.- The Poor in this situation make wonderful exertions, occasionally, either for the maintenance of their families, when well disposed, or for the pampering of their appetites and passions; but they have not those steady habits of industry, frugality, and sobriety, which exist in a more simple form of society, and which are so essential for warding off the attacks of sickness and poverty. This is a view of the effects of National Prosperity, which we advert to with reluctance; but it is founded upon the principles of civilized life, and the constitution of man-as a selfish, sensual, and short-sighted being; and it accounts for the production of a quantity of misery and vice, which it is to be feared no legislative regulations or individual exertions can perfectly counteract." (Letter, p. 90, 91.)

A great argument, this will appear, against encouraging manufactures. But to discourage them, on these or similar grounds, would be about as wise as for France to discourage her growth of grapes, because the vineyards failed in the last season: and about as possible as for Spain to prohibit the egress of the precious metals from her dominions. Manufactures are not the growth.

of legislation, but of human industry; they are not the creatures of public but private interest, and unless kept down by a system! of laws acting by a sort of main force against national prosperity, must inevitably follow the increase of capital and the improvement of agriculture. It is in vain therefore to regret what we cannot control, even if we were inclined to regret the possession of such a fertile source of national opulence. The more useful. and rational course is to point out, together with the peculiar disadvantage attendant on that employment of capital and skill, the only means by which the evil may be modified. There is no evil, we may imagine, necessarily arising out of that course of society to which men are naturally, i. e. uniformly led, by the spontaneous employment of their wealth and talents, which has not its appropriate prevention or alleviation. Those who proceed in this confidence will seldom be disappointed. In the moral or political, as well as in the natural world, the antidote will commonly be found to grow within reach of the poison.

The demand for all labour is fluctuating, and liable to occasional and unforeseen variations. But every body sees that this is particularly the case with manufacturing labour. A change of fashion at home, or a municipal regulation abroad, the discovery or failure of a mine, the wealth or poverty of a customer, the fluctuation of the seasons, all bear directly upon it, independently of the more important difference arising from the hostile or peaceful relation of the neighbouring countries. Therefore labour of this sort, though far more productive in its flourishing seasons, is far more precarious in its eventual success than any other. In agriculture, for instance, the farm which employs its fifty labourers this year, will require the same number in the next, with little sensible increase or diminution; while the manufacturer, who has employed 500 men in the winter, in the following summer may not improbably be forced to discharge fourfifths of that number, or to continue them at a loss of profit to himself, or of wages to them, merely from some caprice in the customer, or the invention of some new machinery, or some other unexpected circumstance equally beyond his control.

The remedy, however, of these fluctuations is neither distant, nor complicated, nor empirical; it is nothing more than that moral foresight, which belongs to intelligent beings, and distinguishes, or ought to distinguish, the social man from the thoughtless savage. If it is the nature of manufacturing labour that it should be productive at one season, and barren at another, then it is the duty of those who foresee this to provide for the future famine from the superabundance of the present harvest. That labour must be paid in proportion to its uncertainty, is one of the first rules of political economy,

"A mason or bricklayer," says Adam Smith, "can work neither in hard frost, nor in foul weather; and his employment, at all other times, depends upon the occasional calls of his customers. He is liable, in consequence, to be frequently without any. What he earns, therefore, while he is employed, must maintain him while he is idle. Where the computed earnings of the greater part of manufacturers, accordingly, are nearly upon a level with the day-wages of common labourers, those of masons and bricklayers are generally from one half more to double those wages.

But if those labourers, who, in consideration of the inconstancy of their work, receive additional wages, spend the whole of those wages during the period of their employ, what claim have they upon us if they are left destitute during the period of their inactivity? It is evident that though they may have a hold on our compassion, and none more deserving of it, in one sense, than those who make an ill use of their moral faculties; yet that they can enforce no claim upon our justice. We might as well complain of nature, that she does not give us two annual harvests, because we may have squandered in the winter all the autumnal produce, as think it hard that those, who in the long season of prosperity have never bestowed one thought upon the future, should, when that future comes, be thrown destitute upon the world.

The inconstancy of manufacturing labour, perhaps, is not so openly acknowledged as that of the journeymen in some particular trades. It is, however, virtually acknowledged, and plainly indicated by the only barometer which can regulate so extensive a concern, and be consulted by so numerous a body: viz. by the extraordinary demand for it at particular seasons, and the consequent enhancement of its reward. The wages are entirely independent of the price of subsistence, i. e. of the actual wants of the workman, and appear to be solely governed by the existing demand for the produce of his labour. In 1802,† when the price of wheat was 31. 7s. 4d. per quarter, the price of labour in Lancashire, for a specific fabric of printing calico, was 10s. In 1811, when the price of the quarter of wheat was 51. 8s. the price of labour for the same quantity of work was 5s. 6d. In 1814 it rose again to 10s., when the price of wheat had sunk to 37. 10s. There is a similar variation in the reward of labour at Glasgow, and an equal inconsistency with the price of subsistence.

* Wealth of Nations, book i. chap. x.

In

+ See Mr. Milne's Evidence before the Committee of the House of Lords, on the subject of the Corn Laws, 1813, 1814.

I See a statement delivered by Lord Lauderdale to the same Committee,

1790, and the two following years, the price for weaving a species of muslin called 1200 book muslin, six quarters wide, was 15d. per ell. Then the average price of wheat was 21. 12s. per quarter. In 1800, and the two following years, the price of the same work was 9d., when the average of wheat was 51. 7s., or nearly double its former price. In 1811 it had decreased to 5d., or one third of the original price, when wheat bore double the price of 1790. In 1814 wages had risen again to 94d., and wheat had sunk to 31. 10s. No one who has ever considered the matter can doubt for a moment that a view of the clothing or cutlery manufactures would exhibit similar results; would exhibit seasons of remarkable plenty and high wages, and of proportionate depression: nor have we any hesitation in admitting that the present period may exceed any former period of distress, and that the manufacturers in Lancashire, and the West of England, may be suffering in a degree unknown before.

What we are inclined to impress upon the public is this, that such periods of suffering must necessarily come round with more or less of aggravation, as long as the same system is persevered in, as long as the same profligate disregard of every moment but the present continues. It is the system of the savage, existing in the midst of a crowded population. For a time, on the sudden acquisition of plenty, there is the same waste, the same excess, the same debauchery, the same idleness; which is quickly succeded by a similar want, a similar necessity for extraordinary exertion. When the wages of the manufacturer experience a sudden rise, his weekly expenses rise in the same proportion. Perhaps he works but half the week, and spends the rest in low and profligate excess. Perhaps he squanders his superfluous wages in a manner the most absurd, and the most unsuitable to his station of life. But, at all events, when the year ends, he is in no sense better than he was at the beginning; his advantages have been altogether thrown away; he is no richer, and in a moral sense he is poorer, because his habits of drunkenness are more confirmed. It is unnecessary to prove what is too familiarly known: we need only advert to what is testified by the vulgar Saint-days, so prominent in the calendar of the manufacturing districts, and to what is authenticated by the proverbial remark, that drunken men are generally the best workmen; which is only another way of saying that the best workmen get most money, and spend the superfluous gain in liquor. It appeared in evidence before the House of Commons that the ribbon weavers at Coventry, who were at that moment requiring parish relief, had six months before been in the receipt of two and three guineas a week, which they expended in the most sumptuous manner upon poultry and other