"A shocking part of his horrid punishment was its publicity, as I have said; it was in a court-yard, surrounded by galleries, which were filled with coloured persons of all sexes runaway slaves committed for some crime, or slaves up for sale. You would naturally suppose they crowded forward and gazed horror-stricken at the brutal spectacle below; but they did not; many of them hardly noticed it, and many were entirely indifferent to it. They went on in their childish pursuits, and some were laughing outright in the distant parts of the galleries; so low can man created in God's image be sunk in brutality."

Where, however, lies the fault of all this? Cheap cotton cannot be supplied to the world unless the domestic slave trade be maintained, and all the measures of England are directed toward obtaining a cheap and abundant supply of that commodity, to give employment to that "cheap and abundant supply of labour" so much desired by the writers in the very journal that furnished to its readers this letter of Dr. Howe.[207] To produce this cheap cotton the American labourer must be expelled from his home in Virginia to the wilds of Arkansas, there to be placed, perhaps, under the control of a Simon Legree.[208] That he may be expelled, the price of corn must be cheapened in Virginia; and that it may be cheapened, the cheap labourer of Ireland must be brought to England there, to compete with the Englishman for the reduction of labour to such a price as will enable England to "smother in their infancy" all attempts at manufacturing corn into any thing but negroes for Arkansas. That done, should the Englishman's "blood boil" on reading Uncle Tom's Cabin, he is told to recollect that it is "to his advantage that the slave should be permitted to wear his chains in peace." And yet this system, which looks everywhere to the enslavement of man, is dignified by the name of "free trade."

The cheap-labour system of England produces the slave trade of America, India, and Ireland; and the manner in which it is enabled to produce that effect, and the extent of its "advantage" to the people of England itself, is seen in the following extract from a speech delivered at a public meeting in that country but a few weeks since:—

"The factory-law was so unblushingly violated that the chief inspector of that part of the factory district, Mr. Leonard Horner, had found himself necessitated to write to the Home Secretary, to say that he dared not, and would not send any of his sub-inspectors into certain districts until he had police protection. * * * And protection against whom? Against the factory-masters! Against the richest men in the district, against the most influential men in the district, against the magistrates of the district, against the men who hold her Majesty's commission, against the men who sat in the Petty Sessions as the representatives of royalty. * * * And did the masters suffer for their violation of the law? In his own district it was a settled custom of the male, and to a great extent of the female workers in factories, to be in bed from 9, 10 or 11 o'clock on Sunday, because they were tired out by the labour of the week. Sunday was the only day on which they could rest their wearied frames. * * It would generally be found that, the longer the time of work, the smaller the wages. * * He would rather be a slave in South Carolina, than a factory operative in England."—Speech of Rev, Dr. Bramwell, at Crampton.

The whole profit, we are told, results from "the last hour," and were that hour taken from the master, then the people of Virginia might be enabled to make their own cloth and iron, and labour might there become so valuable that slaves would cease to be exported to Texas, and cotton must then rise in price; and in order to prevent the occurrence of such unhappy events, the great cotton manufacturers set at defiance the law of the land! The longer the working hours the more "cheap and abundant" will be the "supply of labour,"—and it is only by aid of this cheap, or slave, labour that, as we are told, "the supremacy of England in manufactures can be maintained." The cheaper the labour, the more rapid must be the growth of individual fortunes, and the more perfect the consolidation of the land. Extremes thus always meet. The more splendid the palace of the trader, whether in cloth, cotton, negroes, or Hindoos, the more squalid will be the poverty of the labourer, his wife and children,—and the more numerous the diamonds on the coat of Prince Esterhazy, the more ragged will be his serfs. The more that local places of exchange are closed, the greater will be the tendency to the exhaustion and abandonment of the land, and the more flourishing will be the slave trade, North and South,—and the greater will be the growth of pro-slavery at the South, and anti-slavery at the North. The larger the export of negroes to the South, the greater will be their tendency to run from their masters to the North, and the greater will be the desire at the North to shut them out, as is proved by the following law of Illinois, now but a few weeks old, by which negro slavery is, as is here seen, re-established in the territory for the government of which was passed the celebrated ordinance of 1787:—

"Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois, represented in the General Assembly.

3. If any negro, or mulatto, bond or free, shall come into this State, and remain ten days, with the evident intention of residing in the same, every such negro or mulatto shall be deemed guilty of a high misdemeanour, and for the first offence shall Be fined the sum of fifty dollars, to be recovered before any justice of the peace, in the county where said negro or mulatto may be found; said proceeding shall he in the name of the people Of the State of Illinois, and shall be tried by a jury of twelve men.

4. If said negro or mulatto shall be found guilty, and the fine assessed be not paid forthwith to the justice of the peace before whom said proceedings were had, said justice shall forthwith advertise said negro or mulatto, by posting up notices thereof in at least three of the most public places in his district; which said notices shall be posted up for ten days; and on the day, and at the time and place mentioned in said advertisement, the said justice shall at PUBLIC AUCTION proceed TO SELL said negro or mulatto to any person who will pay said fine and costs."

Slavery now travels North, whereas only twenty years ago freedom was travelling South. That such is the case is the natural consequence of our submission, even in part, to the system that looks to compelling the export of raw products, the exhaustion of the land, the cheapening of labour, and the export of the labourer. Wherever it is submitted to, slavery grows. Wherever it is resisted, slavery dies away, and freedom grows, as is shown in the following list of—

Countries whose policy looks Countries whose policy looks to cheapening labour. to raising the value of labour. —————————————— ———————————————- The West Indies, Northern-Germany, Portugal, Russia, Turkey, Denmark, India, Spain, Ireland, Belgium, United States under the United States under the Compromise, and the tariffs of 1828 and 1842. tariff of 1846.

Population declines in all the foreign countries in the first column, and it became almost stationary in the Northern Slave States, as it is now likely again to do, because of the large extent of the domestic slave trade. Population grows in the foreign countries of the second column, and it grew rapidly in the Northern Slave States, because of the limited export of negroes at the periods referred to. The first column gives the—so-called—free-trade countries, and the other those which have protected themselves against the system; and yet slavery grows in all those of the first column, and freedom in all those of the second. The first column gives us the countries in which education diminishes and intellect declines, and the period in our own history in which were passed the laws prohibiting the education of negroes. The second, those countries in which education advances, with great increase of intellectual activity; and in our own history it gives the period at which the Northern Slave States held conventions having in view the adoption of measures looking to the abolition of slavery. The first gives those foreign countries in which women and children must labour in the field or remain unemployed. The second those in which there is a daily increasing demand for the labour of women, to be employed in the lighter labour of manufactures. The first gives those in which civilization advances; and the second those in which there is a daily increasing tendency toward utter barbarism. We are now frequently invited to an alliance with Great Britain, and for what? For maintaining and extending the system whose effects are found in all the nations enumerated in the first column. For increasing the supply of cheap cotton, cheap corn, and cheap sugar, all of which require cheap, or slave, labour, and in return for these things we are to have cheap cloth, the produce of the cheap, or slave, labour of England, Scotland, and Ireland.

It is as the advocate of freedom that Britain calls upon us to enter into more intimate relations with her. Her opponents are, as we are told, the despots of Europe, the men who are trampling on the rights of their subjects, and who are jealous of her because her every movement looks, as we are assured, to the establishment of freedom throughout the world. Were this so, it might furnish some reason for forgetting the advice of Washington in regard to "entangling alliances;" but, before adopting such a course, it would be proper to have evidence that the policy of Britain, at any time since the days of Adam Smith, has tended to the enfranchisement of man in any part of the world, abroad or at home. Of all the despots now complained of, the King of Naples stands most conspicuous, and it is in relation to him that a pamphlet has recently been published by the present Chancellor of the Exchequer, in which are found the following passages:—

"The general belief is, that the prisoners for political offences in the kingdom of the Two Sicilies are between fifteen or twenty and thirty thousand. The government withholds all means of accurate information, and accordingly there can be no certainty on the point. I have, however, found that this belief is shared by persons the most intelligent, considerate, and well informed. It is also, supported by what is known of the astonishing crowds confined in particular prisons, and especially by what is accurately known in particular provincial localities, as to the numbers of individuals missing from among the community. I have heard these numbers, for example, at Reggio and at Salerno; and from an effort to estimate them in reference to population, I do believe that twenty thousand is no unreasonable estimate. In Naples alone some hundreds are at this moment under indictment capitally; and when I quitted it a trial was expected to come on immediately, (called that of the fifteenth of May,) in which the number charged was between four and five hundred; including (though this is a digression) at least one or more persons of high station whoso opinions would in this country be considered more conservative than your own." * * * "In utter defiance of this law, the government, of which the Prefect of Police is an important member, through the agents of that department, watches and dogs the people, pays domiciliary visits, very commonly at night, ransacks houses, seizing papers and effects, and tearing up floors at pleasure under pretence of searching for arms, and imprisons men by the score, by the hundred, by the thousand, without any warrant whatever, sometimes without even any written authority at all, or any thing beyond the word of a policeman; constantly without any statement whatever of the nature of the offence.

"Nor is this last fact wonderful. Men are arrested, not because they have committed, or are believed to have committed, any offence; but because they are persons whom it is thought convenient to confine and to get rid of, and against whom, therefore, some charge must be found or fabricated."[209]

Why is it that the king is enabled to do these things? Obviously, because his people are poor and weak. If they were strong, he could not do them. Men, however, never have anywhere become strong to resist power, except where the artisan has come to the side of the farmer; and it is because he has not done so in Naples and Sicily that the people are so poor, ignorant, and weak as we see them to be. Has England ever endeavoured to strengthen the Neapolitan people by teaching them how to combine their efforts for the working of their rich ores, or for the conversion of their wool into cloth? Assuredly not. She desires that wool and sulphur, and all other raw materials, may be cheap, and that iron may be dear; and, that they may be so, she does all that is in her power to prevent the existence in that country of any of that diversification of interests that would find employment for men, women, and children, and would thus give value to labour and land. That she may do this, she retains Malta and the Ionian Islands, as convenient places of resort for the great reformer of the age—the smuggler—whose business it is to see that no effort at manufactures shall succeed, and to carry into practical effect the decree that all such attempts must be "smothered in their infancy." If, under these circumstances, King Ferdinand is enabled to play the tyrant, upon whom rests the blame? Assuredly, on the people who refuse to permit the farmers of the Two Sicilies to strengthen themselves by forming that natural alliance between the loom and the plough to which the people of England were themselves indebted for their liberties. Were the towns of that country growing in size, and were the artisan everywhere taking his place by the side of the farmer, the people would be daily becoming stronger and more free, whereas they are now becoming weaker and more enslaved.

So, too, we are told of the tyranny and bad faith prevailing in Spain. If, however, the people of that country are poor and weak, and compelled to submit to measures that are tyrannical and injurious, may it not be traced to the fact that the mechanic has never been permitted to place himself among them? And may not the cause of this be found in the fact that Portugal and Gibraltar have for a century past been the seats of a vast contraband trade, having for its express object to deprive the Spanish people of all power to do any thing but cultivate the soil? Who, then, are responsible for the subjection of the Spanish people? Those, assuredly, whose policy looks to depriving the women and children of Spain of all employment except in the field, in order that wool may be cheap and that cloth may be dear.

Turkey is poor and weak, and we hear much of the designs of Russia, to be counteracted by England; but does England desire that Turkey shall grow strong and her people become free? Does she desire that manufactures shall rise, that towns shall grow, and that the land shall acquire value? Assuredly not. The right to inundate that country with merchandise is "a golden privilege" never to be abandoned, because it would raise the price of silk and lower the price of silk goods.

The people of Austria and Hungary are weak, but has England ever tried to render them strong to obtain their freedom? Would she not now oppose any measures calculated to enable the Hungarians to obtain the means of converting their food and their wool into cloth—to obtain mechanics and machinery, by aid of which towns could grow, and their occupants become strong and free? To render any aid of that kind would be in opposition to the doctrine of cheap food and cheap labour.

Northern Germany is becoming strong and united, and the day is now at hand when all Germany will have the same system under which the North has so much improved; but these things are done in opposition to England, who disapproves of them because they tend to raise the price of the raw products of the earth and lower that of manufactured ones, and to enable the agricultural population to grow rich and strong; and the more exclusively she depends on trade, the greater is her indisposition to permit the adoption of any measures tending to limit her power over the people of the world.

The people of China are weak, but does the consumption of opium to the extent of forty millions of dollars a year tend to strengthen them? The government, too, is weak, and therefore is Hong Kong kept for the purpose of enabling "the great reformer" to evade the laws against the importation of a commodity that yields the East India Company a profit of sixteen millions of dollars a year, and the consumption of which is so rapidly increasing.

Burmah, too, is weak, and therefore is her territory to be used for the purpose of extending the trade in opium throughout the interior provinces of China. Will this tend to strengthen, or to free, the Chinese people?

Can the people of this country become parties to a system like this—one that looks to cheapening labour every where? Can they be parties to any system that can be maintained only on the condition of "an abundant and cheap supply of labour?" Or, can they be parties to an alliance that, wherever it is found, so far cheapens man as to render him a profitable article for the export trade?

Who, then, are our natural allies? Russia, Prussia, and Denmark are despotisms, we are told. They are so; but yet so beautiful and so perfect is the harmony of interests under a natural system, that that which despots do in their own defence strengthens the people, and carries them on toward freedom. Denmark is a despotism, and yet her people are the freeest and most happy of any in Europe. It is time that we emancipated ourselves from "the tyranny of words"[210] under which we live, and looked to things. England has what is called a free government, and yet Ireland, the West Indies, and India have been prostrated under the despotism of the spindle and loom, while despotic Denmark protects her people against that tyranny, and thus enables her women and her children to find other employments than those of the field. The King of Prussia desires to strengthen himself against France, Austria, and Russia; and, to do this, he strengthens his people by enabling them to find employment for all their time, to find manure for their farms, and to find employment for their minds; and he strengthens Germany by the formation of a great Union, that gives to thirty millions of people the same advantage of freedom of internal trade that subsists among ourselves. The Emperor of Russia desires to strengthen himself, and he, in like manner, adopts measures leading to the building of towns, the diversification of labour, and the habit of association among men; and thus does he give value to land and labour. He is a despot, it is true, but he is doing what is required to give freedom to sixty millions of people; while all the measures of England in India tend to the enslavement of a hundred millions. We are told of his designs upon Turkey—but what have the people of that country to lose by incorporation within the Russian Empire? Now, they are poor and enslaved, but were they once Russian the spindle would be brought to the wool, towns would cease to decline, labour and land would acquire value, and the people would begin to become free. It may be doubted if any thing would so much tend to advance the cause of freedom in Europe as the absorption of Turkey by Russia, for it would probably be followed by the adoption of measures that would secure perfect freedom of trade throughout all Middle and Eastern Europe, with large increase in the value of man. The real despotism is that which looks to cheapening labour, and the real road to freedom is that which looks toward raising the value of labour and land.

The natural allies of this country are the agricultural nations of the world, for their interests and ours look in the same direction, while those of England look in one directly opposite. They and we need that the prices of all agricultural products should be high, and those of manufactured articles low, while England desires that the latter may be high and the former low. That they and we may be gratified, it is required that machinery shall take its place by the food and the wool; that towns shall arise, and that man shall everywhere become strong and free. That she may be gratified, it is required that the food and the wool shall go to the spindle and the loom; that men, women, and children shall be confined to the labours of the field, and that men shall remain poor, ignorant, and enslaved. The more Russia makes a market for her wheat, the higher will be its price, to the great advantage of the farmers of the world; and the more cotton and sugar she will require, and the higher will be their prices, to the great advantage of the planters of the world. The more Germany makes a market for her wool, the higher will be its price, and the cheaper will be cloth, and the more cotton and sugar she will need. The more we make a market for cotton, the better will it be for the people of India; and the more we consume our own grain, the better will it be for the farmers of Germany. Our interests and theirs are one and the same; but it is to the interest of the British manufacturer to have all the world competing with each other to sell in his one limited market, and the more competition he can create, the cheaper will be products of the plough, and the larger will be the profits of the loom. He wishes to buy cheaply the things we have to sell, and to sell dearly those we have to buy. We wish to sell dearly and buy cheaply, and as our objects are directly the reverse of his, it would be as imprudent for us to be advised by him, as it would be for the farmer to enter into a combination with the railroad for the purpose of keeping up the price of transportation.

Russia and Germany, Denmark, Spain, and Belgium are engaged in resisting a great system of taxation, and they grow rich and strong, and therefore their people become from year to year more free. Portugal and India, Turkey and Ireland yield to the system, and they become from year to year poorer and weaker, and their people more enslaved. It is on the part of the former a war for peace, and fortunately it is a war that involves no expense for fleets and armies, and one under which both wealth and population grow with great rapidity—and one, therefore, in which we may, and must, unite, if we desire to see the termination of the slave trade at home or abroad.

Russia and Germany, Denmark, Spain, and Belgium are engaged in an effort to raise the value of man at home, wherever that home may be, and thus to stop the forced export of men, whether black, brown, or white: England is engaged in an effort to destroy everywhere the value of man at home, and therefore it is that the slave trade flourishes in the countries that submit to her system. We desire to increase the value of man in Virginia, and thus to terminate the domestic slave trade. We desire that corn and cotton, rice, sugar, and tobacco may be high, and cloth and iron low; that labour may be largely paid, and that man may become free; and the less our dependence on the market of England, the sooner will our desires be gratified.

* * * * *

Are we then to adopt a system of measures tending to the injury of the people of England? By no means. Her real interests and ours are the same, and by protecting ourselves against her system, we are benefiting her. The harmony of interests is so perfect, that nations cannot be benefited by measures tending to the injury of other nations; and when they allow themselves to be led away by the belief that they can be so, they are always themselves the heaviest sufferers. The sooner that all the agricultural communities of the earth shall come to an understanding, that it is to their interest to withdraw from the present insane contest for the privilege of supplying a single and limited market, and determine to create markets for themselves, the sooner will the English labourer, land-owner, and capitalist find themselves restored to freedom. That the reader may understand this, we must look once more to Ireland. The closing of the demand for labour in that country drove the poor people to England in search of employment. "For half a century back"—that is, since the Union—"the western shores of our island," says a British journalist—

"Especially Lancashire and Glasgow have been flooded with crowds of half clad, half fed, half civilized Celts, many thousands of whom have settled permanently in our manufacturing towns, reducing wages by their competition, and what is 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 registry of crime, both in police courts and assizes; 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 manufacturing industry to increase at a rate and, to a height which, without them, would have been unattainable; and so far they have been of service."—North British Review, No. 35.

The essential error of this passage is found in the supposition that any set of people or any species of industry, is to profit by the cheapening of labour and the enslavement of man. Nothing of this kind can take place. The true interests of all men are promoted by the elevation, and they all suffer by whatever tends to the depression, of their fellow-men. The master of slaves, whether wearing a crown or carrying a whip, is himself a slave; and that such is the case with nations as well as individuals, the reader may perhaps be satisfied if he will follow out the working of the British system as here described by the reviewer. For half a century Irish labour has been, as we are here told, poured into England, producing a glut in the market, and lowering not only the wages, but also the standard of comfort among English labourers. This is quite true; but why did these men come? Because labour was cheaper in Ireland than in England. Why was it so? Because, just half a century since, it was provided by the Act of Union that the women and children of Ireland should either remain idle or work in the field. Prior to the centralization by that act of all power in the British Parliament, the people of that country had been vigorously engaged in the effort to produce competition for the purchase of labour at home; and had they been permitted to continue on in that direction, it would have risen to a level with English labour, and then it could not have been profitably exported. This, however, they were not permitted to do. Their furnaces and factories were closed, and the people who worked in them were driven to England to seek their bread, and wages fell, because the price of all commodities, labour included, tends to a level, and whatever reduces them anywhere tends to reduce them everywhere. The price of English labour fell because the Act of Union had diminished the value of that of Ireland.

If we desire to know to what extent it had this effect, we must look to the consequences of an over-supply of perishable articles. Of all commodities, labour is the most perishable, because it must be sold on the instant or it is wasted, and if wasted, the man who has it to sell may perish himself. Now we know that an over-supply of even iron, equal to ten per cent., will reduce prices thirty, forty, or fifty per cent., and that an excess of a single hundred thousand bales in the crop of cotton makes a difference of ten per cent. upon three millions of bales, whereas a diminution to the same extent will make a difference of ten per cent. in the opposite direction. Still more is this the case with oranges and peaches, which must be sold at once or wasted. With an excess in the supply of either, they are often abandoned as not worth the cost of gathering and carrying to market. A small excess in the supply of men, women, and children so far reduces their value in the eyes of the purchaser of labour, that he finds himself, as now in England, induced to regard it as a mercy of Heaven when famine, pestilence, and emigration clear them out of his way; and he is then disposed to think that the process "cannot be carried too far nor continued too long."

Irish labour, having been cheapened by the provisions of the Act of Union, was carried to the market of England for sale, and thus was produced a glut of the most perishable of all commodities; and the effect of that glut must have been a diminution in the general price of labour in England that far more than compensated for the increased number of labourers. Admitting, however, that the diminution was no more than would be so compensated, it would follow, of course, that the quantity of wages paid after a year's immigration was the same that it had previously been. That it was not, and could not have been so great, is quite certain; but it is not needed to claim more than that there was no increase. It follows, necessarily, that while the quantity of wages to be expended in England against food and clothing remained the same, the number of persons among whom it was to be divided had increased, and each had less to expend. This of course diminished the power to purchase food, and to a much greater degree diminished the demand for clothing, for the claims of the stomach are, of all others, the most imperious. The reader will now see that the chief effect thus produced by cheap labour is a reduction in the domestic demand for manufactured goods. As yet, however, we are only at the commencement of the operation. The men who had been driven from Ireland by the closing of Irish factories, had been consumers of food,[211] but as they could no longer consume at home, it became now necessary that that food should follow them to England, and the necessity for this transportation tended largely to diminish the prices of all food in Ireland, and of course the value of labour and land. Each new depression in the price of labour tended to swell the export of men, and the larger that export the greater became, of course, the necessity for seeking abroad a market for food. Irish food came to swell the supply, but the English market for it did not grow, because the greater the glut of men, the smaller became the sum of wages to be laid out against food; and thus Irish and English food were now contending against each other, to the injury, of English and Irish labour and land. The lower the price of food in England, the less was the inducement to improve the land, and the less the demand for labour the less the power to buy even food, while the power to pay for clothing diminished with tenfold rapidity. With each step in this direction the labourer lost more and more the control over his own actions, and became more and more enslaved. The decline in the home demand for manufactures then produced a necessity for seeking new markets, for underworking the Hindoo, and for further cheapening labour; and the more labour was cheapened the less became the demand for, and the return to capital. Land, labour, and capital thus suffered alike from the adoption of a policy having for its object to prevent the people of Ireland from mining coal, making iron, or availing themselves of the gratuitous services of those powerful agents so abundantly provided by nature for their use.

The reader may, perhaps, appreciate more fully the evil effects of this course upon an examination of the reverse side of the picture. Let us suppose that the Irishman could at once be raised from being the slave of the landholder to becoming a freeman, exercising control over the application of his labour, and freely discussing with his employer what should be his reward,—and see what would be the effect. It would at once establish counter-attraction, and instead of a constant influx of people from Ireland into England, there would be a constant afflux to that country, and in a little time the whole mass of Irish labour that now weighs on the English market would be withdrawn, and wages would rise rapidly. At the cost of the landholder, it will be said. On the contrary, to his profit. The Irishman at home, fully employed, would consume thrice the food he can now obtain, and Irish food would at once cease to press on the English market, and the price of English food would rise. This, of course, would offer new inducements to improve the land, and, this would make a demand for labour and capital, the price of both of which would rise. These things, however, it will be said, would be done at the cost of the manufacturer. On the contrary, to his advantage Ireland now consumes but little of English manufactures. "No one," says the Quarterly Review, "ever saw an English scarecrow with such rags" as are worn by hundreds of thousands of the people of Ireland. Raise the value of Irishmen at home, make them free, and the Irish market will soon require more manufactured goods than now go to all India. Raise the value of man in Great Britain, and the domestic market will absorb an amount of commodities that would now be deemed perfectly incredible.

How can this be done for Ireland? By the same process under which the man of Germany, Russia, Denmark, and Spain is now passing gradually toward freedom. By providing that she shall be protected in her efforts to bring the consumer to the side of the producer, and thus be enabled to provide at home demand for all her labour and all her food, and for all the capital now deemed surplus that weighs on the market of England. It will, however, be said that this would deprive the English manufacturer of the market he now has in that country. It would not. He would sell more in value, although it would certainly be less in bulk. If Ireland spun her own yarn and made her own coarse cloths, she would need to buy fine ones. If she made her woollen cloth she could afford to buy silks. If she made her own pig-iron she would have occasion to purchase steam-engines. If she mined her own coal she would require books; and the more her own labourer was elevated in the scale of material comfort, and moral and intellectual improvement, the larger would be her demands on her neighbours for those commodities requiring for their production the exercise of mind, to their advantage as well as her own.

The error in the whole British system is, that it looks to preventing everywhere local association and local commerce; and this it does because it seeks to locate in England the workshop of the world. The natural effect of this is a desire to compel all nations to transport their products to market in their rudest form, at greatest cost to themselves, and greatest exhaustion of their land; and the poorer they become, the greater are her efforts at competing with them in the rudest manufactures, to the great injury of her own people. The man who is constantly competing with men below himself, will be sure eventually to fall to their level; whereas, he who looks upward and determines upon competition with those who are above him, will be very likely to rise to their level. If all the world were engaged in perfecting their products, the standard of man would be everywhere rising, and the power to purchase would grow everywhere, with rapid increase in the amount of both internal and external commerce, but the commodities, exchanged would be of a higher character—such as would require for their preparation a higher degree of intellect. At present, all the nations outside of England are to be stimulated to the adoption of a system that affords to their men, women, and children no employment but that of the rude operations of the field, while those in England are to be kept at work mining coal, making pig metal; and converting cotton into yarn; and thus the tendency of the system is toward driving the whole people of the world into pursuits requiring little more than mere brute labour, and the lowest grade of intellect, to the destruction of commerce, both internal and external. The more this is carried into effect the more must the people of England and the world become brutalized and enslaved, and the greater must be the spread of intemperance and immorality. To this, Ireland, India, and all other countries that find themselves forced to press their products on the English market, are largely contributing, and the only people that are doing any thing for its correction are those who are labouring to make a market at home for their products, and thus diminish the competition for their sale in the English market. Were Germany and Russia now to abolish protection, the direct effect would be to throw upon England an immense amount of food they now consume at home, and thus diminish the price to such an extent as to render it impracticable to apply labour to the improvement of English land. This would of course diminish the wages of English labour, and diminish the power of the labourers to purchase manufactured goods, and the diminution thus produced in the domestic demand would be twice as great as the increase obtained abroad. It is time that the people of England should learn that the laws which govern the community of nations are precisely the same as those which govern communities of individuals, and that neither nations nor individuals can benefit permanently by any measures tending to the injury of their neighbours. The case of Ireland is one of oppression more grievous than is to be found elsewhere in the records of history; and oppression has brought its punishment in the enslavement of the English labourer, land-owner, and capitalist. The first has small wages, the second small rents, and the third small profits, while the intermediate people, bankers, lawyers, and agents, grow rich. The remedy for much of this would be found in the adoption of measures that would raise the value of labour, capital, and land, in Ireland, and thus permit the two former to remain at home, to give value to the last.

The evil under which the people of England labour is that they are borne down under the weight of raw produce forced into their market, and the competition for its sale. This, in turn, reacts upon the world—as prices in that market fix the prices of all other markets. What is now needed is to raise there the price of labour and its products, as would at once be done were it possible for all the agricultural nations to become so much masters of their own actions as to be able to say that from this time forward they would have such a demand at home as would free them from the slavery incident to a necessity for going to that market. Could that now be said, the instant effect would be so to raise the price of food as to make a demand for labour and capital in England that would double the price of both, as will be seen on an examination of the following facts. The United Kingdom contains seventy millions of acres, and an average expenditure of only three days labour per acre, at 12s. per week, would amount to twenty-one millions of pounds, or half as much as the whole capital engaged in the cotton trade. No one who studies the reports on the agriculture of the British islands can doubt that even a larger quantity might annually, and most profitably, be employed on the land; and when we reflect that this would be repeated year after year, it will be seen how large a market would thus be made for both labour and capital. The rise of wages would put an end to the export of men from either England or Ireland, and the increase in the home demand for manufactures would be great.

It may be said that the rise in the price of food would give large rents, without improvement in the land, and that the profit of this change would go to the land-owner. In all other trades, however, high wages compel improvements of machinery, and it is only when they are low that men can profitably work old machines. Were the wages of England this day doubled, it would be found that they would eat up the whole proceeds of all badly farmed land, leaving no rent, and then the owners of such land would find themselves as much obliged to improve their machinery of production as are the mill-owners of Manchester. If they could not improve the whole, they would find themselves compelled to sell a part; and thus dear labour would produce division of the land and emancipation of the labourer, as cheap labour has produced the consolidation of the one and the slavery of the other.

To enable Russia and Germany to refrain from pressing their products on the market that now regulates and depresses prices, it would be required that they should have great numbers of mills and furnaces, at which their now surplus food could be consumed, and their effect would be to create among them a new demand for labour with rise of wages, a better market for food to the benefit of the farmer, a better market for capital, and a greatly increased power to improve the land and to make roads and build schools. This would, of course, make demand for cotton, to the benefit of the cotton-grower, while improved prices for food would benefit the farmer everywhere. Maryland, Virginia, and the Carolinas, too, would then have their factories, at which food and cotton would be converted into cloth, and the value of man in those States would rise to a level with that of Mississippi and Alabama—and our domestic slave trade would be brought to an end by precisely the same measures that would relieve England, Ireland, and Scotland from any necessity for exporting men to distant regions of the earth.

Nothing of this kind could at once be done; but Russia, Germany, and other countries of Europe are now, under protection, doing much toward it; and it is in the power of the people of this country to contribute largely toward bringing about such a state of things. Much was being done under the tariff of 1842, but it is being undone under the act of 1846. The former tended to raise the value of man at home, and hence it was that under it the domestic slave trade so much diminished. The latter tends to diminish the value of man at home, and hence it is that under it that trade so rapidly increases. The former tended to diminish the quantity of food to be forced on the market of England, to the deterioration of the value of English labour and land. The latter tends to increase the quantity for which a market must be sought abroad; and whatever tends to force food into that country tends to lessen the value of its people, and to produce their forced export to other countries. As yet, however, we have arrived only at the commencement of the working of the "free trade" system. We are now where we were in 1836, when the making of railroads by aid of large purchases, on credit, of cloth and iron, stimulated the consumption of food and diminished the labour applied to its production. After the next revulsion, now perhaps not far distant, the supply of food will be large, and then it will be that the low prices of 1841-2, for both food and labour, will be repeated.

In considering what is the duty of this country, every man should reflect that whatever tends to increase the quantity of raw produce forced on the market of England, tends to the cheapening of labour and land everywhere, to the perpetuation of slavery, and to the extension of its domain—and that whatever tends to the withdrawal of such produce from that market tends to raising the value of land and labour everywhere, to the extinction of slavery, and to the elevation of man.

The system commonly called free trade tends to produce the former results; and where man is enslaved there can be no real freedom of trade. That one which looks to protection against this extraordinary system of taxation, tends to enable men to determine for themselves whether they will make their exchanges abroad or at home; and it is in this power of choice that consists the freedom of trade and of man. By adopting the "free trade," or British, system we place ourselves side by side with the men who have ruined Ireland and India, and are now poisoning and enslaving the Chinese people. By adopting the other, we place ourselves by the side of those whose measures tend not only to the improvement of their own subjects, but to the emancipation of the slave everywhere, whether in the British Islands, India, Italy, or America.

It will be said, however, that protection tends to destroy commerce, the civilizer of mankind. Directly the reverse, however, is the fact. It is the system now called free trade that tends to the destruction of commerce, as is shown wherever it obtains. Protection looks only to resisting a great scheme of foreign taxation that everywhere limits the power of man to combine his efforts with those of his neighbour man for the increase of his production, the improvement of his mind, and the enlargement of his desires for, and his power to procure, the commodities produced among the different nations of the world. The commerce of India does not grow, nor does that of Portugal, or of Turkey; but that of the protected, countries does increase, as has been shown in the case of Spain, and can now be shown in that of Germany. In 1834, before the formation of the Zoll-Verein, Germany took from Great Britain,

of her own produce and manufactures, only........ 4,429,727 Whereas in 1852 she took......................... 7,694,059

And as regards this country, in which protection has always to some extent existed, it is the best customer that England ever had, and our demands upon her grow most steadily and regularly under protection, because the greater our power to make coarse goods, the greater are those desires which lead to the purchase of fine ones, and the greater our ability to gratify them.

Whatever tends to increase the power of man to associate with his neighbour man, tends to promote the growth of commerce, and to produce that material, moral, and intellectual improvement which leads to freedom. To enable men to exercise that power is the object of protection. The men of this country, therefore, who desire that all men, black, white, and brown, shall at the earliest period enjoy perfect freedom of thought, speech, action, and trade, will find, on full consideration, that duty to themselves and to their fellow-men requires that they should advocate efficient protection, as the true and only mode of abolishing the domestic trade in slaves, whether black or white.

* * * * *

It will, perhaps, be said that even although the slave trade were abolished, slavery would still continue to exist, and that the great object of the anti-slavery movement would remain unaccomplished. One step, at all events, and a great one, would have been made. To render men adscripti gleb, thus attaching them to the soil, has been in many countries, as has so recently been the case in Russia, one of the movements toward emancipation; and if this could be here effected by simple force of attraction, and without the aid of law, it would be profitable to all, both masters and slaves; because whatever tends to attract population tends inevitably to increase the value of land, and thus to enrich its owner. There, however, it could not stop, as the reader will readily see. Cheap food enables the farmer of Virginia to raise cheap labour for the slave market. Raise the price of food, and the profit of that species of manufacture would diminish. Raise it still higher, and the profit would disappear; and then would the master of slaves find it necessary to devolve upon the parent the making of the sacrifice required for the raising of children, and thus to enable him to bring into activity all the best feelings of the heart.

Cheap food and slavery go together; and if we desire to free ourselves from the last, we must commence by ridding ourselves of the first. Food is cheap in Virginia, because the market for it is distant, and most of its value there is swallowed up in the cost of transportation. Bring the consumer close to the door of the farmer, and it will be worth as much there as it now commands in the distant market. Make a demand everywhere around him for all the food that is raised, and its value will everywhere rise, for then we shall cease to press upon the limited market of England, which fixes the price of our crop, and is now borne down by the surplus products of Germany and Russia, Canada and ourselves; and the price will then be higher in the remote parts of Virginia than can now be obtained for it in the distant market of England. It will then become quite impossible for the farmer profitably to feed his corn to slaves.

With the rise in the price of food the land would quadruple in value, and that value would continue to increase as the artisan more and more took his place by the side of the producer of food and wool, and as towns increased in number and in size; and with each step in this direction the master would attach less importance to the ownership of slaves; while the slave would attach more importance to freedom. With both, the state of feeling would, improve; and the more the negro was improved the more his master would be disposed to think of slavery, as was thought of old by Jefferson and Madison, that it was an evil that required to be abated; and the more rapid the growth of wealth, the greater the improvement in the value of land, the more rapid would be the approach of freedom to all, the master and the slave.

It will be said, however, that if food should so much increase in value as to render it desirable for Virginia to retain the whole growth of her population, black and white, the necessary effect would, be a great rise in the price of cotton, and a great increase in the wealth of the planters further South, who would be desirous to have negroes, even at greatly increased prices. That the price of cotton would rise is quite certain. Nothing keeps it down but the low price of food, which forces out the negroes of the Northern States, and thus, maintains the domestic slave trade; and there is no reason to doubt that not only would there be a large increase in its price, but that the power to pay for it would increase with equal rapidity. More negro labour would then certainly be needed, and then would exist precisely the state of things that leads inevitably to freedom. When two masters seek one labourer, the latter becomes free; but when two labourers seek one master, the former become enslaved. The increased value of negro labour would render it necessary for the owners of negroes to endeavour to stimulate the labourer to exertion, and this could be done only by the payment of wages for over-work, as is even now done to a great extent. At present, the labour of the slave is in a high degree unproductive, as will be seen by the following passage from a letter to the New York Daily Times, giving the result of information derived from a gentleman of Petersburgh, Virginia, said to be "remarkable for accuracy and preciseness of his information:"—

"He tells me," says the writer, "he once very carefully observed how mush labour was expended in securing a crop of very thin wheat, and found that it took four negroes one day to cradle, rake, and bind one acre. (That is, this was the rate at which the field was harvested.) In the wheat-growing districts of Western New York, four men would be expected to do five acres of a similar crop.

"Mr. Griscom further states, as his opinion, that four negroes do not, in the ordinary agricultural operations of this State, accomplish as much as one labourer in New Jersey. Upon my expressing my astonishment, he repeated it as his deliberately formed opinion.

"I have since again called on Mr. Griscom, and obtained permission to give his name with the above statement. He also wishes me to add, that the ordinary waste in harvesting, by the carelessness of the negroes, above that which occurs in the hands of Northern labourers, is large enough to equal what a Northern farmer would consider a satisfactory profit on the crop."

To bring into activity all this vast amount of labour now wasted, it is needed to raise the cost of man, by raising the price of food; and that is to be done by bringing the farmer's market to his door, and thus giving value to labour and land. Let the people of Maryland and Virginia, Carolina, Kentucky, and Tennessee be enabled to bring into activity their vast treasures of coal and iron ore, and to render useful their immense water-powers—free the masters from their present dependence on distant markets, in which they must sell all they produce, and must buy all they consume—and the negro slave becomes free, by virtue of the same great law that in past times has freed the serf of England, and is now freeing the serf of Russia. In all countries of the world man has become free as land has acquired value, and as its owners have been enriched; and in all man has become enslaved as land has lost its value, and its owners have been impoverished.[212]



CHAPTER XXI.

OF THE DUTY OF THE PEOPLE OF ENGLAND.

The English politico-economical system denounced by Adam Smith had not failed before the close of the last century to be productive of results in the highest degree unfavourable to man; and to account for them it became necessary to discover that they were the inevitable result of certain great natural laws; and to this necessity it was that the world was indebted for the Ricardo-Malthusian system, which may be briefly stated in the following propositions:—

First: That in the commencement of cultivation, when population is small and land consequently abundant, the best soils—those capable of yielding the largest return, say one hundred quarters to a given quantity of labour—alone are cultivated.

Second: That with the progress of population, the fertile lands are all occupied, and there arises a necessity for cultivating those yielding a smaller return; and that resort is then had to a second, and afterward to a third and a fourth class of soils, yielding respectively ninety, eighty, and seventy quarters to the same quantity of labour.

Third: That with the necessity for applying labour less productively, which thus accompanies the growth of population, rent arises: the owner of land No. 1 being enabled to demand and to obtain, in return for its use, ten quarters when resort is had to that of second quality; twenty when No. 3 is brought into use, and thirty when it becomes necessary to cultivate No. 4.

Fourth: That the proportion of the landlord tends thus steadily to increase as the productiveness of labour decreases, the division being as follows, to wit:—

Total At the: Product Labour Rent ———- ———- ——— —— first period, when No. 1 alone is cultivated.. 100 100 00 second period " No. 1 and 2 are cultivated. 190 180 10 third period " No. 1, 2, and 3 ".. 270 240 30 fourth period " No. 1, 2, 3 and 4 ".. 340 280 60 fifth period " No. 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 ".. 400 300 100 sixth period " No. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6".. 450 300 150 seventh period " No. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 ".. 490 280 210

and that there is thus a tendency to the ultimate absorption of the whole produce by the owner of the land, and to a steadily increasing inequality of condition; the power of the labourer to consume the commodities which he produces steadily diminishing, while that of the land-owner to claim them, as rent, is steadily increasing.

Fifth: That this tendency toward a diminution in the return of labour, and toward an increase of the landlord's proportion, always exists where population increases, and most exists where population increases most rapidly; but is in a certain degree counteracted by increase of wealth, producing improvement of cultivation.

Sixth: That every such improvement tends to retard the growth of rents, while every obstacle to improvement tends to increase that growth: and that, therefore, the interests of the land-owner and labourer are always opposed to each other, rents rising as labour falls, and vice-versa.

A brief examination of these propositions will satisfy the reader that they tend inevitably to the centralization of all power in the hands of the few at the cost of the many, who are thus reduced to the condition of slaves, mere hewers of wood and drawers of water for their masters, as will now be shown.

I. In the commencement of cultivation labour is largely productive, and the labourer takes for himself the whole of his product, paying no rent.

II. With the increase of population, and the increased power to associate, labour becomes less productive, and the labourer is required to give a part of the diminished product to the land-owner, who thus grows rich at his expense.

III. With further growth of population land acquires further value, and that value increases with every increase of the necessity for applying labour less productively; and the less the product, the larger becomes the proportion of the proprietor, whose wealth and power increase precisely as the labourer becomes poorer and less able to defend his rights, or, in other words, as he becomes enslaved.

This state of things leads of course to the expulsion of poor men, to seek at a distance those rich soils which, according to the theory, are the first cultivated. The more they are expelled, the greater must of course be the consolidation of the land, the larger the income of the few great farmers and land-owners, and the poorer the labourers. Hence universal discord, such as is seen in England, and has recently been so well described by the Times.[213]

The poorer the people, the greater must be the necessity for emigration; and the greater the anxiety of the landed or other capitalist for their expulsion, because they are thus relieved from the necessity for supporting them; and the greater the rejoicing of the trader, because he supposes they go from the cultivation of poor to that of rich soils. Here we have dispersion, the opposite of that association to which man has everywhere been indebted for his wealth; for the development of his moral and intellectual faculties, and for his freedom.

The soils left behind being supposed to be the poor ones, and those first appropriated abroad being supposed to be the rich ones, it is next held that all the people who go abroad, should do nothing but cultivate the land, sending their corn and their wool to a distance of thousands of miles in search of the little spindle and the loom; and thus does the Ricardo system lead to the adoption of a policy directly the reverse of that taught by Adam Smith.

The necessary effect of this is the discouragement of English agriculture, and the closing of the market for English capital; and the smaller the market for it at home the less must be the demand for labour, and the greater must be the tendency of the labourer to become the mere slave of those who do employ capital. This of course produces further expulsion of both labour and capital; and the more they go abroad, the less, as a matter of course, is the power of the community that is left behind: and thus the Ricardo-Malthusian system tends necessarily to the diminution of the importance of the nation in the eyes of the world.

That system teaches that God in his infinite wisdom has given to matter in the form of man a reproductive power greater than he has given to the source from which that matter is derived, the earth itself; and that, with a view to the correction of that error, man must close his ear and his heart to the tale of suffering—must forget that great law of Christ, "Do unto others as ye would that others should do unto you,"—must persuade himself that it is "to his advantage" that the negro slave "shall wear his chains in peace,"—and must always recollect that if men will marry; and have children, and he "stands between the error and its consequence," granting relief to the poor or the sick in their distress, except so far as to prevent "positive death," he "perpetuates the sin." This is the science of repulsion, despair, and death; and it has been well denominated "the dismal science." It is taught in many of the schools of Europe, but England alone has made it the basis of a system of policy; and the result is seen in the fact that throughout all that portion of the world subject to her influence, we see nothing but repulsion, slavery, despair, and death, with steadily increasing weakness of the communities in the general system of the world, as witness Ireland and India, from, which men are flying as from pestilence—the West Indies, Portugal, and Turkey, in all of which population declines, and the communities themselves seem likely soon to perish of inanition.[214]

From every country that is strong enough to protect itself, she is being gradually shut out; and in every one that is strong enough to carry into effect the exclusion, we see a steady increase of the power and the habit of association, and of the strength of the nation. The little German Union of 1827 led to the great one of 1835; and at this moment we have advices of the completion of the still greater one that is to give freedom of internal trade to sixty millions of people, and that is to do for all Germany what the Zoll-Verein has done for its northern portion. The habit of peace and of combined action thus grows in all the countries of the world which protect themselves, while repulsion and discord increase in every one that is unprotected. In one we see a daily tendency toward freedom, while in the other slavery grows from day to day.

It is the complaint of England that, much as she has done for other countries, she receives no kindness in return. She stands at this day without a friend; and this is not so much the fault of any error of intention as of error of doctrine. Many of those who have directed her affairs have been men of generous impulses—men who would scorn to do what they thought to be wrong—but they have, been led away by a system that teaches the rankest selfishness. The Creator of man provided for his use great natural agents, the command of which was to be obtained as the reward of the cultivation of his intellectual powers; and that he might obtain leisure for their improvement, great stores of fuel were accumulated, and iron ore was furnished in unlimited quantity, to enable him, by combining the two, to obtain machinery to aid him in the cultivation of the soil and the conversion of its products. England, however, desires to restrict the use of those great natural agents; and whenever or wherever other nations undertake to call them to their aid, she is seen using every effort in her power to annihilate competition, and thus maintain her monopoly. Of this, the recent proceedings in relation to steam intercourse between this country and Europe present a striking instance; but the maintenance of numerous colonies, avowedly for the purpose of "stifling in its infancy" every effort on the part of other nations to obtain power to convert their coal and their ore into iron, or to convert their iron into machinery that would enable them to command the aid of steam, and thus lighten the labours of their people, while increasing the efficiency of their exertions, is a thing not only not disavowed, but gloried in by her most eminent and enlightened men. The exceeding selfishness of this effort to retain a monopoly of those great natural agents should, of itself, afford proof conclusive to every Englishman that the system that is to be so maintained could not be right; and it would do so, were it not that their system of political economy teaches that every man must live by "snatching the bread from his neighbour's mouth" that the land-owner grows rich at the expense of the labourer; that profits rise only at the cost of wages, and wages only at the cost of profits; and, therefore, that the only way to ensure a fair rate for the use of capital is to keep the price of labour down.

This system is to be carried out by producing "unlimited competition" and in what is it to exist? In the sale of labour; and the greater that competition, the greater will be the profits of the capitalist, and the lower will be the wages of the labourer. The more the competition for the sale of cotton, the cheaper will be the labourer who produces it; and the more perfect the monopoly of machinery, the cheaper must be the labourer who performs the work of spinning the wool and weaving the cloth, but the larger will be the share of the man who owns the spindles and the looms. The fewer the spindles and looms of the world, the cheaper will be cotton and the dearer will be cloth, and the greater the profits of what is called capital; but the less will be the value of the stock in that great bank from which all capital is derived—the earth; and the poorer and more enslaved must be all those who have shares in it, and all who desire to obtain loans from it—the land-owners and the labourers. Such being the tendencies of the system, need we wonder, that it produces repulsion abroad, or that England is now so entirely without friends that in this age of the world—one that should be so enlightened—she talks of increased armaments with a view to defending herself from invasion, and calls on other nations for help? Certainly not. Were it otherwise, it would be wonderful. She is expelling her whole people from the land, and the more they go, the more she is rejoiced. "Extensive as has been the emigration from Ireland which has already taken place, there is," we are told—

"A remarkable proof that it has not been carried too far. There is still no regular demand for labour in the West of Ireland, and wages are still at the low starvation rate which prevailed before the famine."—Economist, (London,) Feb. 12, 1853.

Again, we are told that

"The departure of the redundant population of the Highlands of Scotland is an indispensable preliminary to every kind of improvement."—Ibid.

Further, we are informed that the emigration from England, Wales, and the Lowlands of Scotland has "almost entirely consisted of able-bodied agricultural labourers," and that few or none of the manufacturing population have emigrated, except "a few Spitalfields and Paisley hand-loom weavers."[215] The loss of all these agriculturists, and the rapid conversion of the whole people of the kingdom into mere buyers and sellers of the products of other nations, is regarded as not only not to be regretted, but as a thing to be rejoiced at; and another influential journal assures its readers that the "mere anticipation" of any deficiency in the export of man from the kingdom "would lead to the most disastrous suspension of industry and enterprise," and that "the emigration must not only continue, but it must be maintained with all possible steadiness and activity."[216]

Little effort would seem to be required to bring about the abandonment of England, as well as of Ireland. Of the latter the latest journals furnish accounts of which the following is a fair specimen:—

"The people are fast passing away from the land in the West of Ireland. The landlords of Connaught are tacitly combined to weed out all the smaller occupiers, against whom a regular systematic war of extermination is being waged. * * * The most heart-rending cruelties are daily practised in this province, of which the public are not at all aware."—Galway Mercury.

In the former, we are told that

"The wheel of 'improvement' is now seizing another class, the most stationary class in England. A startling emigration movement has sprung up among the smaller English farmers, especially those holding heavy clay soils, who, with bad prospects for the coming harvest, and in want of sufficient capital to make the great improvements on their farms which would enable them to pay their old rents, have no other alternative but to cross the sea in search of a new country and of new lands. I am not speaking now of the emigration caused by the gold mania, but only of the compulsory emigration produced by landlordism, concentration of farms, application of machinery to the soil, and introduction of the modern system of agriculture on a great scale."—Correspondence of the New York Tribune.

Nevertheless, wages do not rise. Hundreds of thousands, and even millions, of the poor people of the kingdom have now been expelled, and yet there is "no regular demand for labour," and wages continue as low as ever. That such should be the case is not extraordinary, but it will be so if this diminution of the power of association do not result in lowering the reward of labour, and accelerating the dispersion of the labourers. Every man that goes was a producer of something, to be given in exchange for another thing that he required, that was produced by others; and from the moment of his departure he ceases to be a producer, with correspondent diminution in the demand for the cloth, the iron, or the salt produced by his neighbours. The less the competition for purchase the more becomes the competition for sale, and the lower must be the compensation of the labourer. A recent journal informs us that the condition of one class of operatives, the salt-boilers, has "gradually become most deplorable."

"Their wages at present do not average 15s. a week, because they are not employed full time; 2s. 6d. a day is the highest price given, and one of these days consists of fourteen or sixteen hours. In addition to this, some of the employers have latterly introduced a new mode of diminishing the actual payment in wages. As has already been stated, the salt-pans in the course of a few days require cleansing from the impurities and dross thrown down with the process of boiling. The accumulation may vary from one-eighth of an inch to one foot, according to the quality of the brine. Therefore, every fortnight the fires are let out and the pans picked and cleaned, a process which occupies a full day; and this unavoidable and necessary work it is becoming the fashion to require the men to perform without any remuneration whatever; or, in other words, to demand one month's work out of the twelve from them without giving any wages in return!"—Dawson's Merchants' Magazine, February, 1853, 98.

The more steady and active the emigration of the agricultural labourers, and the larger the remainder of factory operatives, the greater must be the necessity for depending on other countries for supplies, and the less must be the power of the nation in the community of nations, the richer must grow the great manufacturer, and the poorer must become the labourer; and, as this system is now being so vigorously carried out, the cause of weakness may readily be understood. It is a natural consequence of the purely selfish policy to which the Ricardo-Malthusian doctrines inevitably lead.

Can such a system be a natural one? Is it possible that an all-wise, all-powerful, and all-merciful Being, having constructed this world for the occupation of man, should have inflicted upon it such a curse as is found in a system of laws the study of which leads to the conclusion that men can live only "by snatching the bread out of the mouths" of their fellow-men? Assuredly not. What, then, are the laws under which man "lives and moves and has his being?" To obtain an answer to this question, we must go back to the proposition which lies at the base of the British system—that which teaches that men begin the work of cultivation with the rich soils of the earth, and are afterward compelled to resort to inferior ones the most important one in political economy; so important, says Mr. J. S. Mill, that were it otherwise, "almost all the phenomena of the production and distribution of wealth would be other than they are."

Admitting, now, that the law were different, and that instead of commencing on the rich soils and then passing toward the poor ones, they commenced on the poor soils of the hills and gradually made their way down to the rich ones of the swamps and river-bottoms, would not one of the differences referred to by Mr. Mill consist in this, that whereas the old theory tended to establish a constant increase in the necessities of man, with constant deterioration, of his condition and growing inequality among men, the new one would tend to establish a constant increase of his powers, with constant improvement of condition and growing equality among men, wherever the laws of God were permitted to control their operations?

Again, might not another of those differences consist in the establishment of the facts that instead of there having been a mistake on the part of the Creator, there had been a serious one on that of the economists, in attributing to those little scraps of the earth that man forms into wagons, ships, and steam-engines, and which he calls capital, an importance greater than is assigned to the earth of which they are so trivial a portion; and that the latter was the real bank, the source of all capital, from which he can have loans to an extent almost unlimited, provided he recollects that they are loans, and not gifts, and that his credit with this banker, as well as with all others, cannot be maintained without a punctual repayment of the matter borrowed when he has ceased to need it?

Further, as the old theory furnishes propositions to, which the exceptions are seen to be so numerous that every new writer finds himself compelled to modify it in some manner with a view to cover those exceptions, might not another, of the differences consist in its furnishing laws as universally true as are those of Copernicus, Kepler, or Newton—laws that gave proof of their truth by being everywhere in harmony with each other, and productive everywhere of harmony; and would not the following form a part of them?—

I. That the poor and solitary man commences everywhere with poor machinery, and that everywhere, as population and wealth increase, he obtains better machinery, and production is increased. The first poor settler has no cup, and he takes up water in his hand. He has no hogs or cattle to yield him oil, and he is compelled to depend on pine-knots for artificial light. He has no axe, and he cannot fell a tree, either to supply himself with fuel or to clear his land. He has no saw, and he is compelled to seek shelter under a rock, because he is unable to build himself a house. He has no spade, and he is compelled to cultivate land that is too poor to need clearing, and too dry to require drainage. He has no horse, and is obliged to carry his little crop of grain on his shoulders. He has no mill, and is compelled to pound his grain between stones, or to eat it unground, as did the Romans for so many centuries. With the growth of wealth and population he obtains machinery that enables him to command the services of the various natural agents by which he is surrounded; and he now obtains more water, more light, more heat, and more power at less cost of labour; and he cultivates rich lands that yield food more largely, while he transports its products, by means of a wagon or a railroad car, converts it into flour by aid of steam, and exchanges it readily with, the man who converts his food and his wool into cloth, or food and ore into iron,—and thus passes from poor to better machinery of production, transportation, and exchange, with increasing reward of labour, and diminishing value of all the products of labour.

II. That the poor settler gives a large proportion of the produce of his labour for the use of poor machinery of production, transportation, and exchange; but the produce being small, the quantity of rent then paid is very small. He is a slave to the owner of landed or other capital.

III. That with the increased productiveness of labour there is increased facility for the reproduction of machinery required for the production of water, light, fuel, and food; and that this diminution in the cost of reproduction is attended with a constant diminution in the value of all such machinery previously accumulated, and diminution in the proportion of the product of labour that can be demanded as rent for their use; and thus, while labour steadily increases in its power to yield commodities of every kind required by man, capital as steadily diminishes in its power over the labourer. Present labour obtains a constantly increasing proportion of a constantly increasing quantity, while the claims of the accumulations of past labour (capital) are rewarded with an increasing quantity, but rapidly diminishing proportion; and that there is thus, with the growth of population and wealth, a daily tendency toward improvement and equality of condition.

IV. That increase in the quantity of the landlord or other capitalist is evidence of increase in the labourer's proportion, and of large increase of his quantity, with constantly increasing tendency toward freedom of thought, speech, action, and trade, and that it is precisely as land acquires value that man becomes free.

Here is a system, all the parts of which are in perfect harmony with each other, and all tending to the production of harmony among the various portions of society, and the different nations of the earth. Under them, we see men beginning on the higher and poorer lands and gradually coming together in the valleys, with steady tendency to increase in the power of association, and in the power to assert the right Of perfect self-government. It is thus the system of freedom. Population enables men to cultivate the richer soils, and food tends to increase more rapidly than population, giving men leisure for the cultivation of their minds and those of their children. Increased intelligence enables man from year to year to obtain larger loans from the great bank—the earth—while with the increased diversification of labour he is enabled more and more to repay them by the restoration of the manure to the place from which the food had been derived.

Here are laws tending to the promotion of kindly feelings, and to the enabling of man to carry fully into effect the great law which lies at the base of Christianity—doing to his neighbours as he would that they should do unto him. They are laws whose constant and uniform truth may be seen in reference to every description of capital and of labour, and in all the communities of the world, large and small, in present and in past times. Being laws, they admit of no exceptions any more than do the great astronomical ones. They recognise the whole product of labour as being the property of the labourer of the past and the present; the former represented by the proprietor of the machine, and the latter by the man who uses it, and who finds himself every day more and more able to accumulate the means of becoming himself a proprietor.

The English system does not recognise the existence of universal laws. According to it, land, labour, and capital, are the three instruments of production, and they are governed by different laws. Labour, when it seeks aid from land, is supposed to begin with good machinery and to pass toward the worst, with constantly increasing power in the owner of the land; whereas, when it seeks aid from the steam-engine, it passes from poor to good, with diminishing power in the owner of capital. There is thus one set of laws for the government of the great machine itself—the earth—and another for that of all its parts. Under the first, value is supposed to increase because of the diminished productiveness of labour, whereas under the last it is supposed to diminish because of the increased productiveness of labour. The two point to opposite poles of the compass, and the only mode of reconciling them is found in the supposition that as the power of production diminishes with the increasing necessity for resorting to inferior soils, the power of accumulating capital tends to increase, and thus counterbalances the disadvantages resulting from the necessity for applying labour less and less advantageously. Who is it, however, that is to furnish this capital? Is it the labourer? He cannot do it, for he cultivates "the inferior soils," and retains for himself a constantly diminishing proportion of a constantly diminishing product. Is it the landlord? His proportion increases, it is true, but his quantity diminishes in its proportion to population, as his tenants are forced to resort to less productive soils. The power to accumulate is dependent on the quantity of time and labour required for obtaining present subsistence; and as that increases with the necessity for resorting to poorer machinery, the power to obtain machines to be used in aid of labour dies away. Such being the case, it is clear that if men are obliged, in obedience to a great natural law, to pass steadily from rich soils to poor ones yielding less returns to labour, no compensation can anywhere be found, and that the elder Mill was right when he said that the power of accumulation must cease, and wages must fall so low that men "would perish of want;" in preference to doing which they would, of course, sell themselves, their wives, and children, into, slavery. Of all the English writers on this subject, he is the only one that has had the courage to follow out the Ricardo-Malthusian system to its necessary conclusions, and proclaim to the world the existence of a great law of nature leading inevitably to the division of society into two great portions, the very rich and the very poor—the master and the slave.

There are thus two systems—one of which proclaims that men can thrive only at the expense of their neighbours, and the other that they "prosper with the prosperity of those neighbours—one that teaches utter selfishness, and another teaching that enlightened selfishness which prompts men to rejoice in the advances of their fellow-men toward wealth and civilization—one that leads to internal discord and foreign war, and another teaching peace, union, and brotherly kindness throughout—the world—one that teaches the doctrine of despair and death, and another teaching joy and hope—one that is anti-christian in all its tendencies, teaching that we must not do to our neighbour in distress as we would that he should do to us, but that, on the contrary our duty requires that we should see him suffer, unrelieved, every calamity short of "positive death," and another teaching in its every page that if individuals or nations would thrive, they can do so only on the condition of carrying into full effect the great law of Christ—"That which ye would that others should do unto you, do ye unto them."

Both of these systems cannot be true. Which of them is so is to be settled by the determination of the great fact whether the Creator made a mistake in providing that the poor settler should commence on the low and rich lands, leaving the poor soils of the hills to his successors, who obtain from them a constantly diminishing supply of food—or whether, in his infinite wisdom, he provided that the poor man, destitute, of axe and spade, should go to the poor and dry land of the hills, requiring neither clearing nor drainage, leaving the heavily timbered and swamp lands for his wealthy successors. If the first, then the laws of God tend to the perpetuation of slavery, and the English political economy is right in all its parts, and should be maintained. If the last, then is it wrong in all its parts, and duty to themselves, to their fellow-men throughout the world, and to the great Giver of all good things, requires that it be at once and for ever abandoned.

It is time that enlightened Englishmen should examine into this question. When they shall do so, it will require little time to satisfy themselves that every portion of their own island furnishes proof that cultivation commenced on the poor soils, and that from the day when King Arthur held his court in a remote part of Cornwall to that on which Chatfield Moss was drained, men have been steadily obtaining more productive soils at less cost of labour, and that not only are they now doing so, but that it is difficult to estimate how far it may be carried. Every discovery in science tends to facilitate the making of those combinations of matter requisite for the production of food, giving better soils at diminished cost. Every new one tends to give to man increased power to command the use of those great natural agents provided for his service, and to enable him to obtain more and better food, more and better clothing, more and better house-room, in exchange for less labour, leaving him more time for the improvement of his mind, for the education of his children, and for the enjoyment of those recreations which tend to render life pleasurable. The reverse of all this is seen under the English system. The more numerous the discoveries in science, and the greater the command of man over the powerful natural agents given for diminishing labour, the more severe and unintermitting becomes his toil, the less becomes his supply of food, the poorer becomes his clothing, the more wretched becomes his lodging, the less time can be given to the improvement of his mind, the more barbarous grow up his children, the more is his wife compelled to work in the field, and the less is his time for enjoyment;—as witness all those countries over which England now exercises dominion, and as witness to so great an extent the present condition of her own people, as exhibited by those of her own writers quoted in a former chapter.

Selfishness and Christianity cannot go together, nor can selfishness and national prosperity. It is purely selfish in the people of England to desire to prevent the people of the various nations of the world from profiting by their natural advantages, whether of coal, iron ore, copper, tin, or lead. It is injurious to themselves, because it keeps their neighbours poor, while they are subjected to vast expense in the effort to keep them from rebelling against taxation. They maintain great fleets and armies, at enormous expense, for the purpose of keeping up a system that destroys their customers and themselves; and this they must continue to do so long as they shall hold to the doctrine which teaches that the only way to secure a fair remuneration to capital is to keep the price of labour down, because it is one that produces discord and slavery, abroad and at home; whereas, under that of peace, hope, and freedom, they would need neither fleets nor armies.

It is to the country of Hampden and Sidney that the world should be enabled to look for advice in all matters affecting the cause of freedom; and it is to her that all would look, could her statesmen bring themselves to understand how destructive to herself and them is the system of centralization she now seeks to establish. As it is, slavery grows in all the countries under her control, and freedom grows in no single country of the world but those which protect themselves against her system. It is time that the enlightened and liberal men of England should study the cause of this fact; and whenever they shall do so they will find a ready explanation of the growing pauperism, immorality, gloom, and slavery of their own country; and they will then have little difficulty in understanding that the protective tariffs of all the advancing nations of Europe are but measures of resistance to a system of enormous oppression, and that it is in that direction that the people of this country are to look for the true and only road to freedom of trade and the freedom of man.

It is time that such men should ask themselves whether or not their commercial policy can, by any possibility, aid the cause of freedom, abroad or at home. The nations of the world are told of the "free and happy people" of England; but when they look to that country to ascertain the benefits of freedom, they meet with frightful pauperism, gross immorality, infanticide to an extent unknown in any other part of the civilized world, and a steadily increasing division of the people into two great classes—the very rich and the very poor—with an universal tendency to "fly from ills they know," in the hope of obtaining abroad the comfort and happiness denied them at home. Can this benefit the cause of freedom?—The nations are told of the enlightened character of the British government, and yet, when they look to Ireland, they can see nothing but poverty, famine, and pestilence, to end in the utter annihilation of a nation that has given to England herself many of her most distinguished men. If they look to India, they see nothing but poverty, pestilence, famine, and slavery; and if they cast their eyes toward China, they see the whole power of the nation put forth to compel a great people to submit to the fraudulent introduction of a commodity, the domestic production of which is forbidden because of its destructive effects upon the morals, the happiness, and the lives of the community.[217]

—The nations are told that England

"Is the asylum of nations, and that it will defend the asylum to the last ounce of its treasure and the last drop of its blood. There is," continues The Times, "no point whatever on which we are prouder or more resolute."

Nevertheless, when they look to the countries of Europe that furnish the refugees who claim a place in this asylum, they see that England is everywhere at work to prevent the people from obtaining the means of raising themselves in the social scale. So long as they shall continue purely agricultural, they must remain poor, weak, and enslaved, and their only hope for improvement is from that association of the loom and the plough which gave to England her freedom; and yet England is everywhere their opponent, seeking to annihilate the power of association.—The nations are told of the vast improvement of machinery, by aid of which man is enabled to call to his service the great powers of nature, and thus improve not only his material but his intellectual condition; but, when they look to the colonies and to the allies of England, they see everywhere a decay of intellect; and when they look to the independent countries, they see her whole power put forth to prevent them from doing any thing but cultivate the earth and exhaust the soil. It is time that enlightened Englishmen should look carefully at these things, and answer to themselves whether or not they are thus promoting the cause of freedom. That they are not, must be the answer of each and every such man. That question answered, it will be for them to look to see in which direction lies the path of duty; and fortunate will it be if they can see that interest and duty can be made to travel in company with each other.