1826.] Absenteeism, and the Edinburgh Review. 34f 



all the inhabitants of Scotland, in future, to break stones upon the 

 highway for tlieir own. This very labour — sheer labour — is the very 

 grievance of whicli the Irish complain. They say that they are the 

 hewers of wood and the drawers of water, while all the prryfilable employ 

 is carried to England or elsewhere. How is it, we ask again, that the 

 Irish landowner in England expends the £50,000 revenue — no matter 

 in what shape it comes to him — which he draws from Ireland? lie 

 maintains fifty English domestics ; every one in ease and comfort far 

 beyond that of the best of his own farmers. He gives (for he must do 

 so) in English charities ; while the poor who hang about the domain 

 which he plunders maj' rob (if they can find any thing to steal) or starve. 

 He buys carriages — horses — jewels — fine clothes — splendid furniture — 

 rich wine — every single commodity of which enables the dealers (two 

 deep) concerned in providing it to buy more carriages, wear more fine 

 clothes, keep more horses and servants, and drink more wines ; indepen- 

 dent of paying high wages, and affording wealth and leisure to the 

 working artisans engaged in producing it. 



What is it that crowds the skirts of our metropolis with villas, covers 

 our roads with carriages and gigs, fills our theatres every night with 

 well-dressed people, and makes our streets of shops and exhibition worth 

 travelling two thousand miles to look at ? How much of this is done 

 exclusively by the home trade, the mere retail trade, the hnberdashert/, 

 and sale of articles of luxury, independent of their manufacture ? 



Take away the expenders of large incomes, and what becomes of all 

 this? What is it that pays the high wages of our journejTnen artisans of 

 London, Brighton or Bath — our host of " town" tailors, shoemakers, 

 jewellers, upholsterers, feather-dressers ; what makes these all prover- 

 bially rich, extravagant, and insolent? It is not merely labour which 

 gains this, for the ploughman labours and he does not get it ; it is labour 

 to which a particular advantage is attached. Is there no difference, in 

 the mind of an Edinburgh Reviewer — no choice between the[condition of 

 the journeyman gun-maker at Manton's, at three guineas a week wages, 

 and the serf who raises the corn which comes to England (when the 

 ports are open) through the Baltic ? This writer speaks of " labour" as 

 though it were only needful that a man should have means to exert his 

 sinews, and that were enough : as though the labouring smith and the 

 blower of his bellows were, in advantages, upon a par ! the journeyman 

 bricklayer at thirty shillings a week wages, and the Irish labourer who 

 carries his hod at fourteen ! Large incomes are spent in luxuries : the 

 provision of these furnishes profitable labour ; and to its proportion of that 

 profitable labour, the means of paying which its own severer exertions 

 must originally furnish, every country is entitled. 



On the subjects of employment, home trade, and profit, however specifi- 

 cally, the doctrines of this paper which we are discussing are worth)'^ of re- 

 cord. The writer complains deeply of the error of those who Imagine, that 

 " retail dealers, tradesmen, and manufacturers, live at the expense of those 

 who employ them." We don't well understand what is meant by this " at 

 the expense," and rather suspect that the economist himself did not stay 

 to consider ; but let us take his own example : — " The boot-maker who sells 

 boots at 30s. which cost him only 40s. of outlay, does not make his profit at 

 the expense of his customers." — " He produces in a given time the quantity 

 oihoo\.i,equivalent to, or worth in silver, 50s., while the various expenses of 

 their manufacture only amount, when rated in the same medium, to 40s»" 



