IB^fi.] Machinerij-distyesses. 567 



sixpence, when he and his children were allowed wherewithal to satisfy 

 tile cravings of nature? Is it so great a blessing — one for which the 

 weaver and his ordinary comforts arc well worth sacrificing — that tl>e 

 passion for slicwy and tawdry Hncry, from the duchess to the scullion, 

 can be gratified full one hundred per cent, cheaper than it was wont to 

 be ? Oh, but all this would go to the ruin of commerce. Perisli com- 

 merce, say we, if the result must be the impoverishment of the whole 

 labouring classes of the country. But the revenue will sufler if we do 

 not manufacture for the foreign markets. Do you manufacture for the 

 sake of that revenue ? and if you do, are you content to be the base in- 

 strument of oppressing and crushing your fellow-citizens, that the revenue 

 may augment? But you have no such regards — the consideration does 

 not weigh a feather in the scale against your personal advantages. Per- 

 sonal gain, is your object, and you care not at whose expence. Therefore 

 we say again the case is one for legislative interference ; it is better the 

 government should interpose, than that the labourer take the cure into 

 his own hands : he nmst be restrained, and, at all risks, should be pro- 

 tected. Revenue ! what, is that to be kept up to the existing amount, 

 though really and truly so much of it be raised at the expence of the poor- 

 est orders of the state? No, let us go the right way to work, and instead 

 of taking any thing from them, either lessen the necessity for so enormous 

 a revenue, or confine our taxations to the real wealth and property of the 

 country. What glory is it that the government of England is the most 

 costly and grinding under the sun ? Nobody will question the propriety 

 of the word costli/, and we use the term grinding deliberately ; for see we 

 not, that full one-third of this stupendous revenue is raised upon articles 

 of common consumption — of real and indispensable necessity, to which 

 the poor as well as the rich, to the amount of their consumption, propor- 

 tionately must contribute ; and how many expences are there, on the other 

 hand sanctioned for the exclusive convenience of the rich, in which the 

 poor have no participation whatever ! 



Will we then join the ignorant clamour of the labourer and the mob, 

 and impute all the distresses to machinery ? Distinctly do we impute 

 his distress to the excess of machinery, with satisfactory proof of the 

 justice of our imputation. To talk of other causes is beside the purpose, 

 because it is machinery that has been subsidiary to them all. If the 

 manufacturer have glutted the market, was it not by the employment of 

 steam-machinery ? could he have done the mischief by the hand-loom ? 

 We say confidently, no — not for years and years to come ; and coming 

 more slowly, the evil might have been cahnly contemplated, and perhaps 

 effectually prevented. If, again, you ascribe the effect to the manufac- 

 turers, who have traded upon credit — if you say week after week, and 

 month after month, they raised the wages of their men by discounts, 

 and the sudden interruption of this accommodating process compelled 

 them to throw the labourers out of employ — we say again, as confidently 

 as before, machinery is at the root of it. The rapid working up, and conse- 

 quent quick returns, have seduced into the business hundreds whom the 

 more tardy effects of the hand-loom would never have tempted. 



Machinery then, v/e insist, is the sole source of the existing distresses; 

 and we say that that distress has for some time increased, and will still 

 increase, in the very ratio of the, improvement of that machinery, unless 

 you can extend your market proportionally. And what prospect have 

 you of any such extension ? Are not the manufactures of almost every 



