568 Macliineri/'distresfte.t. [June, 



country in Europe daily augmenting, and so narrowing your market ? 

 Is not the demand in America decreasing more and more, without 

 exhibiting the least tendency of its ever increasing again ? And think 

 we not that South America will not soon be manufacturing eft'ectually 

 for herself? Is she not already doing so pretty extensively ? Is it not 

 also an indisputable fact that the progress of civilization is leading all 

 nations to supply their own wants, as far as their own industry can effect 

 it — notwithstanding our political economists and the wonders to be 

 accomplished by their Quixotic anticipations of Free-Trade? There 

 are, in short, no indications of this country becoming, in a higher 

 degree than it is, the workshop of the world, but many symptoms of 

 our being soon driven back to ourselves and our colonies. For what new 

 resources are there ? The interior of Africa, the populous and wealthy 

 realms of Bornou, and Soudan, and Timbuctoo; get at them if you can, 

 or if they be worth the labour. 



In the existing state of machinery and the market, the labourer can- 

 not live, as he should live, by his labour ; but even this ratio cannot be 

 maintained, and his condition must, if possible, be still worse, in pro- 

 portion as the adoption of steam machinery advances in other quarters of 

 the world. To keep up the possibility of continued competition, the 

 ' genius of mechanical invention ' must still be racked for engines of 

 more power, and the labourers must be driven still closer to the earth. 

 Is it not time, then, for interference? The manufacturer will exclaim, 

 not yet, give us cheaper provisions ; — what will cheaper provisions 

 effect ? Enable us more successfulljr to compete with foreigners, and 

 shut them out of their own markets ; we should be able to take in our 

 unemployed labourers, and then their murmurs will cease. They will 

 not cease — at the very utmost cheap p.ovisions will only place you on a 

 level with foreigners, who will not oblige you by taking your articles, 

 unless you undersell their own countrymen, and underselling can only 

 be brought about by still farther grinding down the wages of your already 

 perishing labourers. 



What then are our conclusions? That our manufactures are extended 

 beyond the point of general utility; that the check of authority is impe- 

 riously demanded ; that the master cannot be left to himself, because he 

 will think only of himself; and that the labourer requires protecting, 

 because none will, and none but the Government can, effectually protect 

 him. 



Would we check the natural course of industry then, stop the sources 

 of private wealth and of public distinction, and annihilate the prosperity of 

 the nation? Nonsense: we should have more general prosperity by draw- 

 ing in our horns a little. How can we thus harden ourselves into the talk of 

 prosperity, with millions in the lowest state of degradation and destitu- 

 tion ? Prosperit)'^ I how much of it is hollow and delusive ? It is almost 

 wholly dependent on a system of credit. I am in your debt, you are in 

 your neighbour's, and he in another's If all claims were arranged, not 

 one in four would be left with the means of pursuing business, or of pre- 

 serving existence ; and this precarious and unsteady state it is that sub- 

 jects the trading part of the world to sudden shocks, and gives birth to 

 desperate speculations. The prosperity of every rank and station, in like 

 manner, is equally delusive. What class of life can we select, where 

 the majority are not living beyond their incomes, or are not harassed by 

 embarrassments ? All are striving to imitate and vie with their betters. 



