593 England at the Close o/' Ui3L [Dkc. 



by the arts of demagogues. But we cannot believe in the power of a 

 newspaper, a pamphlet, or an orator, to turn the blood of a whole people 

 into gall ; to rouse honest and industrious men into fui-ious violence 

 against their employers, their neighbours, and their country ; or to in- 

 flame the spirit of the manufacturing class into a sudden political frenzy 

 against institutions, simply as tlie institutions of their forefathers, which 

 they are not in a situation to canvass, and which their education has 

 never enabled them to comprehend. 



It is to this point then, that the attention of any ministry which 

 aspires to the merit of keeping the country in peace, must be turned. 

 Whatever may be the passion for improving the system of represen- 

 tation, we must look deeper for the sullen and unmitigated shape of 

 dissatisfaction, which is gradually mastering the popular mind. The 

 want of bread is the true motto of the rebellion. Hopelessness alienates 

 the native loyalty of the English heart ; and the angry determination of 

 the miserable, if they must fall, not to fall alone, is the true source of 

 the venom which hangs on every tongue of the multitude. The only 

 remedy is to retrace our steps, to connect the idea of national greatness 

 no more with that of being the most extensive manufacturers in the 

 world ; or, in other words, of being the diggers and delvers, the 

 drudges and the tools, of every nation of the earth — the dust-covered 

 and sweating slaves of all mankind. The wholesome pursuits of our 

 forefathers must be reverted to. England, in their days, was provei-bially 

 " merry England." She has never been so since agriculture ceased to 

 be the great occupation of the people ; since manufacturers absorbed 

 the strength, and wasted the lives of her children, and since money- 

 making usurped the whole mind of the community. 



An outcry has been raised against machinery. It is an absurdity, 

 because it is an injustice. The inventor has a right to bring the pro- 

 duce of his genius into the market, as much as the farmer the produce 

 of his plough. 'Tis true, that in agriculture, a landlord of common 

 humanity will be cautious of the evil which he may commit, by dis- 

 placing any large mass of human labour without due warning. If the 

 " merciful man" is applauded, as " being merciful to his beast," how 

 much more distinct a duty is that of rendering good — and consideration 

 and compassion are good — to his fellow men. But the use of machinery 

 in manufactures is contested only by the low violence of the frame- 

 breakers ; and the use, even the most complete and universal use of 

 machinery, would be so far from being an evil, that we may yet hail it 

 as the direct means of relieving the human race from all sickly and 

 cruel drudgery. The time will probably arrive, when, by the perfec- 

 tion of machinery, all human labour in the manufactories, mines, and 

 other trying and delett rious trades, will be rendered superfluous ; and 

 neither children will be tui'ned into idiots, nor adults into cripples, nor 

 promiscuous intercourse corrupt the population, nor reverses of public 

 taste take the bread from the lips of thousands, nor the feeling of bad 

 times and the fear of worse set the multitude dreaming of public over- 

 throw — lending its ear to every characterless declaimer, and blotting out 

 from its recollections every memory of the old and natural British love 

 of the honour and the institutions of the country. 



But this superseding of labour by machinery will be gradual, and 

 ought to be an object of the most constant care of Government, in 

 providing other employment for the discharged workmen. Canals, roads, 

 embankments of rivers and of the sea, harbours, aU the works of 

 national utility, would be the safe and natural occupation of the mass of 



