1829.] 



Mr. Sadler's Speech, 



439 



strange fatality, whicli not unfrequently 

 occurs in the liistory of human affairs, the 

 suffering has fallen upon the guiltless, while 

 many of those who were accessory to the 

 change, have largely benefitted by it. 



Let us, therefore, now turn to the pre- 

 sent condition of things amongst us. What 

 now is the situation of the country ? A 

 retrogression in tliree or four short years, 

 since the new theory has been in operation, 

 of the most alarming nature, in whatever 

 point of view it is considered. What is 

 the great interest — whicli the place — in this 

 heretofore happy empire, which is prosper- 

 ing ? ^^Tiere is it that general distress is 

 not now experienced, and impending ruin 

 dreaded ? ^V'hat is the pursuit which is 

 profitable to the employer, or sustains in 

 comfort the employed ? Who shall say 

 whether that mass of bodily suffering, 

 which the almost starving operatives now 

 endure, or the mental and concealed anguish 

 which many of tlieir former employers ex- 

 perience, is the most heavy and heart- 

 rending ? 



And, first,- if we turn our eyes to the 

 agi'iculturists, who, if calculated as Adam 

 Smith intimates, in reference to the em- 

 ployments solely dependent upon them 

 which, in our census, are placed in the other 

 class, will amount, as. I have proved else- 

 where, to two-thirds of the industrious part 

 of the community. I say, turning to the 

 agricultural operatives, what is their condi- 

 tion ? The farmers of the kingdom are on 

 the verge of ruin; many of them are already 

 inextricably engulphed ; poverty and dis- 

 tress pursue and have already reached them. 

 The labourers, in entire counties together, 

 are in the deepest distress, and are almost 

 universally pauperized, and their condition 

 has had its full share in reducing the ma- 

 nufacturing operatives to a like, or even a 

 worse situation. With tens of millions of 

 acres of land wholly uncullivatcd, millions 

 of which are amongst the richest soils in the 

 ■world; with millions more, especially in 

 Ireland, not lialf laboured ; and with an in- 

 credible and increasing number of hands 

 out of employment, and wliom we nmst 

 sustain, thougli we wholly lose their labour, 

 things have been at length so happily ma- 

 naged, that we habitually emjiloy the la- 

 bourers of distant countries while o\irs are 

 idle ; call their fields into cultivation v/hile 

 we neglect our own ; furnish with capitals, 

 foreign rivals in otlier b'anches of industry 

 which they will assuredly employ against 

 us, while we voluntarily diminish the na.- 

 tional resources ; — and still our population 

 is inadequately and, relatively speaking, 

 dearly fed. IJut the economists recommend 

 perseverance in this policy, and deliberately 

 advise the desertion or abandonment of agri- 

 culture to the extent of putting three-sixths 

 of our soils out of cultivation. Wliither 

 then must the dispossessed millions of 

 wretched fugitives resort ? To the manu- 

 facturing districts certainly. They must 



become the rivals of the present operatives 

 there, instead of remaining their steadiest 

 customers, and that at a time when the 

 goods already fabricated are so immense in 

 quantity as to inundate the world, and so 

 low in price as to starve the manufacturers. 

 PoUtical economists, I am well aware, have 

 an answer for all this ; — it consists of a 

 future promise ; but the people of England 

 have been long amused by promises from 

 the same quarter, and have been cruelly 

 deceived. And, moreover, they have been 

 reduced to such a condition by their mise- 

 rable mismanagement, that they can no 

 longer wait their fulfilment, were they as 

 undeviatingly tiue as they are manifestly 

 false. They cannot subsist upon remote 

 and uncertain contingencies. By a better 

 policy than that now pursued, this country 

 might fmnish an abundant supply of food 

 at a relatively cheaper price, and still have 

 " enough and to spare," to the evident 

 comfort and advantage of the entire com- 

 munity, and especially of the manufacturing 

 part of it. 



Turning, then, to the manufacturing in- 

 terests, — respecting these the most disheart- 

 ening and prejudicial system has been 

 adopted. We have legalized tlie constant 

 introduction, under certain duties, of articles 

 of foreign industry, which have, in many 

 branches of business, necessarily interfered 

 with home labour, and greatly diminished 

 its recompence. Our silk-manufacturers, 

 our shoe-makers, our glovers, and very many 

 others engaged in stiU more operose and 

 profitable branches of employment, compre- 

 hending, in the whole, a great multitude of 

 our industrious countrymen, have been sub- 

 jected to the distressing rivalry of foreigners. 

 That this has lessened the demand for home 

 labour there can be little doubt, none what- 

 ever that it has greatly diminished its 

 wages. Indeed, I myself have heard those 

 who were mainly instrumental in introduc- 

 ing the change, exult in the vastly greater 

 cheapness of the goods when fabricated, 

 ■whicli that ciiaiige has occasioned; I heard 

 the exultation at tlie time with sorrow, I 

 heard it with shame, when 1 recollected 

 that those who uttered it, made no lessening 

 demands upon the public purse, which has 

 still to be replenished in their belialf, by the 

 harder efforts of a suffering people. But 

 the exultation, after all, was natural ; their 

 interests are adverse, as are those of a body, 

 unhappily too numerous, who are the avowed 

 and persevering enemies of a protected in- 

 ternal industry. As to the shipping inte- 

 rests, to wliich I shall allude hereafter, it 

 were superfluous to tell you that they liavc 

 been similarly and even worse treated ; but 

 to this subject I shall again recur, though 

 I tliink it is almost unnecessary so to do in 

 the present company. I think, with that, 

 at least. Gentlemen, you are as well aca 

 quaintcd as are tlie theorists. 



One tiling has often struck mc as to the 

 policy of oui projectors, namely, the ad4re» 



