338 



FARMERS' REGISTER— STEAM POWER FOR HUSBANDRY. 



Cheap bread is a thing that our starving and op- 

 pressed people must have, either by a cheaper S3?s- 

 tenri of cuUivation at home, or by importation of 

 corn from abroad. The alternative is the choice 

 between the lile and the death of the State. For 

 surely it is madness amounting m degree to theirs 

 whom the ancients conceived were d >omed to per- 

 ish, to suppose that cheap bread, by a method 

 that will ruin our domestic agriculture, will not 

 precipitate the country into that state of social 

 disunion, which the whole tendency of our afi'airs 

 shows to be in coarse of progression. Now, let 

 it not be supposed that steam has had nothing to 

 do in maturing this condition. During the last 

 quarter of a century, it has been applied to what 

 may be called oliysical purposes only, i. e. to pur- 

 poses which has materially abridged manual labor, 

 and multiplied almost indefinitely every species of 

 commodit}', whilst it has not been applied to any 

 one purpose that has increased human labor, or 

 saved the consumption, and cheapened the produc- 

 tion of food. Consequently there has been a grad- 

 ual disapproximation between the necessaries and 

 the conveniencies of life, until, after nineteen years 

 of peace, and what ought to have proved finan- 

 cial recruitment, it has reached an extent which 

 has unbalanced consumption and production, to a 

 degree which is paralysing all commercial and ag- 

 ricultural transactions, fearfully increasing pauper- 

 ism and crime,.fomenting sedition, and threatening 

 the peace, order, and best interests, social and civil, 

 of society. 



The extension of steam to economic purposes, i. 

 e. to purposes which will permit the removal of 

 brute labor, will remedy the evils arising from its 

 partial a})plication; for, as we have shown, it will 

 save and cheapen food, and that by a way which, 

 over and above its improvement of internal com- 

 munication, will improve the coal trade and iron 

 trade, those pillars upon which the prosj;erity of the 

 country is said to rest, as well as every department 

 of manual industry. Applied exclusively to physical 

 purposes, machinery as yet has, with all its advan- 

 tages, been attended by evils fLir from being-partial. 

 Extended further to economic purposes, the good 

 that will follow will not be short of universal. 

 Hitherto its abuse, that is to say its former appli- 

 cation, alone has been pernicious; now its use, 

 that is to say its latter application, will be com- 

 mensurately beneficial. Machinery has made 

 goods, — machinery also must make a market. The 

 existinji: circumstances of society demand this, 

 otherwise all will terminate in convulsion. 



In arriving, then at the conclusion, that chea]-) 

 bread of home growth, by artificial means, will 

 alone prove an effectual remedy lor our distress, 

 we are led to say so, not because we are an advo- 

 cate for cheap bread, abstractly considered. On 

 the contrary, it is our belief that it is bread bein'J- 

 too cheap already, which is the main cause of 

 the distress which is so prevalent. It is for the 

 benefit., of no class or condition in the State, as 

 bitter experience proves, that prices should be — 

 what they now ai-e and have long been — unremu- 

 nerative. But what we contend for is this, that 

 as all the other producing classes in the State have 

 artificially cheapened the cost of their respective 

 productions, the agriculturists are bound likewise 

 to follow their example, and cheapen theirs. At 

 the present moment, more than two-thirds of the 

 price of wages is spent upon the necessaries, and 



less than one-third upon the conveniences of life. 

 There is not a laborer in the three kingdoms who 

 does not feed his belly at the expense of his back. 

 Tliis is an evil of bo trifling character, for it is one 

 which affects the entire industry of the country; 

 and farther it is one which, ior the interest of all 

 parties, ought to be removed without loss of time. 

 In this way alone our agricultural consumers, 

 instead of being cast into idleness and beggarj^, 

 will have their condition improved, whilst all the 

 other classes will be enable to doubled their use of 

 the conveniences of life. In this way the advo- 

 cates tor free trade will procure the market at home, 

 for which to obtain the privilege of searching 

 abroad they are willing to destroy our domestic 

 agriculture. * * * * * 



No, cheap bread we must have, and cheap bread 

 we shall have; but it is neither tor our common nor 

 individual interest that we should purchase it by 

 the destruction of our home market. At the pre- 

 sent moment, we pay yearly £80,000,000 for the 

 corn which we consume. Of that sum full £30,- 

 000,000 go to support the animate bmte machinery 

 by which it is reared and transported. Here, then, 

 is a sj'stem that requires revision — a repeal which 

 will give us cheap bread, by a mode which will put 

 us in all respects upon the same free trade footing 

 as our continental rivals, besides superadding to all 

 the outlets which our enterprise can find abroad, 

 the best and surest of all markets, that of a new 

 and prosperous one at home. At tlie present mo- 

 ment, twenty millions of our fellow-subjects may 

 be said to be in the condition of non-consumers. 

 With such a field, then, before us, as the regene- 

 ration of our domestic population, shall we omit, 

 or postpone the opportunity which now presents 

 itself, of achieving the formation of a community at 

 home, who can make cheap bread at home, and 

 be so remunerated as to consume prosperously 

 commodities made at home? 



Hankering alter foreign relations instead of 

 minding the one thing needful, to provide at home 

 that extended consumption which should bear an 

 adequate ratio to extended production, has been 

 the fatal rock upon which the vessel of our com- 

 mon prosperity has split. Owing to this error it is, 

 notwithstanding all our ascendency in the arts of 

 industry, we have forced our domestic population 

 into a condition which makes vain and desperate 

 all natiirul aids for any purposes which are more 

 than palliating. And now we must retrace our 

 steps, and regenerate'society by the artificial means 

 which the progress of invention has at length put 

 within our power. I'he possibility is now given to 

 us to remedy in this way evils, which, situated as 

 the country" is, could not have been remedied by 

 any other method. Shall the means then prove 

 awanting? Already the substitution in questions 

 has been retarded lor years, from no other circum- 

 stance than wrmt of co-operation, and if it be de- 

 layed a ftiw years longer, that convulsion may 

 take place, which, through the good providence of 

 God, it seems provided to obviate. Had the ap- 

 jjlication of elementary power contemplated merely 

 a cheaper, quicker, better system of convej-ance, 

 we woidd not have taken up a subject which might 

 tend only to urge it prematurely and improvidently 

 into operation. No, but it is because the removal 

 of brute labor Avill increase human labor, and 

 cheapen food of home growth, at a moment when 

 the want of these is threatening the peace and 



