317 
1821.] Real Causes of the Ruin of our Commerce. 
our manifold distresses are in great 
part to be attributed: nor can they cease 
whilst the system is persevered in. Its 
capacity for mischief is incalculable: 
since, according to the well-intentioned 
and benevolent Owen, in 44 his Memo¬ 
rial to the Allied Powers,” we are told, 
p. 14, 44 Already with a population un¬ 
der twenty millions, and a manual 
power not exceeding six, with the aid 
of her new power, undirected except by 
blind private interest, she supplies her 
own demands, and overstocks , with her 
manufactures, all the markets in the 
world, into which 'her commerce is ad¬ 
mitted. She is now using every exer¬ 
tion to open new markets, even in the 
most distant regions, because she feels 
she could soon supply the wants of 
another world equally populous with the 
earth.” p. 15. 44 Thus have two men, 
Watt and Arkwright,* by introducing 
improved scientific power of a peculiar 
description given to the world the 
means of creating wealth more rapidly 
than it can be used.” 
Upon the preceding quotations we may 
briefly remark, that a capacity for un¬ 
limited production, or the power of 
overstocking the world, is here admitted 
to be in actual operation, and in our 
own country. When, and wherever 
exerted, it must prove both unprofit¬ 
able and injurious: not, according to 
Mr. Owen, 44 as the means of creating 
wealth more rapidly than it can be 
used,” which is a mere solecism: but 
by making that, which before was 
wealth, cease to be so. What constitutes 
wealth , is the power of changeability, 
or of valuable exchange : overstock, or 
oversupply, undermines the capability, 
and if carried to excess, annihilates it. 
The absurdity, therefore, to say nothing 
worse, of substituting artificial powers 
for natural ones, and of a description 
not wanted, is self-evident ; powers, 
the very exercise of which defeat their 
own purposes. But until avarice and 
ambition shall have ceased to be ac¬ 
tuating principles, the capability of un¬ 
limited production will ever be found 
to terminate, as it hitherto has done, 
in overproduce; and wherever consump¬ 
tion has limits, which is necessarily 
* When Sir R. Arkwright, submitted to 
the then minister, Mr. Pitt,his discoveries, 
or his practical application of discoveries, 
stating, the capability of unlimited pro¬ 
duction to result from it, Mr. Pitt, drily, 
but with sound judgment, observed, “ Sir, 
you will soon want another world of cus¬ 
tomers,’ ’ 
everywhere, overproduce is oversupply. 
New’ worlds, therefore, (as Mr. Pitt 
sagely remarked) must be found, to an¬ 
swer their insatiable demands. 
To affix a permanently beneficial 
value upon all commodities, supply 
must be regulated by demand; the,only 
means of rendering trade advantageous , 
and thereby of relieving our distresses. 
Oversupply is the hydra to be destroy¬ 
ed ; begot by avarice upon the daughter 
of ambition, and nurtured by the mis¬ 
application of artificial powers. Hap¬ 
pily a monster of our own creation, 
for were it a God-send, its extirpation 
might be impossible. 
Our next consideration, is the best 
mode of riddance. The experience of 
all practical men convinces us, that no 
measure, however demonstrably ad¬ 
vantageous to traders en masse, will 
ever be adopted, if depending upon their 
united concurrence; and the interfe¬ 
rence of government with trade, or its 
regulations, is highly objectionable; 
but, upon the present occasion,-we have 
no other effectual remedy. Better, 
therefore, a committee be appointed to 
ascertain the practical injury that has 
already resulted from the misapplica¬ 
tion of machinery: whether by expe¬ 
diting production too much, an un¬ 
limited and surplus produce have not 
been the consequeuce?—and if so, that 
its future use be prohibited wherevei 
the exercise of human powers are com¬ 
mensurate to the supply of any reason¬ 
able or possible demand; unless in 
cases where the effect cannot be pro¬ 
duced without it, or in the few in¬ 
stances that might accrue, where (like 
the Avater) surplus produce and over¬ 
supply are not synonymous. 
Palliatives manifestly can prove of 
no essential service. For instance: 
could taxation be dispensed with alto¬ 
gether, the mill-stone, by so many 
supposed to be sinking us, no real bene¬ 
fit to trade would result from it: the 
indiscriminate application of machinery 
continued. But the principal means of 
overproduction removed by the regula¬ 
tions proposed, every future diminu¬ 
tion of the taxes would then operate as 
a stimulus to beneficial exertion, and 
consequently any suggestions for their 
reduction be no longer misapplied. 
Oversupply is most injurious when 
proceeding from the misuse of machi¬ 
nery; arising from this cause, all fu¬ 
ture permanent advantage from trade is 
precluded; and it also prohibits a re¬ 
munerating price to the labourer; con¬ 
ditions 
