118 On the Cause of the Distresses of the labouring People. (Sept. 1, 
the other classes of the community ;” and 
I need not trace the statements of all 
the pclitical economists who have written 
since the age of pauperism began, to il- 
lustrate my position: a single fact, as I 
take it from Lord Lauderdale’s “ Obser- 
vations on the Edinburgh Review,” will 
answer my purpose. ‘“ At Mr. Gott’s 
cloth-manufactory at Leeds,” says his 
Lordship, “ thirty-five people perform 
the work which fifteen years ago required 
ene thousand six hundred and thirty-four, 
to execute m a less perfect manner:” 
and supposivg the improvement in this 
manufactory in the course of fifteen years 
may be taken as the standard of all the 
improvements that have taken~place in 
the kingdom, from the time when the 
Statute of the $ and 4 Edward VI. was 
passed; it will prove that in the course 
‘of that time dexterity and skill, by the 
application of capital, have supplanted 
labour in the propertion of 1599 to 35 
or 4624 to 1, that 1s, that the same quan- 
tity of comfort, the production of which’ 
in 1549 gave employment to upwards of 
forty-six men, in this improved age ouly 
gives employment to one man. Nothing 
can place the advantages that our age 
enjoys over the former, in a clearer light 
than this fact; and but for the new means 
that have been discovered to supplant 
distress, I should find no difficulty in 
proving that the miseries of the people 
had encreased in exact proportion. As 
however it is not my object to contend 
for speculative, but for practical truth, 
it is enough for me to demonstrate 
merely, that improvements are injurious 
to the people, without particularly stating 
in what degree. 
To make myself clearly. understood, 
Y will suppose that when the statute of 
Edward VI. took from the people the 
right of demanding what wages they 
thought reasonable, two-fifths of the entire 
population was necessary ta produce 
eomforts fur the whole; and that, if the 
arts, manufactures, agriculture, &c. had 
continued in the same state _until 1801, 
when the returns laid before parliament 
estimated the population at 8,872,980, 
the number of labourers would have 
been 3,549,192. Instead however of the 
arts continuing in the same state, it ap- 
pears by the preceding reasoning, that 
improvement has supplanted labour to 
the amount of upwards of 46 to 1, so 
that 75,411 labourers are sufficient to 
produce the same quantity of comfort, 
aud to render the labour of 3,473,781 
persons unnecessary, or in other words to 
throw so many useful labourers out ef 
employment. This number njust be 
either in a constant struggle with the 
75,411 labourers to get their places, or 
they must remain useless to the state in 
the character of paupers, unless one of 
two modes be adopted to bring their 
talents into exercise; either new wants 
must be created in order to engage their 
labour in manufacturing other kinds of 
comfort, or, the labour of each man 
must be lightened, so as to enabie him to 
live with a forty-sixth part of his labour, 
in order that the other forty-five may be 
able to live by their own industry 
also. 
The former of those modes has natu- 
rally been adopted, and luxury, which the 
pseudo-piety and pseudo-patriotism of 
the times constantly condemn by their 
ignorant declamation, has supplanted 
misery to the amount of upwards of two- 
thirds of what it would have been, if we 
were guided altogether either by our 
patriots or our saints; that is, instead of 
having 3,473,781 paupers, we should only 
have 1,039,264. 
Because comforts and enjoyments are 
thus multiplied, Mr. Whitbread (and 
such men as he) will insist upon it that: 
tle condition of the labouring people is 
much better than at any former period ; 
and he affirms, that whoever persuades 
them to the contrary, “must be either 
ignorant, misguided, or wicked.” Now 
I do declare that their condition is worse 
than at any former period, and I defy 
Mr. Whitbread to examine attentively 
and candidly the Tracts of Myr. Col- 
quhoun, Mr. Malthus, and Mr. Weyland, 
without becoming as ignorant, as mis- 
guided, and’ as wicked as I am. Their 
condition indeed might have been some- 
what mended, if the principle of the 
statute of Edward, and the laws of set- 
tlement, had not prevented the practice 
of the other mode of bringing all the 
talents of the labouring people into use; 
but, instead of attempting to lighten the 
labour of the people, by enabling them 
to live with moderate and ‘reasonable 
exertion, these iniquitous laws have re- 
duced them to the necessity of toiling 
mare than twelve hours in a day fora 
bare subsistence, and have therefore 
never allowed a greater portion of com- 
fort to $,549,192 labourers, than the 
earnings of 2,509,928 are sufficient te 
procure. 
When gentlemen talk of the congition 
Q 
