Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1859-05-07 00:00:00

ON THE REMUNERATION Or INDUSTRY.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE NORTHERN TIMES,

Sir,—lt is commonly believed that the low rates
if remuneration for general industry in this and
other countries is due to the supply of labour being
in excess of the demand, and that therefore the only
chance which working men have of improving their
position is to keep down their numbers, so as to
decrease the supply of labour. This is an utter
fallacy, and is fraught with enormous evils, since it

leads society to accept, as right and natural, an
adverse condition of general industry which is
merely a consequence of very intelligible and easily
preventible causes.

However startling the assertion may. seem, the
supply of labour never yet was, and never can be,
in excess of the natural demand for labour ; For
wherever a supply of labour exists, there must of
necessity exist also a corresponding demand for,: it.
No man ever seeks employment from the mere love
of labour, :but because he has wants to provide for,
and those wants constitute a natural demand for
labour ,equivalent to his own demand for employ-
ment. It is true that an enormous propottion of
the demand for labour, which ought to beta conse-
quence 'of the wants of the labouring classes, is
preventod from appearing in 'the labour markets of
the wcoild. It is a sort of demand which necessarily
lies dormant until the want has been satitfied ; and
if, from inability to find employment or >from any
-otherveause, the want remains unsatified, the demand
.for labour embodied in that want is virtually crushed

Aout‘of‘existence.
We should be moderate in assuming that at least
40 per cent. of the natural demand for lallour, which
is *embodied in the wants of the working classes,
male and female, of this country, is thus crushed out
of 4existence by their inability to provide for or
satisfy such wants ; and if we looked to other
countries, especially those of South America, Africa,
Asia, and the greater pert of Europe, Ave should find
this destruction or prevention of -demand to be
enormously in excess of what it is in this country.
The one great and only reason why so many of the
wants of the working classes of the world are left
'unsatisfied, to the sacrifice of so much of the world's
demand for produce and manufactures, is that those
fields for enterprise which are most calculated to
benefit the working classes, are .uncalculated for
yielding in a direct manner remunerative profits to
capitalists. Scientific colonization may be instanced
As one of these particular fields for the employment
of capital. This term is here used to signify, not
-merely emigration, but the systematic operation of
placing men on colonial lands, in large and well-
-assorted bodies, and supplying them with every
-aid to production that science and capital
has placed, or may hereafter place, at our
command. The reader will need no argument to
convince him of the enormous amount of good which
would result, both to the emigrants themselves and
to the country from which they were taken, from a
wise and extensive employment of capital in this
field. If such a system of colonisation were in
operation, unskilled emigrants might thereby be
enabled to realise a social position equal to that
-obtainable for 265. per week in this country. This
rate of remuneration is of course only assumed ; but
if it were possible to enable unskilled labour to earn
this assumed rate on colonial lands, there would then
be no earthly reason why (after a fair time had been
allowed for developing the system) any able-bodied
labourer in this country should earn less than this
xate of wages. It would be impossible to assign a
limit to the good which would result from such an
improvement in the position of the labourer. He
.would, by such means, be made a large consumer of
manufactured goods which he at present never
dreams of using. The wages of skilled labour would
thus be greatly raised, our general home com-
merce would be enormously extended, and crime
and pauperism be reduced to a tythe of their
present amount. But, however vast may be
the national good which would result from
such a system of colonisation, the system
itself would not pay the capitalist under present.
Unless some special arrangement