The Sun.
London, England, 1839-10-26 00:00:00

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PRICE sd.

ACCUMULATION, PROPERTY,
CAPITAL, AND CREDIT.

(FROM A CORRESPONDENT.)
The question has been raised by the ablest of men,
" Whether society has sufered more through ignorance
,
in legislation, or from wi?ful and corrupt misrule ,
and we believe an answer may be given in favour of
either of those propositions by examining the results
in different countries. Are we, however, quite sure
that a careful examination of the statute book of Eng-
land will afford ample proofs that selfish and corrupt
legislation, as well as ignorance, have brought upon this
country the evils we have had long to suffer, and
which. we are now suffering. Before we decide the
questivon, e ought to inquire into the principles of an
Aristocratic and also of a Democratic Government, to
ascertain the springs of action in both these Govern-
ments, differing as they do so widely in principle and in
results ; but that inquiry would lead us at present
away from the subjects stated at the head of this article,
we will therefore only observe that, although in past
times the people of England have suffered more severely
fromignorance than from selfishness, we believe that we
are at present suffering more from the selfish, monopo-
lizing, and unchristian acts of the priviliged orders than
from ignorance. We must, at the same time, allow
that it is from ignorance of the multitude of the true
principles of the British institutions, and from their
short-sighted conduct in the corrupt exercise of those
principles, that the aristocracy and priviliged few are
able to oppress and fleece the many, as we now feel
and witness in these kingdoms, by the melancholy re-
sults which we daily have before our eyes. We see by
Parliamentary Reports that, in the garden of England,
the county of Devon, for example, which may be called
the land flowing with milk and honey, the mass of the
labourers, on whom the produce of the soil depends, do
not at this time earn, nor have they for the past three
or four years earned, more than ss. a week for the
single man, and 7s. and Bs. for the married man with a
family. We also find in the rich and populous dis•
tricts of Lancashire that men labour at the loom for 12
to 14 hours daily without getting more than the
farming men get in Devon. In England, a country
abounding in capital and industry beyond any other
kingdom, and blessed with every thing calculated to
make men comfortable and happy, we believe that
scenes of domestic misery and suffering are to be met
with more extensive and more severe than in any other
country in Europe ; and it is, therefore, the duty of the
Press to point out, if possible, the causes of these suf-
ferings in the hope of having a remedy applied. We
shall be able to prove that the selfish, grasping, unjust,
and unchristian conduct of the rich aristocracy of the
land, is the chief cause of those miseries, which disgrace
our country and the age we live in. But we must, at
the same time, admit that we cannot expect to correct
the corruption and misrule of the rich until the mass of
the people are better informed than they are in many
parts of their duty and in the principles by which their
conduct ought to be regulated. We have, from time
to time, witnessed, with great regret, attempts that
have been made by that part of the Press which pre-
tends to be exclusively supported by, and directed to
support the interests of the working classes, to decry
the possession of capital, and to complain that ma-
chinery was injurious to the people. The spread of
knowledge amongst the masses has, in a great degree,
put an end to the cry against machinery, and has satis-
fied every reflecting man that England, without ma-
chinery, and the manifold advantages derived from it,
would soon be the most wretched of countries. We
hope that the cry against capital and capitalists will, in
the same manner, be put down by the correction of
reason—that the best friend to the working man is capi-
tal ; and that it is owing to the great quantity of capital
that England ranks so high in the scale of nations. We
will not admit of the question so often raised by phi-
losophers, whether man is happier in the savage and
wild state, with few wants and fewer means of satisfying
them, than in the civilized condition in which we now
live, artificial in our desires, and artificial in the means
of satisfying those desires. We are in the state of
civilized life, and it should be our duty, as men and
Christians, to make the people as happy as possible in
that artificial state.

It cannot be doubted that the proper use of capital,
and of machinery, must promote the prosperity and
happiness of the people of this country, and we there-
fore are most anxious to remove the impression which
exists in soma quarters that capitalists are men fol-
lowing out their own selfish views, regardless of the
feelings and comforts of those who are employed by
them. We fear that this erroneous belief has produced
a feeling of and distrust between the workman
and his master, which has been highly prejudicial to
both masters and men. We are sorry to admit that
there may be masters who do not act with that kind-
ness and consideration towards their men which on a
moment's reflection they would find it their interest, as
it is their duty, to do. But we must also allow that
the conduct of the workmen in too many cases has
greatly tended to produce that indifference in the
masters of which the men complain. A better under-
standing by masters of the value, and of the attention
due to their men, and by workmen of the respect due to
their employers (and also a better knowledge of the
principles of capital, which enables them to support
their men), will, we hope, produce a better feeling
in both masters and men, and convince them that each
party has his duties to perform, and that neither party
can do without the other. If there were no capitalists
to maintain the workmen whilst manufactures were in
progress, how could the workmen be supported in
comfort, and with regular weekly or daily wages, as
they now are ; and in the same way, if there were no
workmen the capital of the employer would be of
little value. Hence the prosperity and comfort of
this country, and of every other manufacturing country,
must depend on the profits of capital and the profits of
labour being sufficiently liberal to repay the capitalist
for the use of his capital, and the workman for the
labour bestowed. We have been led to these remarks
by the perusal of an address delivered before the .Mer-
cantile Library Association, in Boston, in the United
States, on the 13th of September, 1839, by Mr. Edward
Everetts, at the eighteenth anniversary of that Institution.
In the mercantile profession, the advantages of such
institutions are more obvious than in any other ; under
their influences, the merchant, if he be not numbered
among the princes of the earth, may become what is
still loftier and better—the intelligent friend of social
advancement, the benefactor of his race.
We are persuaded that we cannot better instruct
and gratify our readers than by transferring to our
pages the greater portion of this admirable discourse.
In this address Mr. Everett has done that for the
science of political economy which its professors have
too generally failed to do ; be has shown the direct,
immediate, indispensable application of its principles to
the ordinary business of life. It will be well for those
who have been led to regard this science as unsettled in
its principles, and unsatisfactory in its results, to
study the illustration which is here given of the im-
portance of those principles, in relation equally to the
individual and to the society of which he is a member.
Many of them may be surprised to find that what they
have been in the habit of regarding as fraught with
danger, or deserving only of reproach, is but the seem-
ing evil from which good may be educed.
In the beginning of the address the author declares
its object to be the discussion of a few of the elementary
topics connected with commerce ; in reference to which
there are some prevailing errors, and on which it is im-
portant to form correct judgments. These topics are,
Accumulation, Property, Capital, and Credit ; and they
are successively treated in a manner which would be
spoiled by an attempt at abbreviation. Certain we
are, that no reader will complain of the copiousness of
our extracts :

" I. Some attempts have been made of late years to
institute a comparison between what have been called
the producing and the accumulating classes, to the dis-
advantage of the latter. This view I regard as en-
tirely erroneous. Accumulation is as necessary to far-
ther production, as production is to accumulation ; and
especially is accumulation the basis of commerce. If
every man produced, from day to day, just so much as
was needed for the day's consumption, there would of
course be nothing to exchange ; in other words, there
would be no commerce. Such a state of things implies
the absence of all civilization. Some degree of accu-
mulation was the dictate of the earliest necessity ; the
instinctive struggle of man to protect himself from the
elements and from want. He soon found—such is the
exuberance of nature, such the activity of her produc-
tive powers, and such the rapid development of human
skill—that a vast deal more might be accumulated than
was needed for bare subsistence.
" This, however, alone, did not create commerce. If
all men accumulated equally and accumulated the
same things, there would still be no exchanges. But
it soon appeared, in the progress of social man, that no
two individuals had precisely the same tastes, powers,
and skill. One excelled in one pursuit, one in another.
One was more expert as a huntsman, another as a
fisherman ; and all found that, by making a business
of some one occupation, they attained a higher degree
of excellence than was practicable, while each one en-
deavoured to do every thing for himself. With this
discovery, commerce began. The Indian who has made
two bows, or dressed two hear-skins, exchanges one of
them for a bundle of dried fish or a pair of
snow-shoes.
These exchanges between individuals extend to com-
munities. The tribes on the sea-shore exchange the
products of their fishing for the game or the horses of
the plains and hills. Each barters what it has in ex-
cess for that which it cannot so well produce itself,
and which its neighbours possess in abundance. As
individuals differ in their capacities, countries differ in