The Sun.
London, England, 1854-09-12 00:00:00

THE 'WORKING MAN.

When we entered upon our great European war,
our population was less than half what it is
now. Lavish as was the squandering of trea-
&ire the expenditure of blood was greater. In
the Army and Navy, not less than five hundred
thousand of our most able-bodied producers
were drawn from the labour to the killing market ;
and yet, withal, our productive powers increased so
rapidly (almost in the ratio of the decrease in our
workers) that the waste wa.s more than supplied bythe
increase; and we fought Napoleon, the great weaver
in the loom of fate, with our weavers in cotton and
in wool. Money was found whenever money was
wanted for the purpose of destruction ; and yet it
was never deaf to the calls of commerce. We have
now more than double the capital we then possessed,
and a great deal more than double the population
—yet we are greatly more sensitive to the perils of
war—our funds and our trade are in a far more
nervous state. We seem as if we could bear the
drain of hostilities less easily—the burden of taxa-
tion less lightly—the drafts upon our population less
conveniently. Consols tumble to 85 upon the mere
rumour of a " brush with the Russians"—stock of
all kinds suffers sudden and extensive fluctuation
and reduction ; and although the workhouses are
practically empty, the security of the supply of
labour is " a mote to trouble the mind's eye."
When a stone-mason can get two guineas a clay in
Australia, and a common "from hand-to-mouth."
Irish bog-trotter can become a landed proprietor
in America, there is nothing indeed to create sur-
prise in this. When also it is remembered that
free trade has emancipated the sons of toil perma-
nently from all exorbitance of price for the neces-
saries of life--has greatly reduced the taxes on con-
sumption and proiluction, transferring them to rea-
lised property, and has opened the commerce of the
world to us Just at the very nick of time of the gold
discoveriesof Californhand Australia, it follows with
the direct sequence of a corollary, that the condi-
tion of the manual workers of the world should be
elevated in a ratio much more comparatively great
than that of any other class. Nor do we see any
prospect of reaction, or of a future glut. Emigra-
tion grows by what it feeds on. One settler giyes
courage to and facilities for another. The home
heart goes across the broad Atlantic, or doubles the
Cape with the sons, mothers, or sisters that have
wandered thither ; the home affection rises on the
ashes of the hearth of mere nationality. Then trade
and commerce gradually follow the stream of mov-
ing human life. The divers of nuggets, and the
fellers of the great forests draw around theca para-
sitical trades, and ancillary caterers for their wants
and appetites—the preponderance first, the equilli-
brium afterwards, of affection and population to the
old country is overcome ; and we see that in Ireland
cheap land and high wages fail to arrest the migra-
tory instincts, or the new convictions of the people.
At last they even prefer poorer fare in the new re-
gion of their fancy, to improved conditions in the
country of their birth. Perhaps the facts we see
around us now account for the mysterious decay of
:peat nations. A hankering after " untried being"
becomes a furor of flight, and suggestions of
self-interest utterly fail to arrest the desire for
change. It cannot be that labour should go, and
that capital, enterprise, and ability, or skill, should•
re, main behind. The-brain-worker must have his
Mole. The merchant must follow his customers.
The seller must go where buyers have money.
Where the
thered, carcase is there will the eagles be ga-
We are, in this old world and this old
country, in a State just now of most critical transi-
tion. FollowingPactolus strea
on free trade, emigration and the
tallittl"frlii,?h have flowed in upon Europe
from the West
ezotuth? have arisen a series of
strikes of the moat
uve description, and omi-
nously protracted duration. These do not betray
any symptoms of subeidcrece
fact, we must expect them to or exhaustion. In
The most universally abundant harvest
strengthen.
to the furthest reach of native arve:st ever known
only been grown but
liberty for
; "al history has not
and with bread cheap
and capital set at for commerce
it is quite obvious that the working t,,,,`l7cpurposes,
enact more • the an at once
live upon less and e great conditions
of scarcity in the supply
0f
11130011 r. and
consequent
increase of its price. It wi re :quire toady
and a wise head to bear this overflowiec cupct
Nothino• but the Sagacity 9
steadily to the lips. or
°
the labourer can save him from the great injury of
all other classes, and the ruin of his own. The
significant fact is before us, that ono of the best re-
munerated and largest bodies of workers in this
kingdom refuse to toil for more than a sixth part
of the day—that as yet they have contrived to rule
their employers, and enormously tax the public-- _
life,
for that in reference to a great necessary of.
for which the present consumption is materially
contracted by the season, they manage to increase
the price. What it will be in winter is an anxious
consideration to the community. It is not to be
concealed that the poor are chiefly interested in
moderating an excess in the wages of labour. For
every shilling more paid to the worker the consumer
has to pay at least eighteenpence. An advance in
wages in one direction is equalised ultimately by an
increase in another. If the collier
for heating the baker's oven, or for the fuel of
the flour-mill steam-engine thebaker
must have
more for his bread. If the farmer
gets
high prices for his cattle, or the grazier for his
wool, he has to pay more for the leather
a his silos and halms, and au advance to

the tailor and hosier on his clothes. At first sight,
indeed, this seems to result merely in a theory of
compensation. But under a system of free trade '
its end must be the ruin of trade. Our chief, in-
deed our sole, dependence for progress, for exist-
ence as a nation, is on our foreign trade. We
have long ceased to supply ourselves with food and
other articles of necessity from our own resources
alone. We consume at least sixty millions' worth
of foreign necessaries annually, besides all the raw
materials of our chief manufactures. These must
all be paid for, and foreigners will not pay for
what we produce more than they can get the ar-
ticles for elsewhere. If, therefore, strikes present
difficulties in the way of our capitalists, and exor-
bitant wages force up our prices beyond the level
of the market of the world, it is not difficult to
foresee that our trade must be destroyed, that our
capital must go abroad for investment, and that
our workers must follow, reducing by their com-
petition the wages it was their great object to force
up. A reaction, indeed, will thereby follow,
and an opportunity be once more opened in this
country for the revival of our productive industry.
But all too late. The convulsions and hazards
of former speculations will frighten capitalists from
the field, and the continent a Europe, but more
certainly the United States, will raise their com-
merce on the ruins of our folly. Let it be clearly
seen, therefore, by our readers of the working
classes that—First, No single trade can long enjoy
a rate of wages greatly in excess of those of other
classes. Even the colliers will attract persons from
less liberally rewarded employments; their em-
ployers will invent contrivances for overcoming the
resistance of their tyrants, and the high price
of the article will check the demand. Second—
If all trades have their wages raised, none
will benefit by a general change ofievel, seeing that
the increased wages received with the one hand will
be absorbed by the enhanced price of commodities
paid with the other. Third—While no substan-
tial improvement in the absolute condition of the
labourers will flow from a general exorbitancy of
wages, the cost of production will thereby be so
raised above the level of that of the rest of the
world, that we will he gradually eaten out of neural
markets and driven even from our own,
unless we return to that productive policy
which to us would be the end of all things—our
exclusion from the circle of the European system
and our ultimate certain ruin. Not even in the
time of the Corn Laws was there as much need
of sending the schoolmaster abroad to teach the
people the great elementary principles of political
economy. Lord Carlisle would do more good by
lecturing on Adam Smith than on Pope ; and if
Mr. Dickens must go a humanity-mongering, • lie
would show more useful philanthropy iu recom
mending sound economical principles than dishing
up stupid social prejudices to delegates and turn-
outs. .But we forget—Mr. Dickens has found out
that every thing useful niust be unprincipled and
pernicious. At least there is nothing very usefill
in " Hard Times "—and, sooth to say, little that
is ornamental.--Dispalcii.