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-
sure 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 iu the ratio of the decrease in our
workers) that the waste was 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 day 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-1
nently from all exorbitance of price for the neces-
saries of life—has greatly reduced the taxes on con-
sumptiou and production, 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
discoveries of Californiaand A ustralia, 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 gives
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 diggers of nuggets, and the
fellers of the great forests draw around them 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
great nations. A hankering after "untried being"
becomes a furor of flight, and sugeestions 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
remain behind. The brain-worker must have his
tools. The merchant must follow his customers.
The seller must go where buyers have money.
Where the carcase is there will the eagles be ga-
ethoeurnetdry.
in a
state
in this old a orld and this old
Following e just now of most critical transi-
tion.
which
nfree trade, emigration and the
Pactolns streamasn have flowed in upon Europe
from the WestmostdeSxotneth, have arisen a series of
strikes of the
description, and omi-
nously protracted duratliosive
any symptoms of subsiden/:ce seThee do not betray
we must expect them to r xhaustion, in
fact,
cst ever known
historyunivearnsdaalw_th has not
The most universally abundant harvest
and strengthen.
to the furthest reach of
grown but gamed ;
bread cheap
only been
main Icapiaurposes,
and capital set at liberty for commercial
it is quite obvious that the working
live upon less and exact more • ' the great c
onat once
dition
of scarcity in the supply of labour and consequent
3
increase of its price. It will require a steady hand
and a wise bead to bear this overflowing cu
steadily to the lips.
Nothing but the sagacity fthe labourer can save him from the great iujury of
all other classes, and the ruin of his Own. The
significant fact is before us, that one 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—
end
lind that in reference to a great necessary oflit
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
ages in one direction is equalised ultimately l •
mately by an
If
increase in another.the collier charges more
for heating the baker's oven, or for the fuel of
the flour-mill steam-engine, the baker must have i
more for his bread. f the farmer gets
high prices for his cattle, or the grazier for his
wool, h:31.1_348 tomore for the leather
his "ay" 4 pay
ogra„l
_azyit as &owe 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- 1
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, bes:des 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 of 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 of level, 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 neutral
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 mulct go a humanity-mongering, he
would show more useful philanthropy in 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 must be unprincipled and
pernicious, At least there is nothing very useful
in " Hard Times "—and, Booth to say, little that
is ornamental.—Dispatch.

THE PRICE OF WHEAT.

No one who has thought on the subject would at-
tempt dogmatically to predict the price of wheat any
more than to fortel future events of any other kind.
Unlooked-for circumstances may occur, which may
scatter to the winds the most subtle calculations. Not
to look further than the obvious vicissitudes in the place
of all commodities contingent on the success or other-
wise of the war in which we are engaged with Russia,
it is evident that an approximation to a reasonable opi
nion as to the future price of wheat in this country is all
that can be attained. We may, however, advert to a
few of the particulars which must influence the price of
our staple article of national consumption.
The rapid fall in the price of wheat during the past
few weeks is one of the most remarkable ever known.
A decline of not less than 10s. a quarter has in various
places occurred between one market day and another.
Wheat, Which early in the year reached from 90s. ,to
100 s. a quarter, may now be obtained for from 50s. to
563, a quarter. Here for the present there is a pause.
The Loudon market of Wednesday is reported to have
been steady at the decline of Monday.
Whence is this extraordinary decline ? It must be
attributed to the authentic intelligence which has reached
this country of the excellent crops on the continent and
in the United States, together with the ascertained fact
that our own harvest will be both good in quality and
abundant in quantity. Nor must the general sound-
ness and extent of the potato crop be overlooked. The
potato enters so largely into the consumption of the
working classes, that the abundance or deficiency of this
esculent exercises a decided influence cu the price of
wheat.
It seems now to be pretty generally admitted that the
recent high price of wheat is not in any great measure
to be attributed to the effects of the war. The blockade
has not prevented large quantities of wheat finding its
way from Russia to the rest of Europe.
But there are other most important causes in opera-
tion. Under protection, with an abundant harvest and
a restricted currency, wheat sank in 1835 to an average
fur the year of 393 4d a quarter. Under free trade, the
yearly average for 1351 was 333 6d a quarter.
We are now under different circumstances. The gold
discoveries of California and Australia tend to keep up
the prices all over the world. They do so principally in
two ways—by providing money sufficient to allow trade
and commerce to flourish and expand, and by lowering '
the price of gold as measured in the great article of human
consumption throughout the civilised world—corn.
Let our agricultural friends then take courage. We
incline to the opinion that wheat will not sink to the
low level which it did when they had protection alone
to depend on, ncr to that which it did under the free-
trade system, unmitigated by the beneficial effects of that
providential discovery of gold which is one of the most
important occurrences of this most eventful period. The
outpouring of gold—itself an event of comparative insig-
nificance, for how little the wealth of nations depends on
the acquisition of this metal, ruined and impoverished
Spain evidences—the out-pouring of gold throughout
the world, by correcting the prevalent false systems of
money, and particularly the absurd and injurious •sye-
tens established by Peel's Bills in our own country, hai
worked, and is still working, most advantageously foi
the agriculturist as well as for the merchant and the
manufacturer. We have 13 millions of gold in the Bank,
the French Bank has 19 millions,--British India has, it
is said, no less than 16 millions of specie in its treasu-
ries. These accumulations, with the expected imports,!.
will, we trust, keep panic and penury from our doors for'
the present.—Derbyshire Courier.