The Sun.
London, England, 1841-08-21 00:00:00

. MOrt.NrliTtr4r -F4144

.fig._.. to the revenue officers, ho were admitted only into a
few houses.
The' questiOn of the census was still the principal topic
of the press in Paris. Government had ordered an in-
terptetation of some points of this question to be inserted
lit the opposition Paris Papers. Tumults' continue
hrtiaking out in the south. AtAubusson, and-Livenhae,
they had been put down by the military. •
H. PARIS, AUG. I9.—Five per Cents., 1161- ; Three per
Cents., 7':f. 50c. ; Spanish, 2U4.

FRENCH. AFRICA.
ter;, The news from Algiers of the 10th is unimportant.
Between 600 and 800 individuals, belonging to the tribe
r, of the Medgiers, bad made their submission to the Go-
Yernor-GeneraL
ry The power of Abd-el-Kader is represented to be on
7; the decline, and great preparations were making for a
fresh campaign against him. It was said he had sued
•,, for peace., and that he had received for answer that the
first condition of the treaty must be his being embarked
for France. . .
: A French squadron had arrived on July 1, at Tunis,
,4; where it was expected to remain many months. After a
.coriference which the Commander had with the Bey, the
14„1„, garrison of La Goulette had been increased from 1,200
bn„ to 6,000. If supported by France, the Bey was sup-
Itr,9d ipsCd to be able to resist any attacks from the Ottoman
•rto.)% Ode, as he had a regular army of 15,000 men, a good
1);/„.„; artillery, and could command a multitude of armed
146 BedouiAs.

•
, • SPAIN.
The accounts from _Andalusia, received in Madrid on
the 12th instant, led to apprehend that disturbances
would shortly occur at Malaga; Seville, and Grenada.
It was believed that the Government would demand ex-
traordinary. powers from the Legislature before the cloSe
of the session.
From Madrid we learn that there is every proba-
.- lenity of an outbreak between Spain and Portugal.
A letter from Lisbon of the 7th had been shown to
Espartero on the 12th, purporting that a politi-
cal and religions crusade against Spain was getting
up at Lisbon. 'At the same time the Spanish
Government is in a state of great apprehension from
other quarters. Tt was expected that tumults would
shortly break out in all the great towns of Andalusia.
At Valencia the Ultra-Liberals were discontented with
Espartero's answer to the Queen's protest, and many
'murders have'been committed. Spain seems threatened
with a new revolution. The •Republicans and Ultra-
Liberals intend framing a new Constitution, and esta-
blishing a. federal Peninsular Government,- to include
Portugal•and Spain.
The negnciations relative to the loan of 60 millions, of.
reals have as yet been attended with no result.
Madrid Bourse.—Five per Cents., 241 / at 60 days.

GERMANY.
The Cofagne Gazette of the 16th announces the failure
of the firiii.of. Thomayer mid Co., of Vienna, and adds
'that several commercial failures had also occurred in
Trieste:
The Gazette of ~Upper Germany states, under date
Silesia, 2d inst., that the corn trade was particularly
brisk in that'province, and that wheat had increased 40
per cent. on account of large orders from England.

SOME EFFECTS OF THE MANU-
FACTURING SYSTEM.
(No. I.)
TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.
Manchester, August 17.
Sin,—So much has of late been said by the TOry.
journals about the frightful effects of our, manufacturing
system, that you will allow me, I hope, to make a few
observations per contra. I by no means intend to point'
out all its effects, but merely a few which have struck
me, and which are.likely to interest the public.,
At present, as you are well aware, Manchester is far
from prosperous ; and many of the labouring classes,
particularly the hand-loom weavers, are in a most piti-
able condition. I am assured by those who have known
Manchester many years that within their memory trade
was never so bad as at present, nor distress so great.
At the same time it is a remarkable circumstance, that
this distress does not obtrude itself on our notice in the
hateful form of squalid street beggary. You see groups
of people in the streets with their hands in their pockets;
they are waiting for work to be given out, or they have
nothing to do. They present the lamentable spectacle of
willing and strong hands ready to be employed, and no
man wants them. You see a very striking feature . of
'•society here, hosts of working men discussing subjects i
of
n
the street in the middle of the day, and at all hours
the day ; and if you press in among those groups you
find' that the topics are either political or religious. There
is a want of work and a want of wealth, and there is
intellect in operation reasoning on the cause of it ; but
these are no beggars. I have seen more beggars in one
short hour in your prosperous metropolis than I have
seen in Manchester, though I have walked much about
the street. in three days.
This is a very curious fact, and the explanation ap-
pears to me honourable :to the people and the system.
On mentioning the subject to a friend, he accounted for
it by the vigilance of the police, and the care of the mu-
nicipal authorities. But in other places mendicity societies
a vigilant police, and the utmost care of the magis-
trates do not suffice to extinguish street beggary. I
am, therefore, persuaded that the power not the will of
the authorities is much overrated, and that unless the
correction of the evil sprung from the manners of the
people, it would be impossible by any coercive means, in
a season of great distress like the present, to prevent
much street beggary. The ministers at the Anti-Corn-
law Conference, have afforded a much more satisfactory
solution of the difficulty.
Not one only, but several of them, whose congrega-
tions are composed of manufacturers, have borne a de-
lightful and a strong testimony to the independent
spirit, a the, working population, and their kindhearted-
ness to one another. The records of the Poor-law Com-
missioners attest the fact, that in the manufacturing dis-
tricts the Poor-rates, especially in Manchester and
Liverpool, never reached the same pitch as in the
southern agricultural districts. The hand-loom weavers
and others of the suffering classes, though they have
now been exposed to great privations for many years,
have never had their independent spirit broken down by
Paying wages out of rates, or establishing a general
system of pauperism, such as. that which ;as depraved
so. shockingly the peasantry of England. Even now,
after struggling in vain against the system which bears
them down as ruthlessly, as the Indians were extirpated
by a different and a stronger race, the hand-loom-
weavers seek relief in emigration, rather than in the
poor-house. Here the poorer classes have yet some
power as well as the will to help each other, and it is
much to their honour that you see not scores of beggars,
who, as I know, render the agricultural districts of the
South neither.a pleasant nor safe abode.
Has this independent spirit no connection with cotton
spinning or with that go-ahead system which prevails
here, and which some persons are anxious to check ?
For many years the new trades which arose and in-
creased—(and I shall hereafter call your attention to a
remarkable and very recent instance of this)—de-
minded new hands, and till our fiscal regulations
stopped the growth of our manufactures, gave the la-
bourers here an advantage in relation to capitalists, and
enabled them to command high wages, if not their own
terms. No such demand has existed for the services of
agriculturists. On the contrary, the demand for their
services has been lessened ; they have in consequence
been completely at the mercy of the farmer and the
landowner, which has contributed even more than bad
laws to their permanent degradation. The comparative
want and comparative plenty of employment in the con-
ditions of society are necessary and permanent. The
prosperity of the manufacturing artizans made them re-
gard that relief as a degradation which the peasantry, from
its being mixed up with their wages, considered to be a
right as honourable as the receipt of rent or tithes.
That prosperity, too, was the parent of the spirit of in-
dependence, and the main element of that resistance
which they now offer to the degradation which impends
over them, and enables the Magistrates to prevent ex-
tensive beggary. But for this noble disposition of the
people, which raises, as one of the Dissenting minis-
ters at the Conference said, our estimate of human nu-
ture, Manchester would in such a season of distress as
the present probably be worse than London, and as bad
as Ireland. The peasantry, so idolized by the Tories,
were not exposed, in 1829 and 1830, to one-half the pri-
vations which now afflict the population of the manufac-
turing districts, and they were hurried into ill-concocted,
and stupid, baseless, incendiary riots. These facts are cor-
roborated by the Report of the Hand-I om Weavers' Com-
mission ; and they suggest—which is a cheering view,
. as our corn and manufacturing population seem destined
to increase—that the manufacturing system may pos-
sibly teem with similar moral results.,he manufaT
ith cturih is
ng
labourer, for example, continually associates w
fellows, and his sympathies are continually exercised.
Ile works with another, and both are mutually and visi-
bly dependent and serviceable. Throughout the great
community it is palpable to all, and no
individu
al pro
ably occupied for an hour, if other branches are arrested,
and other individuals cease to labour. The mutual de-
pendence of individuals who, in the same factory, pass
one piece of work from one to another, to complete it,
is not more palpable and certain than the mutual and re-
ciprocal dependence of the machine-maker, the cotton-
spinner, and the dyer. Circumstances like these make
the manufacturing population mindful of the feelings of
each other, and Prompt to respect them, which is the
very essence and sum of moral civilization. It practi-
cally teaches the lesson of doing to others as you would
be done unto.
The peasant more frequently labours in silent solitari-
ness than in company. Driving a cart, mending a hedge,
holding a plough or a harrow, he is alone, and has no
opportunity of communicating with his fellow-men. His
sympathiesare not called into exercise through the greater
part of the day.: he is, then, an approximation to a
solitary savage, independent of all but his oxen and his
horses : he can fulfil his allotted task, as far as he sees,
though another be idle. Hence the agricultural labourer
is less acquainted with the feelings of others, and more
essentially selfish than the manufacturer.
Division of labour, which is one of the chief causes of
the prograss of civilization, or at least invariably accom-
pauses it, is carried much further in manufactures than
in agriculture. Mutual kindness is the consequence of
• mutual dependence, and both nations and individuals
I ecome peaceful and friendly as they help each other.
Where many men are at work, order is an essential ele-
m t success, and the manufacturer carries the order
which he learns in the workship into all his affairs. In-
creasing as the manufacturing population still is, and
increase it must if England is to continue pre-eminent,
it is pleasing to trace causes at work which tend to make
Vie manufacturing population, however formidable to its
oppressors from numbers and organization, less selfish,
less disorderly, less violent, and less ferocious than the
peasantry. When the latter submit with patience, while
they have a consciousness of power, to the same terrible
privations as the band-loom weavers, and still struggle for

independenee„there will be reason to betme ffiat this
•
theory is in6oriect.
Some of your Contemporaries, I am aware, speak of
this dependence of man or Men arising from division of
labour, and still more,- they speak of the Opendence of
•mari_on the machinery he uses, as a great moral degra-..
dation. The results contradict their assumption, and in
moral worth as well as manual skill the manufac-
turers, practising new arts, are superior to the peasantry.
They are the servants, I admit, of machinery, but the
machinery is the result of mind, and the servitude, rightly
understood, is that of physical power to intellect. A
machine is in all cases the substitute for manual labour.
It; is the product of cool calculating wisdom, the crea-
tion in moments of deep thought, which in antiquity was
exiled inspiration, of such far-sighted men as Roberts,
Whitworth, and Dyer ; , it substitutes, therefore, the de-
liberation of the sage for the capricious, and may-be
t-ornetimes the drunken, irregularities of the hasty la-
bourers. While the hand varies in intensity and skill,
the mind-begotten machine is invariable and perfect in
its operations. Whatever it is appropriated to perform
that it does excellently. In subjecting, therefore, the
workman to the operations of machinery, and making
him depend on that, it makes him the servant of the
noblest intellect with which God has endowed his
creatures. _ _

You will remark, too, that the inventors and makers
of this machinery become also its servants. It is the off-
spring of their best and earliest wisdom, the result of
their most profound researches, and whatever the pas-
&oa or the caprice of the moment might dictate, they
are compelled to guide their conduct by the creations of
their own mind in its brightest. moments. They cannot
get rid of their machinery, and are quite as much slaves
to it as their workman.
_

To me, Sir, this opens a very grand view of society.
which, as far as I know, has not sufficiently attracted
public attention. The workman in the manufacturing
district is the slave, to use the Tory slang. of machinery;
but the workman in the agricultural districts, the soldier
and the sailor, the bulk of manual labourers, ~are
the slaves, or the servants of capricious men. They are
governed by passion and uncertainty. Machinery works
with something of the regularity of nature, and they'
Who serve it serve at least a steady master. The more
machinery is increased, therefore, the more intellect,
which creates machinery, becomes the guiding and rul-
ing power of all the operations of man's hand. The use
of machinery is extending even in war, and slaughter
cannot be carried on without serving intellect. This
process, then, is. general in society. More and more;
year after year, does man become the servant of that
mind-begotten machinery which works with unerring pre-
cision, and more and more is he liberated from the domi-
nion of passion and caprice. The phrase, therefore, that
man is a slave td machinery, means that he is the ser-
vant of the highest human intellect, and that its rule
over society, as the use of machinery extends, becomes
every day. greater and greater.
There is another moral consideration connected with
this subject, to which I must also advert. It places pro •
digious power at the command of man, without increasing
his arrogance. An eloquent writer has very inadequately
compared a steam-engine to an elephant's mouth, which
can rend an oak or pick up a pin. The machinery we
use here sets in motion a fly-wheel, for example, which
would crush a score of elephants, were they to come
within its range. .It spins a gossamer thread which an
elephant could not see, and pierces iron plates which an
elephant could not lift, with as much ease as a boy thrusts
a pin
.through a card. I have seen under the same roof
an instrument cutting iron as though it were putty, and
an instrument taking up the stitches in knitting, with as
much dexterity and neatness, and with infinitely greater
velocity, than a German lady. The strongest metals are
dealt with as a housewife deals with pastry, working it
into an endless variety of curious shapes, to ornament
her dishes. But neither those who create, nor those who
wield .the power, have any of that arrogance with which
much less power inspires, even to madness, those who
work by strong will, by passim., and caprice.
Machinery is fixed, and each piece will in general
perform but one operation. It is made by one man, and
used by another. Each piece is part of a great system,
and the man who makes or who uses it is no more made
arrogant by it, than by the knowledge that he is an atom
of the universe. In fact, it rather humbles than exalts
a man to be made sensible of his single helplessness,
whatever may be the power of the many in combination.
The sublime inventions of man's intellect, which are here
crowded together in millions, seem calculated, like the
works of nature, rather to inspire that sentiment of hu-
mility which is the basis of piety, than the arrogance
which is, I believe, more common to theologians than
mechanics. From the moral effects of machinery on the
mind, I account for the forbearance and endurance of
these people. Comparing their works with those of the
peasants, they seem more like gods than men ; and
were not their wonderful power diffused and distributed
as it is, not accompanied by those beneficial influences I
have pointed out, society woull be speedily rent asunder,
instead of being bound together in harmonious order by
their continual multiplication.
There are not wanting, indeed, amongst those who
assume to be the lights and guides of society, writers
who labour to depreciate and vilify the manufacturing
system, and the new society which belongs to it. But,
after this brief exposition of some only of its effects, I
may be permitted to say that those writers have never
taken the pains to inquire into it. Whether they err
through frivolity or malignity,—through ignorance or
spite,—whether they belong to the Gibbies or to the
" savagery" of the press,—whether called Table-talkers
or Quarterly Reviewers,—whether they belong to the
Rosa Matilda or the Tomahawk school,—they have only
fluttered and stamped over the surface of sense and
things, and have 'never penetrated to the valuable ore
beneath. They have talked most idly, or most wickedly,
of destroying half our towns, and of the community
being as prosperous, powerful, and wealthy, without
them, from having just seen some of their exterior or
temporary characteristics, while they have known no-
thing of their independence, their kindness, their power,
their humility, and their endurance. Those who under-
lake to instruct others must, as a principle of trade.
never acknowledge that they have anything to learn ;
and I am afraid your Tory Contemporaries, who have
of late been forward in vilifying the manufacturing sys-
tem, from a mere party motive, will continue blind to its
many advantages.—l am, Sir, your obedient servant,
AN OLD TRAVELLER.