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LONDON:
SATURDAY, JULY 10, 1341.

;Oa

Till we saw 'the Tory Morning Papers 5-• ester-
day, joining in one chorus of praise, we de erred
Lord STANLEY'S speech, at tho nominatio a for
Lancashire unworthy of remark. A more com-
plete collection of fallacious common placA s, put
into well sounding phraseology, is scar c ely to
be met with. It is matched, indeed, bi it not
surpassed, by the article in the Quarterly• kevieic
on the Budget, in *which there is on th e subject
of the Corn-laws a great want of sense, except
in the proofs it affords that a fixed is quite as :in-
jurious as a sliding duty. Our present business,
however, is with Lord STANLEY and ill the first
g
instance, with one passage of LEY,
spe, ech. We
shall return to his Lordship. An) ong other,
things, he said—
On© word to the manufacturing laboure; s. They tell

you that their foreign trade will be 0-pally inegeased by
cheap bread. Why? Because they call pr,.iiiice the ar-
ticle cheaper. Why? Because 'they will have to pay
lower wages. What other earthly reason?—(Loud cries
of " Hear," and cheers.) The only mode in which
cheapness can benefit the manufacturing community, is
by enabling them to produce their goods cheaper; and
they will so produce them, because, on their own show-
ing, they will give a smaller amount of wages.—(Hear,
hear.) If they don't, the labourer obtains the benefit ;
but then the increase of manufactured goods will not
follow. Is not this the manufacturer's own argument? I
defy any man to come forward and say that this is not
the manufacturer's argument.—(Loud cries of " Hear,
hear.") Reduce the cost of production, and you increase
the production. How else, in the name of plain common
sense, but by lowering wages ?—(Cheers.)
For Lord STANLEY to misrepresent his oppo-
nents' arguments is nothing new—it is his usual
tactics. The manufacturers have never said that
they could produce the article cheaper solely be-
cause they would have to pay lower wages; on
the contrary, they have throughout argued the
question of the Corn-laws on the ground that the
abolition would be equally a benefit to them and
the labourers. Lord STANLEY has not taken
their argument, he has stolen the fallacy of the
Chartists, and palmed it off on his hearers as the
manufacturers' argument. They disclaim it, but
Lord STANLEY made it his own, and professed
his belief in it.
The Noble Lord roundly asserted that cheap
bread and the abolition of the Corn-laws would
lower wages. Only by lowering wages, he said,
could the cost of production be decreased and
production augmented. Lord STANLEY ut-
tered that sentiment with the smoke
of hundreds of tall chimneys rising in his
view. He spoke these words surrounded by the
most ingenious machinery for supplying the
wants and ministering to the comforts of life
that ever the art of man invented. He spoke
them surrounded with masses of fixed capital,
much of which is standing idle, some of which
is going to ruin, and all of which is falling in
value because it cannot be employed. Speaking
these words so surrounded, it is impossible for
Lord STANLEY to plead ignorance of the fact that
-machinery does the greater part of the manufac-
turing process, and that the price of every piece
of cloth consists of the cost of the machinery, or
the remuneration of fixed capital, and the wages
of labour. In what proportions the price is di-
vided between these two, we pretend not to
guess; it is different in different manufactures;
but this we know, and this we state—and if Lord
STANLEY do not know this, or, knowing it,
blinked it, he is in the one case from gross igno-
rance, or in the other from more vicious insin-
cerity, unworthy of his station—that in propor-
tion as the remuneration of machinery enters
into the price, so may the manufacturer, or the
owner of fixed capital, lessen the cost of pro-
duction by producing more, without lowering
wages.

What is at present the case in Lancashire ?
The mills are working four days in the week,
and several of them are shut up. On two days
the manufacturers gain nothing on all their fixed
capital which is unemployed; but on those two
days their mills, like those always shut up. are a
source of expense and loss. Now suppose, by the
abolition of the Corn-law, trade should be so
much extended that all these mills were working
full time, for all that portion of the large pro-
cess which is performed by machinery, no in-
creased expense, or a very trifling one, would
arise for working six days more than for working
four. Suppose that 10,000 pieces of cotton cloth
are produced by one mill in four days, then in
six days it will produce 15,000 pieces. Now sup-
pose, as we do not know exactly the proportions
in which the price is divided between the remu-
neration of machinery and the wages of labour,
that it is equal—machinery has half, and wages
half. Suppose further, then, the cloth sells for
20s. a piece, then in the former case there will be
10,0001. to be equally divided between the manu-
facturer and the labourer, and in the latter there
will be 15,0001. ;each will get 7,500/. though both
will be paid in the same proportion as when only
10,000 pieces were made ; hut in the latter case
the manufacturer, without incurring anything
like a corresponding expense, will reap an addi-
tional profit 0f2,500/.
Now if the manufacturer desires to force or
extend his market he may lower the price of his
cloth 2s. a piece, sell the 15,000 pieces for 18s. a
piece, and still• gain a clear additional profit of
1,0001. without lowering the wages of his work-
men a farthing; on the contrary, by obtaining
more employment their remuneration will
be, on the whole, increased one-third.
We do not make this statement,' as a
correct pounds, shillings, and pence • state-
ment, but a correct outline of the means by
which an increase in the demand for the manu-
facturer's cloth; the result of the abolition of
the Corn-law, would be advantageous to him,
though accompanied by a considerable fall in
the price of the article, enabling him to under-
sell
his competitors in the market, without at
all lowering the rate, and largely increasing the
whole amount of wages. But this case of a
single mill is an epitome of all our manufac- ,
tures, and shows that the more machinery is
extended the more production may be increased,
and the more it is increased the more the price ,
of production may be lowered without lowering
wages. ,

We cannot imagine an excuse for Lord
STANLEY making such an erroneous state-
ment, speaking in Lancashire,, and overlook-
ing, or forgetting, the employment and ef-
fects of fixed capital, or our superb ma-
chinery, in lowering the cost of production.
We can easily forgive Mr. LOVETT, the author
we believe of the fallacy that Lord STANLEY has
filched, for overlooking these effects, because he
has not lived in a manufacturing district; but for
one of the great landowners there, whose wealth

is mainly enhanced by the increased price given
for sites for this machinery to overlook it is
wholly inexcusable. Seeing that Lord STANLEY
had a base party purpose to serve by it, the
Noble Lord will excuse our straightforwardness
if we add that he blinked this designedly, in
order to gull and blind by his great authority,
the ignorant freeholders he was addressing.
One of the peculiarities, or rather the pre-
eminent advantages of England is, the possession
of machinery in unheard-of masses and of ex-
quisite superiority. If we say that at present
one half of the price of all our manufactures
goes to remunerate the owners of the machinery,
and the other half to pay
the wages of the
ploy ed
labourers ern in using it, we shall not be,
perhaps, far wrong.
The manufacturers and the
owners of that machinery wish to bring it into
full operation; they
wish to erect and use more;
they wish to exchange its produce for the corn
and flour of the United States and of Russia.
No, says Lord STANLEY ;
shall No, saywoer which would be the
nation b
the existing
the
ma-
chinery, landlords,e
eynoruicsbheadll nboyt doall that,the
wealth
n
created by fully employing
and by erecting more, for that would
put our land out of cultivation. was there
ever anything more absurd ?
It is clear the manufacturing labourers
would have more to do, and more pay by the
abolition of the Corn-laws and the calling more
machinery into operation; it is clear that owners
of machinery would derive great advantages
and obtlin a great increase of wealth, from em-
it is clear that an additional demand
Ipvloouylidn
g it;
arise for that machinery which only our
own people can supply ; it is perfectly clear that
the corn imported, however large the quan-
tity, could by uo possibility keep out of the
market anything like an equal quantity of Eng-
lish corn, because the importation implies a cor-
responding extension of manufactures, more than
at present. There would be more articles manu-
factured. But, under this preposterous, idle fear,
the landlords condemn to idleness this beautiful

and advantageous machinery, condemn to com-
parative idleness those who use it, and those who
make it, and deprive the community of its im-
mense advantages, and the immense accession of
wealth, which using its powers fully would

bestow on its owners. Unfortunately for the
reputation of law-makers, this example of their
,depriving the country, by their gross ignorance

and selfishness, of one of the many advantage,
ALMIGHTY has conferred on it,
abounds with evi-

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