Star.
London, England, 1831-09-27 00:00:00

POLITICA I. SCIENCE.

THOMAS Comma, known in England, u the
Manchester patriot of former days, and in America
as President of the South Carolina College, has
just published Elements of Political Economy, of
which Hunter of St. Paul's Church-yard has re-
ceived some copies. We have an instinctive ab-
horrence of the pretensions of Political Economy ;
because it presumes to reduce to the dexpotism of
arithmetic the social affections, and free parsuits of
mankind. We however regard Mr. Cooper more
as a philanthropist and patriot, than many of the
parasites, who, under the garb of science in this
country, have attempted to justify the encroach-
ments of aristocracy and capital on the Irsppiness
of the people. On this account, we propse to
transfer to the STAR some of Mr. Csoper's
chapters:

OF DIANUFACTIIRKS AND IS acistmear.
Beside the productive agency of capital, of skill, and of
labour, I have hinted at the productive agency of nature;
and it is by skilfully compelling nature to work for mt. that
the great improvements of modern times in manufactures
and in commerce are principally owing. This it is, that
raises us so much above the savage state of society ; and
; revilers life, comparatively, not a state of existence, but of
enjoyment. We have put in requisition the powers of
wind, and water, of heat and cold, of magnetism and elec.
tricky. We have made the planetary system subservient to
, our hourly enjoyments; and we are proceeding daily in the
glorious career of overcoming the obstacles which flatted
I has placed in the path of our wishes, and of subjemir.g all
her elements to our contrail. This has been done by Ina-
; thematicians, natural philosophers, chymists, and the me-
! chanics who labour under their direction. These are the
gifts of men of science to mankind; before whom the tribe
lof poets and orators and rhetoricians—the composers of
speeches and plays and novels—will in due time sink into
merited insignificance. Such men are the inventors of I. lay-
things for the childhood of society; whose labours have in
insousces innumerable made mankind the worse; in some,
easy few instances perhaps the better; and even these tew,
it would be dilleult to enumerate and substantiate.
The effect of machinery, is to become a substitute for LA-
boar. The introduction of machines, has always had the
of et of throwing some of the poor out of employ for a sea-
son as lately in the case of power looms, here as well as in
Lancashire; but the prodigious increase at demand for la-
bour they finally occasion, by lowering the price and thus
increasing the dmand for the article they are employed to
produce, far indeed overbalances the evil. The long cape.
rience of Europe has settled the question, that population is
permanently supported and increased by the introduction of
machinery. One of the most ingenious arguments on the
other side of the question, is Lord Byron's speech in the
House of Lords, on the Nottingham frame-breaking bill,
lately published in Dallas' recollections of Lord Byron; it
is a good specimen of plausible declamation in favour of the
stocking.weavers, who would have been starved had his
ekes of the subject been adopted.
Suppose for instant* in that ease, the improvement in the
stocking frame had been prohibited at Nottingham • it would
have been erected elsewhere; and the extension oesales and
the increase of profit would have gone elsewhere. At pre.
sent the weavers are Increased in number and prosperity by
the great income of demand for the article, and demand for
labour. It has been so with the art of printing, the cotton
machinery, with the steam engine, with rail roods and canals,
with the nail cutting, the card aking, the screw making,
the carding machines of our own country. Were the argu•
meat to be deemed conclusive, that no machine can be erect-
ed that throws out of employ a number of men, though but
for a scum, all improvement must stop, for every improve-
ment does so; each of them saves labour, or performs the
labour of men more cheaply. or more accurately. The ob-
jestibir will lay from the first introduction of a sail in a
canoe, to the last improvement in a man of war ; from the
Indian hominy block and hand-carding, to the rice mill, the
cotton gin, and Perkins' steam engine.
The introduction of macbirtery, at first lowan wages, low-
ers the price of the article, and increases the profits of the
manufacturer who introduces it. In a short time, capital
lows towards the source of profit, and circumstances gradu.
ally arrive at their leveL So long as the machinery can be
worked exclusively by an individual or a nation, so long it
is the source of increased and exclusive profit. By degrees
ell improvements are extended; first at home, and then by
very w degrees to foreign nadons.
Manufacturing machines may assuredly be detrimental to
the labourers whom they throw out of employ. But as
they produce a greater prat and a pater demand for the
article, they add to the mass cff wealth sod of capital, the
only source whence employment, wages, food, population,
ate derived. They are, therefore, beneficial to the nation,
bemuse the ultimata feet is • balance of good. To the
work thus thrown out of employment, they ale
evils. It is easy for a speculating Political
ifamemist to say, these discharged wo:k people will turn
their atlsation to some other means of employment. How
are they to live in the mean time, if they have neglected
to save when full employment enabled them ? Their
wages do little more than furnish di m and their final.
lies with food from day to day, in each a contry re Eng.
land. A week's want will king them en the parish...—
Moreover the books of Pol deal Economy do not suf.
Gamily Consider that time" Is one of the elements that
should always be taken into eels:6M on. It is not
easy to move twaenottuhousand pounds from one branch
manufacture to n ,or to convert a man whose life has
been employed in spinning cotton or making pins, into a sea-
man or a farmer.
The introdacdoo and Improvement of machinery, then,
appears to be always productive of more or less misery
among the poor foe a time. But we are not to legislate
upon every ease where the imperfection of human arrange.
mans, is psodactive of some portion of unavoidable evil.
If the clear result of the improvement be a balance of good,
we ought to be content. Good, pure sod unmixed, is nut
to be expected in the course of human affairs, Moreover,
why is an ingenious and industrious wan to be prohibited
from exercising his ingenuity and industry, when they give
him an advantage over his less capalle, less skilful, or less
energetic neighbour? Are we to make laws for the protec-
tion of imbecility ? Or to put a weight on the shoulders of
a strong man, that he may be brought down to the level of
performance of his weaker competitor ? If the introduction
of machinery adds to profit, adds to the demand for the arti-
cle, adds to the perfection of the article, adds to the wealth
of the manufacturer and thereby to the wealth of the nation,
and thereby to capital, and by capital to employment, by
employment to wages and food, and by them to the mass of
healthy population—if articles before warm and dear, and
confined to the few, ate brought within the purchase of the
many—and the comforts, conveniences and pleasures of life
made procurable at a cheaper tare—it is enough. We ought
to be contented with such a result. although it be at. ,
tended for a short time with an amount of evil which we are
unable cutukletely to provide against. Improvements in
machinery may occasion over production. and extended mi-
sery ; but I see not either bow to prevent the evil, or cure it.
On a glut °reeve prodedieu beyesel tiessesuL— I have
already noticed in the beginning of these lectures, that RI.
ciao, Say, and Mill (in his third edition, p. 2211), hare de-
nied the possibility on the large scale, of any such thing as
a glut in the general market of production :
Ist. &cause, demand and supply, must be coequal and
co-extrusive • for no man would produce what he does net
want himself, unless to purchase with it what be wants Item
others; and this his want, is equal to the means be brings
with him to satisfy it. This is the case with t very peo-
&seer ; therefore, demand and supply are co-en emirs, he
every man's demand, must be limited by his supply.
2ndiy. The production of new and unexpected articles,
always toothier* a cant that did not before exist; and those.
fare increases demand, which uses up the supply produced.
As in case of steam engines, new fasiti•inr, and new Weal.
dims of kinds. Metaphysically and in wi Ms, supply and,
demand must be ce-ratensive, Why demand you main mut ly
die wool of commodities you do not mums, excluding; the
aid ity to purchase ; which however is en restrike! part (as I
think) of demand. Suppose I want a steam engine, and have'
nothing but printed calicoes to pay with, w ith a .select over-
stocked with printed calicoes ? ha not this a glut so far as
it goes ? Does not the introduction and improvement elms.
chinery tend universally to over productioa ? Pnaluktion
beyond what is wowed, or what can frugally be parehased ?
People do not buy for the take of buying, hoof mitts r sad'
they will buy therefore no more than they actually want for
comfortable use. Tell the manufacturers and operatives eft '
lAncasbirt, of Huddersfield, of Norwich, of Illoalagiam, if
Massachusetts, of Ithode leluid..isil the alsovirowaro of.
Prance, that over production is laspossildo—nip they coo,
descend for a moment to hear your reams fia Shit parades,
that sets ail matter of fact at defiance ? Ira dam pair of
stockings will serve my potpies, soda onmefacturcr penis