The republic. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1849-1853, 1850-08-12
THE REPU BLIC.

standing alo0i from each other IN the face OF high
Heaven, in mutual mockery, and in common
reproach of the arrangement, or lack Of ar
rangement in the social system which leads TO
such results, To a million of men without
money aud without shirts, single shirt in the
market Is superhuity, and he who brought it
lhere may be accused of over -production.
what is more, the man who stands convicted
OF over production, with the evidence Of his
guilt In his hand in the cotton cloth for a single
garment that he cannot sell, has yet another of
fence to answer for: he is the effective cause
OF over production in others, or some one other
AS he cannot convert il into money, he cannot
BUY what he wants, and the article, whatsoever
1t Is, that he desires and would have bought.
stands or hangs somewhere--another instance Of
er-production, surplus in the market, and a
stigma to the unfortunate whose labor wroughtit,
and whom the iree-traders in his neighborhood,
II he ventures to complain, silence at once with
the condemnaton--Yo u, too, have been guilty
OF over-productlon. If the two culprils can be
brought together and effect an exchange the
sin OF both is pmged. The two offences cancel
each other, and what was, in the eye Of the
stern moralist Of the free trade school, double
evil, has become double good. If they cannot
get together, aad the fault should be found to
be Ill the system of exchanges which is forced
upon them, with the bitter irony of calling it
free trade, itmay well he imagined that they
should be somewhat FESTIVE, when, in place Of
receiving an apology, the blame is cast upon
them, and they are coolly told, "You have been
unduly Industrious; under certain protective
stimulants you have erected too many mills,
and produced too many pounds Of yarn and too
many yards of cloth; not but that you furnish
them cheaply enough, quite as cheaply as we
could get them from Mancheser-not but that
there are bare backs enough in all conscience
but you see they have no money"
Why have they no money! They have la
Dor to sell, the ultimate source OF money as of
every thing else that has exchangeable value.
That they have not, is simply to say that they
have not employment-an this too may be set
down to an over-production of human thews
and muscles, which makes the faculty Of toiling
in excess. The Post may not be prepared to
tdht tlllo Slpuliu Dut TIC tCOUUIillSlS Vi I4II-
land, whose teachings it accepts, are troubled
with no qualms on the subject. They see that
their philosophy conducts to this position and
they do not sickle at it. They found out, forty
years ago, that the essential difficulty in this
world was that it had too many inhabitants, and
that the evil was constantly increasing. The the
DRY Of Matthews--the discovery they call it,
in relation to population, is the browning glory
Of the modern school of economists. That
teaches that the law Of population is forever
encroachlng upon the means Of subsistence
that over production Of labor goes on in geo
metrlcalratio, and the greatest economical here
sy ever promulgated is contained in the Book
of Genesis, i'll the command to increase and
multiply and replenish the earth. Ifis upon
the facts disproving this theory, and showing
that an increase of population is followed by
larger increase in the means of subsistence11dnd
by an increased development of the powers of
the better soils, that the argument for protec-
ton in great degree rests. 1t is not safe,
therefore, for the Post to hesitate in going to
the full extent that the doctors of its school
have pushed their theories.
The over production of which the cotton
manufacturers are accused is due TO the lack of
employment for their customers; as a conse-
quence of it,. hundreds of men, women, and
children will be thrown out of employment, as
the Post tells us, and their poverty will, in It's
turn, ruin another set of operatives for whom
they were the customers. Oyer-production will
L.. -, e.. %
commodities of which it is predicated, as less
and less is produced. The disease is aggra-
waited by every prescription Of the free-trade
doctors. 1t is evidently case for treatment
upon the homeopathic principle-sinllia sim
iGbuS cwantU-and it is manifest that over
production is to be cured only by more produc
ton.
If the Post will ponder a little over these
things, it may see that protection for cottons
is not what the cotton manufacturers chiefly
want. but protection for the commodities which
their customers, or those who would be their
customers--the people with bare backs and
without money-would be glad to employ them
selves in producing. Finding we have too
much cotton yarn and cloth, the remedy is to
get too much iron, too much coal, too many
woollen mills; in short, too much of every
thing else, 50 that we may get money into the
empty pockets, and shirts on the bare backs,
and the discharged operatives back into the
cotton mills and the notion of over-production
back into that realm Of noonshine whence ii
came.