The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1894-05-16
A GREAT FALLACY EXPOSED


ONERPRODCCT1ON.
From Thomas Carlyle's Past and Pres
ent"
But what will reflective readers say of a
governing class, such as ours, addressing
its workers with indictment Of "over-
production!' Over-production; runs it not
SO? 'Ye miscellaneous ignOble manufac-
turing individuals, We have produced too
much! We accuse you of making above
100000 shirts foI the bare backs of man.
kind. Your trousers, too, which you have
made, OF fustian, of cashmere, OF scotch
plaid, of jean, nankeen and wooden broad
cloth, they not manifold? OF hats for
the human head, of shoes for the human
foot of stools to sit on, spoons to eat
with-nay, what say we hats or shoes?
You produce gold watches, jeweleries, sill
yer forks and epergnes, commodes, chif-
foniers, stuffed SofaS-heavenS, the COM
mercial bazaar and multitudinous Howel-
and-Jameses cannot contain you. You have
produced, produced; he that seeks your in
dictment, let him look around. Millions OF
shirts and empty pairs of breeches hang
there in judgment against you. We accuse
you of overproducing; you are cTiminally
guilty of producing shirts, brooches, hats,
shoes and commodities in a friShtful over
abundance. And now there is a glut, and
your operatives cannot be fed.'
Never, surely, against an earnest work.
ing mammonism was there brought by
game-preserving, aristocratic dlettantism
a stranger accusation since the world
began My lords and gentlemen-why, it
was you that We're appointed, by the fact
and by the theory of your position on the
EARTH to make and administer laws" that
is to say, in world such ours, to guard
against "gluts," against honest operatives.
who had done their work, remaining unfed!
l say, you were appointed to preside over
the distribution and apportionment of the
wages of work done, and to see we'll that
there went no laborer without his hire,
were it of money coins were it of hemp
gallows-rope; that function was yours, and
from immemorial time has been; yours,
and as yet no others These poor shirt
spinners have forgotten much, which. by
the virtual unwritten law of their position,
they should have remembered; but by any
written recognized law of their position,
what have they forgotten? They were set
to make shirts. The community, with all
its voices, commanded them, saying, Make
shirts" and there the shirts are! Too many
shirts? Well, that is a novelty, in this in
temperate earth. with it's one hundred
millions of bare backs! But the community
commanded YOU saying: See that the
shirts are well apportioned, that our human
laws be emblems of Gods laws" And
where is the apportonment? Two million
shrtless or ill-shirted workers sit enchant-
ed in workhouse bastiles; five million more
according to some) in Ugolino hunger Gel
lars; and for remedy you say-what say
YOU? Raise our rentsn' | have not in my
time heard any stranger speech, not even
on the shores of the Dead sea. You con-
tinue addressing these poor shirt-sDnners
and over-producerS in really too trlufnpn-
ant q manner:
"Wll you handy accusations will you ac-
cuse US of overproduction? We take the
heavens and the earth to witness that we
have produced nothing at all. Not from us
proceeds this frightful overplus of shirts.
In the wide domains of created nature, cir
culates no shirt or thing of our producing.
Certain fox-brushes nailed unon our stable
door, the fruit of fair audacity at Melton
Mowbray: these we have produced and they
are openly nailed up there He that accuses
us of producing, let him shew himself, let
him name what and when. We are inno-
cent Of producing;-ye ungratetul, what
mountains of things have we not, on the
contrary, had to consume and make away
with! Mountains of those your heaped man.
ufactures, wheresoever edible or wearable.
have they not disappeared before us. as IL
we had the talent of ostriches, OF cor
morants, and kind of divine faculty to
eat? We ungrateful.-and did you not grow
under the shadow of our wings? Are not
your filthy mills built on these fields or
ours: on this soil of England, which be-
longs to-whom think you? And we snail
not offer you our own wheat at the price
that pleases u.s. but that partly pleases you?
A precious notion! What would become OF
you, If we chose; at any time, to decide on
growing wheat more?'
Yes truly here is the ultimate rock
basis of all corn-lawS, wherein, at the bot
tom of much arguing, they rest. as Sc
curely as they can. What would become or
you if we decided, some day. on growing no
more wheat at all? If we chose to grow
only cartridges henceforth, and modicum
of wheat for our own uses? Cannot we do
what we like with our own? Yes, indeed!
For my share if 1 could melt Gneiss Rock,
and create law Of gravitation; il l could
stride out to the Doggerbank some MORN
ing, and striking down my trident there
into mud-waves, say, BE land be fields.
meadows, mountains and fresh rolling
streamsv' by heaven, I should incline to
have the letting of that land in perpetuity,
and sell the wheat Of it, or burn the wheat
Of it, according to my own good Judgment