In all probability, it employs a million of souls more when prices are high, than when they are low; and the landlords, farmers, and labourers, comprehending half the population, expend almost fifty per cent more in manufactures and merchandise. High prices of agricultural produce thus by admitting of good wages employing such a great additional number of souls, and causing such a vast additional consumption of goods, produce high wages and combined with the latter they keep the quantity of employment and wages at the highest point. Wages will rise in a greater proportion after such produce rises, putting out of sight free trade laws, not, as the Economists assert, because food is dearer, but because the demand for labour and the means of paying high wages are greater.

High prices of agricultural produce and general high wages cannot injure the master manufacturers and traders except by adding a little to their expenses of living. The great charge of the Economists against dear corn is, that it produces dear labour, the dearness of corn therefore cannot be injurious, if that of labour be not. No matter what the price of food may be, it is impossible for wages to be higher than the manufacturers can afford; and the latter will never raise them, unless they can raise their prices so as to obtain the same rate of profits. The great body of the manufacturers depend solely on the home market, and putting free trade laws out of sight, they can always raise their prices sufficiently if wages rise. Whatever rise may take place in food and general wages, the exporting manufacturers will never raise their wages if they cannot raise their prices, and they can always obtain a sufficiency of labour on their

own terms.

The Economists assert that wages cannot be permanently higher in one calling than in another. This is so notoriously at variance with experience that refutation ought to be needless. Scarcely any two callings pay the same wages, and, in some, wages are always one half or one third less than they are in others. I must, however, shew why it cannot be true.

It practically stands on these assumptions-1. That infant labour can

2.

always select its own calling. That adult labour is equally skilful and has equal means of choice, in all callings. Both are erroneous. Wages are always much lower in agricul ture, than in many trades. The husbandry labourer knows only his own calling, and he must therefore follow it; in general he has not the means of putting his children to any other, therefore he is compelled to rear them in it, and when they reach maturity, it is almost the only one they can follow. Thus the labourer is compelled to accept any wages which employers may offer; and however inadequate wages may be abundance of labourers are constantly reared for the calling.

Wages have long been much lower amidst the cotton weavers than in many occupations. The weaver is in a great measure confined to his own trade; he has not the means of putting his children to any other, and he can employ them in it with advantage to himself. Thus, however inadequate wages may be, he is compelled to follow his calling and rear his children in it. In many callings, the workman has the means of putting his children to his own, at a profit to himself as soon as they are able to earn any thing, and he has no means of putting them to any other. In consequence he rears a profusion of successors without any reference to wages. And in divers callings in which wages are high, the workman has the means of putting his own children into them, and excluding those of others.

Thus speaking generally with reference to the more important callings, the child is compelled to follow the calling of the parent, and the adult is compelled to follow that in which he has been reared, whether wages be good or bad. The husbandry servant can become a common labourer in a town and apply himself to a few other occupations, but they are at such a distance from him that no equality of wages is established between them and his own. The cotton weaver can to a certain extent betake himself to the weaving of silks, linens, and woollens, and this tends to produce equality in the wages of weaving; but he has so many disadvantages to encounter that no regular equality is established.

As much labour, in proportion, is therefore regularly reared in those callings in which wages are always the lowest, as in those in which they are the highest. If wages be one half less in the exporting trades, than in others, the masters will be able to procure as much labour as they may require.

Of course, high wages cannot reduce the rate of profit of the manufacturers and traders, because wages cannot rise permanently in any business, if prices do not.

High prices of agricultural produce, and high wages, in this country, do not affect, in any important degree, the raw materials used by the manufacturers. These materials are chiefly produced abroad, and their prices cannot permanently rise, if the manufacturers cannot either raise their prices, or reduce some of their expenses of production, in proportion.

The rate of profit, therefore, of the manufacturers and traders, cannot in the nature of things, be injured by high prices of agricultural produce and labour. It is always the highest when trade is the most extensive and active, therefore it will always be the highest, when such prices are.

To keep wages and agricultural produce at the proper height, it is essential to multiply manufactures and trades as much as possible. The buying of goods of a foreign country, will not alone enable that country to take an equal quantity of goods in payment; on the contrary, it will only enable it to take a comparatively small quantity. Such buying, though it be made at a cheap rate, will employ infinitely less labour, than dear production at home would do. If this country produce dear silks or other goods at home, instead of buying cheap ones abroad for money, it will have all the employment for labour yielded by such production, more than it would have, should it buy of foreign countries.

Every separate trade produces its own capital; if it take a small portion from other trades at its commencement, this is soon returned. Every separate trade is likewise to a certain extent, the constant parent of capital to all other trades. If the silk trade had never existed, the ca

pital employed in it would never have existed; and the capital of other trades would have been less than it is.

Speaking generally, the relative cheapness or dearness of manufaetured goods, affects the expenses of living only, and not the general rate of profit. If home production cause relative dearness, it likewise causes the quantity of employment for labour, and the extent of general trade, to be greater, and in consequence, general wages and profits to be higher than they otherwise could be. It therefore adds more to wages and profits, than to the cost of the articles it sends to market, and is a source of real cheapness.

General high prices and wages cannot have any material effect in disabling the exporting manufacturers for competing abroad with foreigners. These manufacturers could not, save for a moment, raise their prices, if the rise would take from them their foreign markets. The loss of the latter, would cause a glut of their goods, the labour they employ, and the raw produce they use, which would bring down their prices, and enable them to procure labour and produce sufficiently cheap. Wages and produce could not be raised to them by any rise of general prices and wages, if it would materially reduce their export trade.

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Thus, exported manufactures cannot be regulated in price by general prices and wages. They form the means with which the community buys foreign goods. As their prices can be but little raised, by any rise of general prices and wages, the higher the latter are, the greater must be the consumption of foreign goods, and the export of such manufactures in payment. The foreign trade, as well as the home one, must be the greatest, when general prices and wages are the highest. To keep general wages and prices at the proper height, it is essential, not only to multiply manufactures and trades, but to continually extend each and all, as far as possible. Every one on the average, ought to be annually so far enlarged, as to supply employment for its increase of population and capital. If a stop be put to the extension of agriculture and various trades, when others can

only employ their own increase of capital and labour, this must produce a pernicious glut of the latter. If agriculture and some trades be contracted when others are not extended, it must produce such an excess of capital and labour, as will have ruinous effects on wages and prices. Mr C. Grant and others maintain that a restrictive system may exist in a young country, but that it cannot, and ought not, to exist in an old and populous one. I maintain directly the contrary. In a young thinlypeopled country, capital and labour can find employment in one calling, if they cannot in another-they can find it on the land, if not in manufactures and trade. But in an old and populous one, this is impossible. In this country, the idle capital and population cannot find employment on the land, because it is occupied, and they cannot force themselves into manufactures and trade. In

such a state of things, employment for the increase of population can only be provided by a prohibitory system.

What is the nature of Mr Grant's system? It is intended to drive a vast mass of population from agriculture and various trades-to destroy, to a large extent, the profits of far more than half the communityto reduce wages in the most grieyous manner- and to transfer a gigantic portion of employment from this country, to foreign ones. It is intended to do this, merely that it may give a little extension to three or four manufactures. This, which strikes at the essentials of employment for population, is put forth as an infallible preventive to excess of population, as the only thing which can give employment to such excess! When the population of a country becomes redundant, a prohibitory system becomes a matter of necessity if the redundancy cannot, directly and indirectly, gain employment from the land, it must continually enlarge itself, by diminishing the demand for labour; and nothing but such a system can give it such employment. A prohibitory system will enable a country to combine the greatest proportion of population, with the greatest proportion of wealth and prosperity; while an opposite

VOL. XXVII. NO. CLXI.

one will combine in it the lowest proportion of population with the greatest of poverty and misery. In this country, the former would support an infinitely greater population than the present one, in full employment and happiness; while a system of perfectly free trade would bind a far less population than the present one to constant excess, penury, and wretchedness.

From all this, I insist that the following measures are imperiously called for by the state of the empire.

Prohibit foreign agricultural produce, with the necessary exceptions, up to reasonably high prices. This will give good prices to the agriculturists, and thereby it will in a short space of time, and without causing any trouble or expense to the state, give employment in agriculture to from half a million to a million of idle souls, including women and children.

Remove all impediments, and give all possible encouragement to the culture of inferior and waste land. This will employ a vast number more of idle souls in agriculture.

By protection against foreigners, remission of duty, bounty, and other means, give good profits to the colonial agriculturists; good profits can alone enable them to consume British manufactures to the proper extent.

The effects of all this on the profits and wages of more than half the population of the empire, must of necessity give employment to a prodigious number of idle souls in manufactures and trade.

Prevent, by prohibition or restriction, all importation of foreign goods which can prevent, in manufactures and trade, prices, and of course wages, from duly rising.

Such a vast quantity of additional employment must necessarily cause real wages to be much higher than they now are; it will, notwithstanding the advance of prices, give the working classes generally a greater command over commodities than they have at present.

The exporting manufacturers would be mightily benefited. To a large extent they would be enabled to raise their prices and wages, without any loss of foreign trade. They

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would have labour, and produce as much under their control as they have at present. Their rate of profit in the home trade would be raised. Their losses would be much reduced, and their general trade, and in consequence profits, would be greatly enlarged.

Upon the whole, these would be the effects. Profits and wages would be carried to the highest point throughout the population. This would raise employment for capital and labour, the extent of trade domestic and foreign, the accumulation of capital, and public wealth and prosperity, to the highest point. This would reduce to the lowest practicable point, taxes, duties, rates, and the cost of foreign commodities.

I state this, not as opinion, but as unquestionable fact.

It is unquestionable fact, that if wheat were raised to 70s. per quarter, and other agricultural produce were raised in proportion, this would give good profits and prosperity to the landowners and farmers, and cause much more labour to be employed on every farm throughout the country; and that in consequence additional employment would be created for several hundred thousands of souls.

It is unquestionable fact, that the culture of inferior and waste lands would employ a vast number of

souls.

It is unquestionable fact, that the increase of profit to the farmers, and the large additional demand for labour, would raise husbandry wages greatly.

It is unquestionable fact, that if the colonial agriculturists could obtain a comparatively small advance of prices, they would consume far more British manufactures than they do.

It is unquestionable fact, that if the agriculturists at home, and in the colonies, could obtain higher profits and wages, and were more numerous, they would consume an enormous additional quantity of merchandise and manufactures, and would thereby employ a vast additional number of souls in manufactures and trade.

It is unquestionable fact, that if the manufactures and trades which

do not export should receive a great increase of business, and be effectually protected from foreign competitors, they would raise their prices and wages greatly.

It is unquestionable fact, that, with brisk trade, and abundance of employment, profits and real wages would be much higher than they are at present, notwithstanding any advance of prices.

It is unquestionable fact, that the prosperity of the rest of the population would add very greatly to the general trade and profits of the exporting manufacturers.

It is unquestionable fact, which has been established by the whole of experience, that no rise in food or general wages can raise labour to the exporting manufacturers above what they can afford to pay for it-that it must take what they are able to give, or be without a market-and that they can always obtain a sufficiency of it for what their prices will yield.

And it is unquestionable fact, that the higher general profits and wages are in rate and aggregate amount, the lower in reality are taxes, duties, rates, and the cost of foreign goods.

If all this be insufficient to remove the excess of population, resort to emigration, on an adequate scale. The excess must be removed, or wages cannot be properly raised; and wages must be so raised to give agriculture, manufactures, and trade, the proper portion of prosperity.

To prevent it from pressing unduly on the labour employed in the exporting trades, relieve them as far as possible from duties and taxes, and aid them when necessary with bounty.

I will here offer a few observations on the culture of inferior land.

The land, in England, is divided into parishes, just as it has been time immemorial, and this operates greatly against improvement. Four, six, eight, or ten thousand acres contain in the centre of them a single village; the land round the boundary is perhaps a mile or two distant from the village, and in consequence its culture is but little attended to. Going along the boundary line between two parishes, there is a mass of land half a mile in breadth in this estate. The land of every two villages, if

properly divided, should support three, but no new ones can be created.

In innumerable cases, three or four landowners, whose estates join, could with great advantage to themselves form a new village. If they would jointly surround the point of junction with a thousand acres of land, and divide it into lots, containing from ten to one hundred acres each, they would be able to let the lots at a rent, which at the first would yield them sufficient interest on their outlay. If they would form a few lots, containing from two to five acres each, with a small house, they could easily sell them for a sufficient price. They might do this with land which at present yields very little rent; but which requires only common culture to make it fertile. I need not dilate on the rapid improvement in value which this land, and that surrounding it, would receive.

The state might do this, if the landlords would not. In innumerable cases, it might take on lease at a low rent, a thousand or two thousand acres of land belonging to different villages, and at a distance from them all; and form a new village in this

manner.

Portions of land containing a thousand acres are frequently on sale. If the state should buy them, divide them as I have stated, and a few years afterwards sell the lots separately, it would draw from this pecuniary profit.

I speak of that which is matter of pressing public necessity. This country is in circumstances different from those of any other. In most other old nations, redundant population can easily employ itself on the land, provided agricultural produce can be sold. In France the law of inheritance -I do not speak in defence of it plants the increase of agricultural inhabitants on the land. But England has an excess of inhabitants which must be removed, or it will involve her in ruin—her land if properly regulated would, with benefit to all parties, employ infinitely more than this excess-she could consume all the produce which the latter could raise -and still her land is in such circumstances, that her idle population cannot gain any employment on it.

If a proper case for the interfer

ence of government could be conceived, this is one. The establishing

of an additional number of souls on the land, would be in itself the employing of an additional number in manufactures and trade. Government ought not, in such a case, to be afraid of sacrificing the public mo ney. It ought to assist the owners of waste land with grants and loans; and in many cases to drain, manure, enclose, &c., at its own cost, with the certainty of suffering much direct loss from it. Public money, which is practically expended in creating new land,-in providing employment for industry which could not otherwise exist—cannot be lost; it must yield to the state an adequate return in revenue and power for ever.

Industry in this country would never want employment, if the land were properly attended to by its rulers. But this inexhaustible source of employment, wealth and prosperity, is not only neglected, but continually sacrificed. The cabinet and legislature are always devising expedients for extending manufactures and trade, but they never can think of extending agriculture; on the contrary, they hold up its contraction as a matter of national benefit. Do manufactures and trade need employment? it is to be effected by the diminution of agriculture: are they in distress? it is to be relieved by plunging agriculture into distress. Thus that which constitutes their great source is continually sacrificed for their advantage.

Let us suppose that 3,000,000 acres of waste land are taken into cultivation, and that in the space of a few years each acre will send annually to market two pounds' worth of produce. The greatest part of the mo

ney

received for this produce-suppose five millions yearly-will be expended in manufactures and merchandise. The expenditure of this sum amidst the manufacturers and traders, must enlarge very greatly their consumption of their own goods. Assuming that it will add two millions to such consumption, the culture of this land will give to the manufacturers and traders a trade amounting to seven millions annually.

Government could soon create such a trade at a comparatively trif