having that object in view; and national wealth is produced by the enterprize and cupidity of individuals. Governments also pursue their own systems, more or less erroneously, (not without grievous errors, Heaven knows, even in those which act and which mean the best!) and the Providence which is over all, directs all to its own beneficent purposes. SIR THOMAS MORE. You have remarked that wars may probably be rendered less frequent by the increased means of destruction with which modern science is arming the destroyer man. May not the manufacturing system be, in like manner, tending to work out, by means of the very excess to which it is carried, a remedy for the evils which it has brought with it? MONTESINOS. The steam-engine alone, without war, and without that increased taxation which war has rendered necessary, would have produced all the distress which our manufacturing population has experienced, and is likely again and again to experience. Johnson once said he wondered how a man should see far to the right who saw but a little way to the left;.. reverse the terms, and there will then appear no cause for wonder. Men see far to the left, and to the left only, when they have been trained to look only in that direction,.. never to the right, and never straight forward. This moral and intellectual obliquity of vision is but. too easily produced. But in more direct reply to your question,.. that remedial process may be, and I would fain hope is, going on, Whereby disease grows cure unto diseases... A wisdom proper to humanity.-Lord Brooke. There are two ways in which it may work. Other nations may compete with us, and our foreign trade in consequence may gradually decline. Something of this is already perceptible. The French are said to manufacture* about as much cotton now, as was manufactured in this country fourteen years ago. We now send abroad the thread, where we used at that time to export the manufactured article. The Americans also are endeavouring to supply their own consumption; they have this at heart, and there are no people who pursue what they think their advantage with more sagacity, nor with more determined eagerness and perseverance. An American, when he speaks colloquially of power, means nothing but a steam-engine. We can neither keep our machinery nor our work * So it was stated in a newspaper of 1827. men to ourselves: to attempt it is, indeed, in the one case impolitic; in the other oppressive; in both unavailing. And wherever they go, and opportunity invites, enough of British capital to set them in activity will follow. No sense of patriotism will check this; no laws can prevent it; the facility of transferring capital being such, that Mammon in these days, like the Cupid of the poem, Spreads his light wings, and in a moment flies. This would be the euthanasy of the system, a gradual and easy decay without a shock; and, perhaps,.. were time allowed,.. we might then hope for a palingenesia, a restoration of national sanity and strength, a second birth :.. perhaps, I say,.. and were time allowed,.. for I say this doubtfully, and that ghostly shake of the head with which it is received does not lessen the melancholy distrust wherewith it is expressed. SIR THOMAS MORE. O Montesinos! the Mammon of unrighteousness hath made "the heart of this people fat, and hath made their ears heavy, and hath shut their eyes!"* Pray you to the All-Merciful that this spirit continue not to possess the nation, *Isaiah, vi. 10, 11. 66 until "the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate :".. or worse than desolate! That part of the Prophet's commination is come to pass among you which denounces that "the child shall behave himself proudly against the ancient, and the base against the honourable;" and that also which saith that the people shall be oppressed,".. not by their rulers,.. but “every one by another, and every one by his neighbour." Was there ever a people among whom age was treated with so little reverence,.. by whom honour was so little rendered where honour is due,.. and among whom (which is more immediately to our present topic) the desire of gain had so eaten into the core of the nation? Too truly must it be said that every man oppresses his neighbour, or is struggling to oppress him. The landlord racks his tenant; the farmer grinds the labourer. Throughout the trading part of the community every one endeavours to purchase at the lowest price, and sell at the highest, regardless of equity in either case. Bad as the feudal times were, they were less injurious than these commercial ones to the kindly and generous feelings * Isaiah, iv. 10. of human nature, and far, far more favourable to the principles of honour and integrity. MONTESINOS. There, Sir Thomas, you touch upon the second cause which is likely, in a less degree perhaps, but in a worse manner, to affect the commercial prosperity of Great Britain. In the competition of trade one ill principle sometimes counteracts another, and yet both being ill, work for ill, though an incidental good may be occasioned. The tradesman is not more desirous to obtain a high price from what in your days were called his chapmen, than he is to undersell his fellow dealers. The point of emulation between rival manufacturers, is not so much who shall send forth the best goods, but who the cheapest: flimsy articles are thus manufactured for rapid sale, and for the foreign market. Formerly their aim was to produce substantial goods, which should wear well, and with which the purchaser should have reason to be satisfied; now it is how to make the largest quantity with the smallest expenditure of materials. SIR THOMAS MORE. But this is no new thing under the sun. Honesty, "the* health of the soul," was in just * Charron. |