“from the distress of low prices|labour is beneficial to the unhappy "as much as any other class." drove.

This I deny; and I think I am

able clearly to maintain my denial.

Now, if something very much resembling this has taken place

I know, that, upon a subject with regard to the labourers in like this, facts must be very good husbandry in England, Mr. Husindeed, very complete, to be KISSON, whom you treat rather worth any thing at all; because sarcastically, may be right, after they are so difficult to come at all. Indeed, I am convinced that with accuracy; and, because, he is right: and that unquestionif capable of being bent, bent they able facts, as well as the reason of will be, to assist the man who has the case, are on his side and an argument to support. against you.

You, Sir, are a banker, and, without imputing to you any motive particularly selfish, I may fairly suppose, that you view with favourable eyes the effects of bank-paper. You uniformly take it for granted, that the showy effects of rags turned into money, is "prosperity." This is full as great an error as the measuring

Your argument, that the labourer is not to be benefitted by the diminution of the demand for labour is, generally, and supposing a not unnatural state of things, true. With this qualification it is also true, that the labourer cannot be benefitted by the ruin of his employer. But, a forced, an unnatural, a violent process, may be adopted, which shall increase of the effects of Peel's Bill by the the demand for labour, shall in-variation in the price of gold. crease the quantity of labour: and You say, that, at this moment, yet, that shall make the labour the nation is in the deepest dislower-priced, and the condition of tress; that the concerns of agrithe labourer worse. For, it is not to culture, manufactures, commerce, be denied, that a Virginia or Ja-all are involved in the deepest maica Negro-Driver, if he ply distress. the lash with additional activity, true. will increase the quantity of labour, how it happens, that about ten though he give his Negroes no more food than he did before. And, it will hardly be pretended, that this his increased demand for villages round this monstrous

And what you say is Will you tell me, then,

thousand new houses are building at this moment for the reception of rich men and their suites in the

+

place? Are these new-comers | to be now under a sweating proarrived from the clouds, or from cess and Birmingham and CovenEldorado? The fact you may try. These gentry do not call ascertain by getting upon a horse our ten thousand new houses a and opening your eyes. Is it sign of" prosperity." No, say commerce that brings these gentry they, it is robbery of us. We here? Oh, no! for the wharfs suffer for your fine new houses are deserted, and the ships break-and all your pretty gardens and ing up to be turned into paddock-paddocks. We suffer for your fences and coach-houses for these Regent-Street and Regent-Park odd sort of gentry. Now, Sir, and your Circusses and Squares answer me, I pray is it " pro-and Bridges. They say very

66

'sperity" that brings these gentry truly. forth?

Yes, assuredly, it is Now, Sir, just as the BigProsperity" with them. They farmer, the Bull-frog-farmer, is come into these new and fine suffe irg under this prosperity of houses to enjoy that good fortune, the Annuitant and Salary-man, which the rise in the value of their so the labourer suffered from the funded annuities and fixed sala-prosperity of the Bull-frog. The ries has given them! This, to Bull-frog's house changed its them, then, is prosperity; and, you form. His garden became a paacknowledge that, at this very radise. He had white paling and time, the concerns of land, manu-paddocks.

Out he drove his

factures and commerce are in a carters and threshers, whom he state of ruin ! began to call the peasantry;" and that empty impudent fellow, the younger ELLMAN, actually calls them so now, in a Letter to

Well, then, there may exist prosperity, in one class and misery in another, at one and the same time. These annuitants Lord Liverpool. He could no and salary-people profit by the longer, polished Gentleman, sit fall of those who profited before. at table with such " lower orders.” These houses, this unnatural pro- But, he took good care, that they sperity, this fungus, comes out should not overfeed elsewhere. of the pockets of the Big-farm-He took good care, that they ers, the Landlords, the Lords of should not participate in his the Loom, and the Lords of the prosperity." He, by means Anvil, many of whom you know that the greediness and injustice

and cruelty of an insolent upstart | rily implies an unreservedness of at once suggested, took care, that, faith, which he may be excused while his prices rose, the price of for carrying into profane disquilabour should be kept down to sitions, and which, if it do not the lowest possible standard. He absolutely justify his believing violated all the principles of free trade, by fixing the amount of wages, and by bringing to the poor-book, all those who could not exist upon that amount! And, if the miserable wretches mutinied, he had his horse, his carabine, and his sword!

1

that a woman labourer used to earn what would now be equivalent to forty shillings a week, forms, at least, an apology for the Divine Doctor. However, the thing is by no means so wholly incredible as you would have us believe; for, the women labourers or helps, as they call them, in America, do not receive much less, and that, too, when wheat is at a price

You talk of labour being carried to market! What market :.ad the labourer to go, when, in fact, there was a book kept in much lower than our present every parish to fix the price of price. A man labourer has there his wages? He was to have just five shillings, at least, of our moas much as would sustain life in ney, a day, in harvest time, and a single man and no more. To sits at table with his employer! prevent actual starvation, the And that, too, when wheat is not married man was to have above five English shillings a more in proportion to the number bushel. So that, though the Docof mouths. Do you call this car-tor's authorities to prove that our rying labour to market? Was labourers have suffered by high there any more freedom here, prices, be not quite unexceptionthan the Virginia or. Jamaica able, the facts drawn from them slave enjoys? Was the increased are by no means so incredible as demand for labour, under such you would represent them. The circumstances, a benefit to the la-state of England at the times to bourer? which the Doctor refers was, in

Your comments on Dr. Cop- all probability, as to agricultural plestone's facts are, perhaps, no matters, somewhat like that of more than just. You should, America now: the farmers very however, bear in mind the call-numerous, and the labourers coming of the Doctor, which necessa-paratively few in number. The

They cannot go to They are under en

funding system, by drawing mo- augmentation of wages. Every ney into large parcels, necessarily rise in price, therefore, gives the reduced the number of the farm-employer an advantage over him; ers; and Pitt's infernal system of for, observe, labourers in huspaper-money, by enabling a bandry are more restricted in banker, an attorney, or some their choice of employers, than one who would dash into the dis- labourers in manufacture and counting line, to take farms over crafts are. the heads of small farmers, swept next shop. away that race of men, brought gagements as yearly, or monthly, them down to be mere labourers, servants, and are bound by very put them upon the parish-book strict laws. The married ones kept for the fixing of wages, and generally inhabit the houses of made them very nearly, excepting their employers, and even the colour of skin, resemble the la-single ones out of house, must rebourers of Virginia and Jamaica. move to some considerable disIt is not high price simply that tance, perhaps, in order to get hurts the labourer; for, if he have employment. They must go six shillings a week when wheat from home; and there is "mother" is three shillings a bushel, and to be left! There are mother's twenty when wheat is ten shillings remonstrances to hear; and, it a bushel, and if the rise in wages would require another thirty years' keep pace weekly with the rise in progress of the hellish Pitt-Systhe price of wheat, he is as well tem, to eradicate the power of off in the latter case as in the these from the breasts of homeformer, if there be no other cir-loving English sons. But, there cumstance attending the rise in is one plain case, that settles the prices. It is not, therefore, point, and that requires no knowsimply the high price that hurts ledge of country-affairs to make him, if prices of wages and of it clear to every man: and that wheat keep on the level. But, is this: it is a notorious fact, that in the first place, they do not keep nine tenths of the labourers are on the level. The wages do not either in house as yeurly servants, rise with the wheat. A long time or engaged for the year at so much takes place, even in a natural and a week for all the weeks except unforced state of things, before the harvest month, and so much the labourer can get even a small for that month. Now, let us take

the case of the carter in house. Thus, then, clear as is that At Michaelmas he hires for seven accursed thing, which is, you pounds for the year, and wheat is know," as notorious as the sun at seven shillings a bushel. Out" noon-day," is the conclusion, comes the atrocious, the hellish that the labourer in husbandry paper-money; wheat rises to 14 suffers and the employer profits shillings a bushel before his year by a rise in the prices of produce expires and he receives ten bushels of the labour, in spite of any

in the quantity of labour in demand.

of wheat, instead of the twenty augmentation that may take place that he contracted for! Is he not, then, a loser by the rise in prices? Can any man living deny this? It is the same, in a different degree, with the men out of house, They suffer still more severely; for they have to

purchase their food, which the man in house has not, You will observe, that the law gives them the choice of sticking to the letter

of their engagements, or going to jail!

We have yet, however, but an imperfect view of the effects of a rise of prices. The Landlord raises his rent. The taxes rise in

But the con

nominal amount.
sumer pays these back to the far-
mer. He neither gains nor loses

by high prices as far as rent and
taxes are concerned.
His gain
comes solely out of the blood and
flesh and bones of the labourer.
The labour upon a farm makes
more than the half of its outgo-
ings; judge, then, how the farmer
must gain by the same process
that depresses the labourer! Will
you say, that what the farmer
does not pay in wages he must
pay in poor-rates? Oh, no! for,
when the man comes to that book,
that record of degradation, he is a

Well, but the year ends at last. They live it out; and then they have new bargains to make. Now do you think, that they will get their wages doubled? Do you think that a year of oppression will have made them bold? Do you think that being pennyless and shirtless will make them stout in standing out for a rise of wages ? If you do, pray, do not slave. He then must take what

affect to laugh at DR. COPPLESTONE any longer; for your faith in wonders is much larger than his.

is given him. What he receives, he receives as an alms; and the sum total of the rules of that book is, to allow as much as will sustain life, and no more!