Зображення сторінки
PDF
ePub

66

66

[ocr errors]

that the very first witness ex-liberty they had left. Downs, pressed his alarm that future most beautiful and valuable too, scarcity might arise from the have been broken up by the over-cropping that is now tak-paper-system; and, after three ❝ing place!" Is this the "throw-or four crops to beggar them, ing of land out of cultivation" have been left to be planted with that you hear of" in all direc-docks and thistles, and never tions?". Never mind the future, again to present that perpetual I should say to such a Bull-frog: verdure, which formerly covered it is time, as the Yankees say, to their surface, and which, while it jump over the ditch when we fed innumerable flocks, enriched come to it. Let us live well now, the neighbouring fields. LORD and we shall be the better able LIVERPOOL, in a speech made to stand a little fasting, if the last spring, observed, that some sun should happen not to shine persons thought, that the encloanother year. sure-system had been carried too You, indeed, hear of no more far. Who were they, my Lord? new enclosures, and, I hope, most I never heard of any body but anxiously, that we shall hear of myself who, in a public manner, many of the late new enclosures expressed any such opinion. I, being thrown again to common: indeed, when Old Rose used to They were, for the most part, be boasting of the number of enuseless in point of quantity of closure Bills, as a proof of " pròproduction; and, to the labour-sperity," used, now-and-then, to ers, they were malignantly mis-show how beastly the idea was; chievous. They drove them from and I proved, over and over the skirts of commons, downs and forests. They took away their cows, pigs, geese, fowls, bees, and gardens. They crowded them into miserable outskirts of towns and villages, for their children to become ricketty and diseased, confined amongst filth and vermin. They took from them their best inheritance: crease of money; and, in this sweet air, health, and the little way, amongst the rest, that in

again, that (taking in a space of eight or ten years) it was impossible to augment the quantity of produce by new enclosures; to say nothing about the mischievous effects as to the labourers.

However, the breaking up of the Commons and Downs was a natural effect of the forced in

[ocr errors]

66

improved, except by an in

crcase worked detriment to the " find the condition of the lalabourer. It was out of his bones" bourer improved? It is conthat the means came. It was the "trary to every principle of podeduction male from him by the "litical economy that has ever rise of prices and by the not-rise" been received, to all reason, of his wages: it was the means" and to all experience. It has thus raised that enclosed the 66 never happened at any time, Commons and Downs; and that" nor in any country, that the put pianos into the farm-houses, condition of the labourer has and set the farmer up upon a cavalry horse. And these, and "creased demand for labour, and such as these, have been the ef-" an increase of the funds by fects of that accursed paper-mo-" which labour is supported→→→ ney, that seven vials of wrath, "the productive capital of a which you wish to be poured out" country. It has never hap upon us again! "pened in any country,-nor it You ask Mr. HUSKISSON, and "never will in this, that a perwith an apparent air of triumph, "manent reduction in the dehow we are to expect the condi-"mand for labour can take tion of the labourer to be im- place, without this further proved. He will tell you, one" consequence following that of these days, for he has brains" the supply of labour must bein skull: he is not a block; and," come proportioned to the conthat you may be somewhat the" tracted demand.”

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

better prepared for the combat, There is a good deal of the dark 1 will give you a little foretaste and deep here: a good deal of the of that which is to come. But, Audem Smeth, who, if PAINB as this is, apparently, the part of had been a canter and a crawler your argument on which you instead of a man of sincerity and chiefly rely, let me do you the spirit, would have been laughed justice to quote your own words off the stage years ago. I do not fully. "How, then, Sir, in clearly comprehend what you the midst of this diminution mean by " productive capital of a "in the demand for labour, of country,,' and by "the supply "this frightful destruction of" of labour." And, Sir, though "the funds by which labour is it is possible that my not compresupported, are we to expect to hending may be owing to my

66

[ocr errors]

want of sufficient powers of pene-[come with me to the barn, and tration, still my not comprehend-hear what the thresher will say ing is a proof that, this is a badly about the "destruction of funds." written passage; because writing He will tell you, that the funds is good for little if not to be clear-consist of the produce of the farm, ly understood by persons of com- and that, paper-money or no pamon capacity. In all cases clear-per-money, there will be no want ness is the first quality in writings of funds, till there be a want of and in speeches. It is useless to sun and rain. Suppose there have good matter, if people do were not only no paper-monoy, not see it; and how are they to but no money at all. Would the see it, unless you put it in the people starve, think you? No; light? and, as to the labourer in husbandry, he would experience but little inconvenience, To talk, therefore, of " the destruction of "funds," is, in such a case, very little better than the prattle of VAN or of the ORACLE.

However, let me try. You mention "funds" twice in this passage. The "funds," you say, "by which labour is sup

[ocr errors]

ported." You talk about a "frightful destruction" of those funds. Now, what do you mean But, to come as near as I can by funds here? Do you mean to your meaning, the funds, that paper-money y? Do you mean, is to say, the money, that is to that the funds are less abundant, say the share of food, due to the because prices are low? Upon labourer, he has, for years, been the supposition that wages come receiving only in part. The down with wheat, are not the funds which ought to have "supfunds the same as to their power" ported" labour have been purof paying the man that tills the loined from it silently and clanfield in which the wheat is grown? You have so long had your eyes bent on, and your mind wrapped up in, paper-money, that, at last, I verily believe you look upon it as being not less necessary to man's existence than air is. Look at the bushel of wheat, Sir. Leave the banking-house for a minute,

destinely by those high-prices, which a forced increas of money produced; and this I have, some pages back, proved as clear as day-light. What! will the demand for produce fall off, think you, because the most numerous class get a belly full of bread and meat, one half of which they

have not had for years? And, [ments. The first visible effect will will the demand for labour fall off, be, and now is, the pulling down

[ocr errors]

66

because the most numerous class of the country bankers and disdemand and get this additional counting farmers. The agricultural share of the fruit of labour? In societies, those nests of conspira-all probability neither more nor tors against the labourer will all less produce will be raised; but be dissolved, as, I see, that of its distribution will be different: Cambridgeshire has been, from a more will go into the mouth of want of " funds" to pay their the labourer, and less into the premiums, one of which (the gold mouth of him who has so long cup) was for him, who shall, gauged the poor creature's bowels" with the fewest hands, cultivate by the rule of the parish-book." the largest quantity of land;" Comfort yourself, therefore, my to which ought to have been subgood Sir; for there will, in low joined a general and pressing in-prices, be no "destruction of vitation to the Negro-drivers of "the funds that support labour;" Virginia and Jamaica. These though there has been, and will" funds" will now go to the labe, I hope, a great, and, to some bourers, who, as I have shown, persons," " frightful destruction will be constantly gaining by the "of the funds," by which labour low-prices. has been robbed, degraded and insulted.

The tax-collectors near Lewes, in S. ssex have sent a memorial

sessed taxes, unless time be given → and, in the same news-paper that. tells me this, I see that the Farmer's Subscription Pack of hounds,.

To pretend to say precisely to the Treasury, representing the how the thing will work, to pre-impossibility of collecting the as tend to delineate with precision the path and all the various windings and twistings of a great and all-affecting cause like that which is now operating upon the con-at Beddingham, are advertized for cerns of a people like this, would sale! More "funds" for thebe the height of presumption in labourer! Come, Sir, do not de me or in any man; but, we may spond! We shall find no "deeasily, I think, foresee some of" struction of funds." The same the effects that will be produced news-paper refers, in a paraby a resolute adherence to the graph, to this advertisement as a plan of returning to cash-pay-proof of the "distress of Agricul

[ocr errors]

"ture;" a prettier illustration of payments in kind; and, as the the true import of which phrase natural and easy mode of paying need not be wished for! Is it in kind, is, to board and lodge the not clear as day-light, that the la-person to be paid, the labourers bourer will now have to eat that will come back again into the which was eaten by "the Bed-farm-house, and sit down at the •dingham Hounds?" And is it same table with the master and not better that he should have it the dame, the good effects of than that it should go down the which I have pretty fully detailed throats of that "we'l-scented in my letter to GAFFER GOOCH, pack?" And will it not be bet-only a few numbers back; and, ter for the gentlemen" of the hunt to keep off the gout by kicking the clods about at plough than by galloping over fields, hedges and ditches?

if you can have read that letter without wishing for such a change, your heart must be harder than a stone, and your morality must be the most scandalous hypocrisy. This is the way the thing will I said, in that same letter, that work all over the kingdom. Food it was the high-prices which drove having become lower in price; the men and boys and maids from fetching hit le comparatively at the farm-house. And, it is curious market; and money having be- enough, that, since that, a little come a precious commodity, the bird has whistled in my ear, that farmer will, as far as possible, one of the witnesses, who has make his payments in kind; this been examined by the Grand is invariably the effect of a less Committee of GAFFER GOOCH, ening of the quantity of money has confessed, that they were put in circulation. Where there is no out of the farm-house when the money all is carried on by bar-high pices came and not before! ter; and when there is little com- And, with evidence like this bepared with the number and mag-fore them, will that Committee nitude of the transactions, barter report in favour of any measure is the mode of dealing to a certain tending to re-produce high-prices! extent. Labour, as I said be- If they were to do this, and if fore, makes, even with all our such a report were to be acted taxes, more than half the o t-go- upon, what should we then say of ings of a farm. That, therefore, the Honourable House? Where will be met, as far as possible, by would it then look for a defender?

« НазадПродовжити »