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nevertheless, justices of the peace shall be bound to inquire after such idle persons; and if it shall appear that any such shall have been vagrant for three days, he shall be branded on the breast with a V, made with a hot iron." A master was also authorized to "put a ring of iron about the neck, arms, and leg of a slave, for a more knowledge and surety of the keeping of him." Such was the condition of the people, at a time when they are supposed by advocates of the Ricardo-Malthusian doctrine to have "lived in much the same manner as husbandmen in the north of England did in the last century, and the Scotch peasantry do in the present."

A writer of the reign of Elizabeth, when the population could not have exceeded three and a half millions, says: "The bread throughout the land is made of such graine as the soil yieldeth; nevertheless, the gentilitie commonly provide themselves sufficientlie of wheat for their own tables, whilest their household and poor neighbours, in some shires, are inforced to content themselves with rie or barleie; yea, and in time of dearth, manie with bread made either of beans, peason, or otes, or of altogither, and some acorns among; of which scourge the poorest doo soonest tast, sith they are least able to provide themselves of better. I will not saie,' he continues, "that this extremitie is oft so well to be seen in time of plentie as of dearth; but if I should, I could easily bring my triall." He further adds, that the artificer and laborer are "driven to content themselves with horsse corne, beanes, peason, otes, tares, and lintels."

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In enumerating the disorders of the kingdom, an eminent justice of the peace in Somersetshire says, in 1596, that "forty persons had there been executed in a year, for robberies, thefts, and other felonies; thirty-five burnt in the hand; thirty-seven whipped; one hundred and eighty-three discharged;" and that, "notwithstanding these great number of indictments, the fifth part of the felonies committed in the county were not brought to trial”—the magistrates having been awed, by the associations and the threats of confederates, from executing justice on the offenders. Sir F. Eden says, and very truly, that "it is probable that these disorders were, in a great measure, owing to the difficulty of finding regular employment for the surplus hands not required in agriculture."

Such was the real cause of difficulty. England still continued an almost purely agricultural country-exporting food, and importing almost every description of manufactures from the wealthy people of the countries bordering on the Rhine. There was, therefore, little power of association, little development of individuality, and little power among her people to avail themselves of the priceless treasures of fuel, and of ore, beneath their feet. In the absence of manufactures, agriculture could make but little progress; and hence it was, that the English husbandman was poorly clothed and badly housed, while eating "barley and rye, brown bread," and "preferring it to white, as abiding longer in the stomach, and not so soon digested the rich and great, meanwhile, living in houses destitute of glass windows, and the drawing-room of the queen herself being supplied with rushes in place of carpets.

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Cultivation was then, in a great degree, confined to the poorer soils-constantly diminishing in their yield, because of the necessity for sending their products to the distant market. The supply of food increased but little, and the circulation of society was languid consumption following slowly after production. Population, however, gradually increased with a growing power of combination, whose effect is visible in the fact, that, from this time forward, we meet with no more laws requiring the laborer to work at wages fixed by act of Parliament.

At the opening of the eighteenth century, we find a population of about five millions having scarcely more than doubled itself in three hundred years. With increased numbers, there had been increase of power to command the services of nature, accompanied by material increase in the quantity of commodities at the laborer's command. Even then, however, employments were but slightly diversified. Corn was habitually raised for exportation, while the manufacture of iron continued in its rudest statethe major part of the demand having been supplied from Northern and Eastern Europe. The consumption was, therefore, very small; and so did it remain until near the middle of the century, when coal was applied to smelting the ore man thus obtaining power to an extent that until then had been unknown. The steamengine followed, and, with every increase of power, the producer and the consumer were brought in closer proximity with each other.

Corn ceasing to go abroad, the manure ceased to be lost to the land on which it had been grown. The demand for human services becoming more regular, capital accumulated rapidly, with corresponding increase of population the growth of the latter half of the century having been four times greater than that of the earlier one. Matter was thus gradually taking upon itself the highest form that of man with constant increase in the power of association, in the development of the various faculties of individual men, and in the rapidity with which consumption followed on production.

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§ 8. When the population of Scotland was less than a million of souls, and when, of course, there existed little power of combination, their situation was such, that not less than "two hundred thousand of her people were begging from door to door." Man was then the slave of nature so deplorable being his condition, that Fletcher of Saltoun could see no remedy but in making him the slave of man-an idea repeated in the present day, in relation to the people of England, by one of the most distinguished British writers.*

Famines were then frequent and severe - extending their ravages throughout the country. From 1693 to 1700, emphatically termed the "seven ill years, " the distress was so great that extensive parishes were nearly depopulated. Those of 1740 and 1782-83 were particularly severe numerous persons dying of want. Elsewhere, we are told, the farmers were reduced to such extremity, that "they were obliged to bleed their cattle, in order to subsist some time on the blood." Even within the last seventy or eighty years, their situation was such that "nothing but the frugal, penurious manner in which the peasantry then lived, could have enabled them to subsist-paying any rent whatsoever. Their clothing was of the coarsest materials; their furniture and gardening utensils were often made by themselves; their food, always the produce of their farms, was little expensive-consisting chiefly of oatmeal, vegetables, and the produce of the dairy if a little animal food was occasionally added, it was generally the refuse

*CARLYLE: Latter-Day Pamphlets.

SINCLAIR: Statistical Account of Scotland, vol. vi. p. 121.

of the flock, unfit to be brought to market."* The state of the country was rude beyond conception. The most fertile tracts were waste, or indifferently cultivated. The education, manners, dress, furniture, and tables of the gentry were not so liberal, decent, and sumptuous as those of ordinary farmers are at present. The common people, clothed in the coarsest garb, and starving on the meanest fare, lived in despicable huts with their cattle.†

Less than a century since, the slaughter of bullocks for the supply of cities like Glasgow or Edinburgh, was small-the custom of families being to purchase in November what would now be reckoned a small, miserable, half-fed cow, or ox, the salted carcass of which was the only butcher's meat they tasted through the year.

With the growth of population and of wealth, cultivation has been extended over the richer soils, with steady increase in the diversification of employments, and in the rapidity with which consumption and production have followed on each other. The effect is seen in the fact, that the product of agricultural labor has increased sixfold, while the population has only doubled giving an average for each individual at least thrice greater than before had been obtained. §

§ 9. Society, or commerce, consists in an exchange of services. At times, these services are direct, as when one man carries a load for another. At others, they are indirect At others, they are indirect being applied

to changing wool into cloth, in which latter form the man who needs a coat, purchases the wool and the labor that has been given to effecting its conversion.

The power to perform service is a consequence of a consumption of capital in the form of food. If not applied on the instant that it is produced, it is lost for ever. The less promptly the demand follows the supply, the greater, therefore, must be the waste The more instant the demand, the greater must be the economy of power, and the greater the amount of force. Highest among the tests of civilization must, therefore, be

of power.

* Rev. Mr. SMITH: quoted by MCCULLOCH, Statistics of the British Empire, vol. i. p. 509.

Rev. Dr. PLAYFAIR: quoted in Edinburgh Review, vol. lvi. p. 57.
Edinburgh Review, No. cxxvi. p. 173.
Ibid. vol. lvi. p. 60.

found that continuity in the motion of society which enables all to find demand for their mental and physical powers; and highest among the nations of the world must become that community in which rapid circulation produces this effect.

That it may be produced, diversity of employments is the one and indispensable condition. Without that, there can be no regularity of demand-no continuity of motion no economy of human effort—no increase of force. Proof of this is supplied in the brief sketch of English history that has above been given-in the movement of Sparta, as compared with that of Athens-in that of France of the Middle Ages, as compared with the Netherlandsand in that of every other country of the world, as it has advanced, or declined, in wealth, strength, and population.

Comparing the various nations of the present day with each. other, we obtain results precisely similar to those obtained in passing backward through the various stages of English history. In India there is no demand for labor, and her people gladly sell themselves to slavery in the Mauritius. Ireland presents a scene of constant waste of labor-power-its effects exhibiting themselves in the incessant wanderings of her unhappy people in search of harvest wages; in their abandonment of their native land; and in the famines and pestilences of which she is the seat. The state of things in Portugal and Turkey is the same- mental and physical power there abounding, for which there is no demand. So is it in Jamaica, Mexico, Brazil, and Buenos Ayres; in all of which we find a state of facts corresponding with that observed in the earlier ages of English history-the laborer being there the mere slave of the man who owns the land, or of him who supplies the food and clothing to those by whom it is tilled.*

The black population of Jamaica is nominally free, but that there can be no real freedom without that commerce which results from diversity of employment, is shown by the following account of the present condition of the island:

"A recent petition to the British Secretary of State invites his attention to the widespread and annually increasing distress which overshadows the entire population, and has sunk a large portion of the inhabitants into actual destitution.' The gentlemen whose names are attached thereto are - Mr. Chitty, one of the late chairmen of Quarter Sessions, who has retired on a pension; Mr. Pinnock, a Kingston merchant; Mr. Phineas Abraham, the senior partner in the firm of P. Abraham & Co., of Falmouth; Mr. Hodgson, the chaplain of the General Penitentiary; and Mr. Valpy, a solicitor, and nephew of our late Chief Justice, Sir Joshua Rowe. They state that the condition of the colony is at the lowest possible point, short of universal

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