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Leader (1850-1860), 28th September 1850, Edition Town of 1, Page 638, Untitled Article

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      Untitled Article

      upon their savings , which consist too often of the fat about their bones—a kind of capital much spent before the glut is over . Capital , ever ready for transfer , enormously augments these errors . It creates them . But for our vast heaps of disengaged capital , we should not have known the over-trading of 1825 , the glut of 1842 , the railway crisis of 1847 . But for our overabundant capital , we should not have proposed to make miles upon miles of railways not neededshould not have formed armies of surveyors , en-3

      gineers , and " navigators , * to be suddenly cast loose upon society without work or hope ; should not have eaten up the savings of the orphan and the widow—who are ruined , while the real big capitalist merely slinks into retrenchment or gaily passes to " other markets ; " should not have had companies of shareholders now trying to raise millions sterling to make good Hudsonian bargains . If Trade is disposed to make a mistake , Capital can throw its whole moveable weight into the error , and give to it a fatal momentum .

      Capital is greedy : the capitalist must be paid for being rich . Just as the landowner will not allow you to use land without paying him , who works it not , so the capitalist will not allow you to use " stock " without you pay him . Separately , too ; for if the capitalist and the projector are united in the same person , the capitalist is careful that you should pay him in that capacity , distinctly , for " interest of capital . " Capital will not allow any share of itself to be retained by Industry . The capitalist , owning an immense treasurv , can live upon a very

      small return—upon the return of a moderate amount ; a still smaller return upon huge amounts secures to him luxury : if a small capitalist , say , with a thousand pounds , can live in any business on a return of 5 per cent ., the great capitalist can drive that small one out of the market by underselling him , accepting only 4 per cent . ; which would be too little for the small capitalist to exist upon , but returns huge revenues to the owner of many small capitals . The large capitalist

      monopolizes the employment market , and decrees the rate of wages—laid so low that , if the workman can scrape any together as savings towards the beginning of capital , he must possess singular will and energy . Capital , therefore , can buy up the trademarket and the labour-market — and it does . Owned by luxury , Capital directs industry mainly for the benefit of luxury . England works for Belgravia—a state of things not only invidious , but precarious and dangerous .

      Capital decrees that there shall be waste . It sets industry—struggling in the scramble of the blind labour market for subsistence—much more about secondary occupations than primary ; it chokes the warehouses with nicknacks and stuffs while whole classes are naked and starving : you cannot find a loaf or a shirt in this hovel , in that palace you cannot count the carpets , the rugs , the cushions , the toilet implements , the varieties of foods and condiments , the jewellery , the perfumes , the wardrobes , the endless appliances of wealth . Industry is bound down to the task of encreasing that very capital which tyrannizes over it and misleads it , which exists even to waste .

      Do not say , my dear Erasmus , that I am lgnorantly blind to the necessity and use of capital ; I know that industry must have " stock , " in order that it may be free for the best choice of occupations ; but 1 , in my lifetime , am not bound by any natural duty to make * ' stock" enough for the next thousand years ; especially if that stock shall belong to somebody else , and that owner shall set against my industry all the industry present and future available to the fattening of his idol , vouchsafing to me the lowest wages ascertainable in that hideous auction . I know that we cannot do

      without capital ; but I say that in the idolatry of it we overlook its operation in augmenting all the mistakes of our present social organization or rather disorganization . Stock is most excellent for use ; but we have made the toolliousc a tyrant , and the treasury au idol , in our questionless obedience to Capital . Ever your aileetionatc , Thornton Hunt .

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      CONDITION OF THE POOR . Sept . 24 , J 850 . Sir , —I join with some of your other correspondents in congratulating you on the excellent working of your Open Council . To hear with respect the voice of others on matters of deep common interest is the way towards universal enlightenment . I do , indeed , object to a very few of the letters that have appeared . If any one were to write to you in defence of magic or astrology , or some other occult doctrine , I hope you would exclude his letter on the same ground as you would exclude a mathematical disquisition . Not wishing to seem to dictate , I merely ask you to consider whether you have not here erred twice through too great liberality .

      On the other hand , you are right in admitting letters on religion ( which other newspapers treat as too technical ) , so long as they deal with the subject as a popular one , cognizable by the popular understanding and heart . But I did not mean to fill your columns with such critiques : I write to comment on the controversy which , divides you and Dr . Smiles , and see whether

      it does not point to some practical result . You appear to me to be both right : Dr . Smiles , in alleging that the state of the poor has improved , and you , in declaring that it has deteriorated . How so ? First , because the poor is a vague phrase , embracing two different classes—the employed and the unemployed poor . Secondly , because they are partly better and partly worse ; and to strike the balance is often difficult .

      Dr . Smiles * alleges that wages ( at least in the towns ) are higher than they were , and go farther than ever . You reply , that many people are out of work ; and a hand-loom weaver farther replies , that his remuneration is very bad . Of course it is . There is no contradiction here . "We must embrace both sides to gain a complete view of England . Dr . Smiles , moreover , declares that the political power of the poor is far greater than it was . Your reply seems to be , that they are more than ever driven oft * the soil . Again I say both are right . I proceed to draw conclusions , and make general comments .

      1 . Every school of anti-political economistswhether Socialists or Protectionists , Aristocrats or Republican , democrats—is unjust towards mastermanufacturers and master-tradesmen . This calumniated class of persons pays every year larger sums for wages than at any previous time in England , and is complained of because there are still people out of work , or because the wages still are not so high as workmen wish . May they rise ! Amen : but blame not the masters if they aic low , as certainly no one thanks , or will thank them if they are high .

      2 . Until a company of coequal workmen has shown in actual trial that it can permanently carry on a great manufactory , which needs machinery and other lixed caj ) ital , knowledge , enterprise , and energy , no one has any right to speak of it as more than a possibility for Socialism to undertake such works . If the workmen at present do not like the work or the wages , let them find abettor , or , at any rate , not blame tho master . It is absurd to quarrel with your crutch till you nro woll of lameness , or can , somehow , walk without it .

      3 . A large puit of tho sufferings of the English people is a payment for their personal liberty . For instance , they have free right to move from tho country into the town ; hence , they have been open to tho temptation of migrating into the towns to get higher wages : and since fur more flro seduced by the hope than can actually find employment , the towns are flooded by needy vagrants , too numerous , too independent , and too unorganized to be overseen by the authorities . They become demoralized , und

      propagate misery . In Germany the police would not allow to the poor this freedom—would treat them more like children , and thus save them from many miseries . What else is the right to drink ale , cider , and gin without restriction , than part of an Englishman ' s birthright ? As the song of the Lancashire morricedancers

      says" I shall always maintain 'tis an Englishman ' s right To dance , to drink , to work , and to fight . " 4 . The laws or institutions of society may make men miserable ; but cannot make them happy any more than virtuous . All populous nations hitherto have had considerable masses of vicious and indigent persons whom nothing human can help . That England has not been able to hinder this painful result is to be lamented . Let us try to find out its causes and dry them up at the source ; but let us not think England worse than other old and fully peopled countries .

      5 . If Spain or Greece be disordered and poor while England flourishes , that is no disgrace to England . So , if one part or one class of England is vicious and distressed while others are prosperous , that is not necessarily a disgrace to the prosperous—perhaps the very contrary . If the law gives no artificial bonus to the prosperous , their prosperity is primd facie evidence of superior talent or virtue . And if the law gives them no control over the vicious and miserable party , it is unjust to treat them as responsible for the misery . All this applies to the justification of master manufacturers and great tradesmen .

      A state of things is to be desired , when all the world shall be so knit together that the overflowing wealth , knowledge , wisdom , and goodness of one part shall relieve the wants of another less happy part ; but no one blames a more civilized nation , barely because we are very far off from this state . What I have here said concerning different nations , is true of the different classes of the same nation in proportion as they aim at independence . If the poorer will insist on being their own masters , and spurn a state of serfdom or tutelage , they must leave off whining about their neglect by the richer classes , and must look to themselves for everything . Let them cry for help to Wisdom , but not to Wealth .

      I fear I am tedious , and I must be more concise . Abruptly let me say—I have no doubt that you have attacked the right point in your recent articles concerning Land . The disease of England is fundamentally this , that her rural industry is unexpansivc ; hence the whole increase of population flows over into the towns . The result is , that the towns must always contain masses of indigence , clustered in unwholesome dwellings , with benefit to nothing but to the rent of land . In part , the law of England is to blame ; namely , in so far as entails and the difficulties about title , want of registration , and expence of deeds impede the free sale of land . This is an Augean stable which not even a river of revolution could cleanse :

      for the law would revive and survive any process of mere violence . Nothing can here aid us but a revolution of opinion among the educated , and especially among lawyers : and gradually it will come , with or without University Reform . I 3 ut in part , also , the yeomanry itself has been to blame . I have for years past tried to preach to the few landed proprietors of my acquaintance the advantages of peasant freeholders ; but I have always been met by the objection , that this state of things , somehow , everywhere dies out of itself . One friend showed me the fact by the county registers of Devonshire ; another testified it to me from , his own knowledge of Cumberland . I asked why this was , and received the following explanations .

      Sometimes the freeholder is tempted by the offer of an extravagant price for his land by a rich peer or banker ; he cannot resist , but sells his little freehold for a largo sum down . He employs it in trade , and cither swells the number of thriving townsmen or loses it , and makes beggars of his children . Sometimes ( and in Cumberland , I believe , often ) the little freeholder , with other old-fashioned habits , retains that of excessive drinking , and cannot compete in the market with sober men . Thus competition ( naughty , unchristian practice !) ruins him , and he sells his land in despair .

      Sometimes he envies the more rapid and splendid gains of trade , and does not calculate on its reverses , and sells his land to speculate . Or , again , he leases it to a neighbouring farmer , and keeps a shop or becomes a bricklayer or other artizan . This , I am told , is tv common case , and that it is tho desire of some more enterprising employment , with a chance of larger , though less secure , gains , which makes small freeholders give up .

      To this must be added the taste for foreign luxuries and disdain of coarse abundance . Peasant proprietors have thriven , only in proportion as they seek to be independent of maiket prices , and to find sufficiency in native products , principally raised by themselves . If our notions of civilization become purged of the mont-trous error which puts it in the external polish of diess and house and appurtenances ; if we look to abundance of wholesome food and dress for the body , with wholesome culture to thp

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      There is no learned man but will confess he hath much profited by reading controversies , his senses awakened , and hi 3 judgment sharpened . If , then , it be profitable for him to read , why should it not , at least , be tolerable for his adversary to write . —Milton .

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      * I am obliged to quote from memory .

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      Sinkcvki : Ukm : kk : i : s . —A return to Government has been pnnti . l , containing a list of sinecure benefices in . Kn ^ and nrnl Wales , with tho name of the patron and incumbent , and tho annual value and population of each . It . appears that there are f > 7 sinecure lienctices , of which JvS art- in the diocese of Norwich . The annual value of those benciiccs raiiHOH from £ 1 () to £ H 2 fl . In some of thr places there are no churches , and in others the churches nrc in a dilapidated state . The population exceeds in borne of the siuccurc benefices 1000 souls .

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      638 QL % t % t atf ZX + [ Saturday ,

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      [ IN THIS DEPARTBIENT , AS ALL OPINIONS , HOWEVER EXTREME , ABB ALLOWED AN EXPRESSION , THE EDITOR NECESSARILY HOLDS HIMSELF RESPONSIBLE FOR NONE . ]

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  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 28, 1850, page 638, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1854/page/14/