It is satisfying to have such a correct statement of an evil connected with the severest commercial distress that ever perhaps our country was involved in,—and in a quarter, too, where that distress was understood to be greatest. When the arithmetic of its actual dimensions is thus laid before us, it brings both the cause and the remedy more within the management of one's understanding. But it will still require a little consideration, to enable us to calculate the true amount, and understand the true character of this great calamity.

In the first place, then, it ought to be kept in mind, that there are particular lines of employment, where a given excess of workmen is sure to create a much greater proportional reduction in the rate of their wages. Should twenty thousand labourers, in a given branch of industry, so meet the demand for their services, as to afford to each of them a fair remuneration, then an additional thousand coming into competition with those who are already at work, may very possibly lower, by much more than a twentieth part, the price of their labour. In other words, the consequent deficiency of wages might go greatly beyond the fractional addition that had thus been made to the number of labourers.

It is thus that, in certain kinds of work, a very small excess of hands may bring a very heavy distress and depression upon a whole body of operatives. The urgency of a few more than are wanted, soliciting for employment, and satisfied with any terms rather than be kept out of it, may bring down the terms, to the whole profession, in a ratio so large, that the entire maintenance of these additional applicants for work would not nearly cost so much as is lost, upon the whole, by the body of their fellow workmen in the shape of reduced wages. For example, should two shillings a day be a fair remuneration for labour, and should it be the actual remuneration earned by twenty thousand workmen at some particular kind of it, an additional thousand might be maintained at this rate daily for an hundred pounds. But we should not be surprised to find that the effect of their appearance and of their competi tion was to bring down the daily wages to eighteen pence. Now, this would degrade beneath the average of comfort, twenty-one thousand workmen, by sixpence a day to each, or by five hundred and twenty-five pounds a day to them all, taken collectively. In other words, a certain redundancy of men might entail a calamity upon their profession, which, when measured arithmetically, will be found to exceed, by upwards of five times the whole expense, either of maintaining them in idleness, or of giving them full and adequate wages at another employ

ment.

The above statement, we are persuaded, will recommend itself to the experience of all practical men ;-nor do we think it difficult to apprehend the rationale of it. Men must have a subsistence for themselves and their families; and if this is only to be had through the medium of employment, men must have employment. If they cannot earn thereby a plentiful subsistence, they will rather put up with a scanty subsistence than have none at all. And thus it is that a surplus thousand of labourers may cheapen work, by a fraction greatly larger than the excess of their own number, over the former number of labourers ;—and thus, from the necessity of a few, may there emanate an adverse influence which will spread itself over the many-and, with a very slight importation of more hands into a branch of industry already sufficiently occupied, may there be imported an evil so weighty, as to overbear for a time the whole profession, and to call forth from all the members of it a general outcry of apprehension and distress.

This view of the subject, if it contain in it matter of regret, that a cause so trivial should operate a mischief so extensive, contains in it also matter of consolation. As we have already travelled from the cause to the effect, we have only to travel back again from the effect to the cause; and if the cause be trivial, it may be remedied by a trivial exertion. The actual magnitude of any present or existing distress amongst a body of workmen, will not alarm us into a fear of its perpetuity, if we are right in tracing it to a cause so remediable, as to a small fractional excess in the number of these workmen. Should the addition of a thousand men on a branch of industry which affords sufficient maintenance to twenty thousand, have the effect of reducing their maintenance by one-fourth, then, when a case of such grievous reduction actually occurs, it is fair to infer, that the transference or removal of a single twentieth part of these labourers, would operate as a restorative to the com→ fort and circumstances of them all. And, when one thinks of the many natural securities which there are for bringing about an adjustment of those partial and temporary differences that obtain between the demand for labour and the number of labourers, he may both admit the severity of an existing pressure, and be foremost in every sound and practicable measure for its alleviation, without reading in it the symptoms of any great national catastrophe, or losing his confidence in the stability of his country's wealth and greatness.

It is proper, however, to remark, that there are certain kinds of work where these fluctuations are far more sudden than in others where the appearance of a given excess of hands will tell on

the reduction of wages in a shorter time-and where the withdrawing this excess would also operate more speedily in restoring these wages to their former and ordinary level. Were the opus operandum a certain definite task, like the cutting down of harvest, the amount of which could neither be increased nor diminished, the effect would be quite immediate. The same holds true, though in a less degree, of the employment of household servants, and of the employment of ground la bour in most of its varieties. In these instances, there is a certain quantity of work to be done; and this quantity, generally speaking, does not admit of being much extended, merely on the temptation of labour being offered at a cheaper rate; and in as far as the possible extent of a work is an element that is invariable, in so far will either an excess or deficiency of labourers for that work tell instantly on the wages of their employment. The same effect would follow in any manufacture, where the raw material out of which a commodity is wrought could not be raised or accumulated to a degree much exceeding the annual consumption, and where the commodity itself did not admit of being so accumulated. The employment of baking exemplifies this. Speaking generally, the grain of one year is consumed in the year following; and if the grain does not admit of being stored beyond certain limits, the bread that is manufactured admits, still less of it. A steady number of operative bakers will thus suffice for the need of a country. So that, should a number of good journeymen in that profession suddenly appear amongst us, though only amounting to a twentieth part of their whole, the effect in bringing down their wages would both be great and instantaneous; while the full and speedy restoration of these wages, on the transference of a small portion of these operatives to other lines of employment, would convince us, how a cause, seemingly weak and disproportionate, may work for a time a serious and alarming depression in the comfort of an industrious class of the community.

Now, it so happens, that in the manufacture by which cotton is turned into muslin, there are many circumstances which serve to affect the law of those fluctuations to which the wages of the operatives are liable. There is, in the first place, a very great facility of learning the work; so that, in a short period of prosperity, an indefinite number of additional hands can be turned to the loom. In the second place, the raw material of successive seasons may be stored to any amount in warehouses; and, should it be necessary, the annual quantity of cotton raised in the world could be far more easily augmented a hundredfold, than the annual quantity of corn could be doubled. There is no

limit, therefore, to the bringing in of workmen in this partieular line. And, in the third place, what they do work may also be stored. The muslin of very many months may lie in reserve for future demand-while bread cannot lie in reserve for as many days. Additional bakers, therefore, can never be admitted beyond what are sufficient for supplying the current consumption of this article: But additional weavers can be admitted for the purposes of future as well as of present consumption; and, to add to the elasticity of the latter concern, the wages of the operative weaver form a far larger ingredient of the price of muslin, than the wages of the operative baker do of the price of bread; so that if the wages of the former become much lower by the increase of the number of weavers, the muslin that they work becomes much cheaper, and the wearing of it becomes much more general; for, in the nature of things, the cheapness of an article of fine and ornamental dress will add much more to the consumption of that article, than the cheapness of bread can ever add to the consumption of bread.

Put together all these considerations, and it will be seen, how, though when an excess of competitors appears for any employment that requires a distinct and definite number of hands, the effect in reducing its wages is quite instantaneous—yet the same excess might appear for the weaving of muslin, without so instantaneous, or, at least for the time, so great a reduction in the wages. There ought, of course, on the very first appearance of this excess, to be a descending movement in the price of this labour; but, ere it has completed its course, it is met by a counter-movement on the part of capitalists and master-manufacturers, who will feel encouraged, for a time, by this cheapening of labour, and will store up its produce beyond the present demand of the market, and will accumulate goods for distant and future sales, under the present advantage of having these goods wrought at a rate which is gradually sinking. In this way, an increase in the supply of labour may for a time increase the demand for it; not so as to keep up its price, for then the very stimulus of the augmenting demand would be done away-but so as to prevent the depression of wages from coming suddenly to its maximum-so as to smooth, and to graduate the descent by which the operatives are conducted from the level of sufficiency to an abyss of most pitiable degradation. Had their work been of such a nature, that, like that of cutting down the harvest, no more than a given quantity could be admitted within the limits of each month, then all at once would the excess of workmen have had its full effect in lowering the price of their work. But it is the power of producing and heaping up to any extent,

which, apart from sudden fluctuations in the demand for the article, causes the price of the work to descend, not by a desultory, but by a continuous movement; and postpones the period when the remuneration of the workmen arrives at the lowest point in the line of its variation.

And when the price has arrived at this point, there are two peculiar causes why it should linger obstinately there. The ar ticle produced by operative bakers is carried off in a single day; and there is always a fresh recurring demand for the same quantity of work from them. Their work does not admit of being much extended; and therefore an excess of workmen must cause an immediate and certain fall of wages. But neither does the produce of their work admit of being accumulated, so that there is no intervening stock of their article between them and their consumers; and therefore, in parting with the excess of their hands, the restoration of their wages would be just as sudden as the fall. But the work of weavers does admit of being extended, and therefore the fall of their wages may be gradual. The produce of their work admits also of being accumulated; and for this reason the reviving of their wages is gradual also. The stock on hand may be a barrier for many months between the need of the purchaser, and the work of the operative; and, in the declining prices of a glutted market, the inducement for keeping up this stock may be done away. In these circumstances, a much larger excess of weavers must go out of employment, that the matter may be righted speedily. It is not enough that the quantity of work be reduced to the current demand for the article. It must be reduced beneath this demand, so as to permit the stock to clear away. If more operatives can be taken on in this line of industry than in most others, without so immediate a reduction of their wages, more also must go off, for the purpose of bringing about a speedy restoration. So that we are not aware at present of any branch of employment whatever where the circumstances of the operatives, both in respect of the price of their work, and the number of workmen, are doomed to alternate along so extended an arch of vibration.

But there is still another cause by which this ascending process must be retarded. If the price of labour is reduced, while at the same time it is paid according to its quantity, the workmen will naturally strive to make up by the latter, what they lose in the former. It is in vain that a small fraction of the labourers be withdrawn, if they who remain shall, by increased application to their work, continue to throw off the same quantity of VOL. XXXIII. No. 66.

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