XIII. That with the reduction of the country population, local places of exchange must pass away; and that labour and land must decline in power as ships, mills, and their owners become more united and more powerful.
XIV. That the tendency of the whole system is, therefore, toward diminishing the value and the power of land, and toward rendering the labourer a mere slave to the trading community, which obtains from day to day more and more the power to impose taxes at its pleasure, and to centralize in its own hands the direction of the affairs of the nation; to the destruction of local self-government, and to the deterioration of the physical, moral, intellectual, and political condition of the people.
In accordance with these views, an examination of the productive power of the United Kingdom should result in showing that production has not kept pace with population; and that such had been the ease we should be disposed to infer from the increasing demand for cheap labour, and from the decline that has unquestionably taken place in the control of the labourer over his own operations. That the facts are in accordance with this inference the reader may perhaps be disposed to admit after having examined carefully the following figures.
In 1815, now thirty-eight years since, the declared value of the exports of the United Kingdom, of British produce and manufacture, was as follows:—
Of woollen manufactures…………… £9,381,426
" cotton " …………… 20,620,000
" silk " …………… 622,118
" linen " …………… 1,777,563
And of other commodities………….. 19,231,684
—————
Total…………………………… 51,632,791
In the same year there were imported of
Wool……………………………. 13,634,000 lbs.
Cotton………………………….. 99,306,000 "
Silk……………………………. 1,807,000 "
Flax……………………………. 41,000,000 "
Grain…………………………… 267,000 qrs.
Flour…………………………… 202,000 cwts.
Butter………………………….. 125,000 "
Cheese………………………….. 106,000 "
If to the raw cotton, wool, silk, and flax that were re-exported in a manufactured state, and to the dyeing materials and other articles required for their manufacture, we now add the whole foreign food, as above shown, we can scarcely make, of foreign commodities re-exported, an amount exceeding twelve, or at most thirteen millions, leaving thirty-eight millions as the value of the British produce exported in that year; and this divided among the people of the United Kingdom would give nearly £2 per head.
In 1851 the exports, were as follows:—
Manufactures of wool……………….. £10,314,000
" cotton……………… 30,078,000
" silk……………….. 1,329,000
" flax……………….. 5,048,000
All other commodities………………. 21,723,569
—————-
Total…………………………….. £68,492,569