The decrease of the quantity of materials, as tending to diminish the supply of certain commodities, may be seen in the failure of the cotton crops, which, of course, deprive the cotton manufacturers of their ordinary quantity of work. The same diminution in the ordinary supply of particular articles ensues when the men engaged in the production of them “strike” either for an advance of wages, or more generally to resist the attempt of some cutting employer to reduce their ordinary earnings; and lastly, a like decrease of work necessarily ensues when the opportunity of working is changed. Some kinds of work, as we have already seen, depend on the weather—on either the wind, rain, or temperature; while other kinds can only be pursued at certain seasons of the year, as brick-making, building, and the like; hence, on the cessation of the opportunities for working in these trades, there is necessarily a great decrease in the quantity of work, and consequently a large increase in the amount of surplus and therefore casual labour.
We have now, I believe, exhausted the several causes of that vast national evil—casual labour. We have seen that it depends,
First, upon certain times and seasons, fashions and accidents, which tend to cause a periodical briskness or slackness in different employments;
And secondly, upon the number of surplus labourers in the country.
The circumstances inducing surplus labour we have likewise ascertained to be three.
1. An alteration in the hours, rate, or mode of working, as well as in the mode of hiring.
2. An increase of the hands.
3. A decrease of the work, either in particular places, at particular times, or in the aggregate, owing to a decrease either in the demand or means of supply.
Any one of these causes, it has been demonstrated, must necessarily tend to induce an over supply of labourers and consequently a casualty of labour, for it has been pointed out that an over supply of labourers does not depend solely on an increase of the workers beyond the means of working, but that a decrease of the ordinary quantity of work, or a general increase of the hours or rate of working, or an extension of the system of production, or even a diminution of the term of hiring, will also be attended with the same result—facts which should be borne steadily in mind by all those who would understand the difficulties of the times, and which the “economists” invariably ignore.