VI.—'LETTER TO THE JOURNEYMEN AND LABOURERS OF ENGLAND, WALES, SCOTLAND, AND IRELAND. LETTER TO JACK HARROW.'
BY WILLIAM COBBETT
(Although Cobbett produced not a few political pamphlets in the strictest sense of the term, the infinitely greater part of his work is comprised during his earlier days in the volumes of Peter Porcupine's Gazette, during his later in those of the Weekly Register. This latter, however, he himself for a time actually entitled The Weekly Political Pamphlet, while he alluded to it under that name even at other times; and his whole work was imbued even more deeply than that of Defoe with the pamphlet character. I have selected two examples from the critical time when he was still exasperated by his imprisonment, and stung into fresh efforts by debt and the prospect of fresh difficulties. They exhibit in the most striking form all Cobbett's pet hatreds—of the unreformed Parliament, of paper money, of political economy, of potatoes, and of many other things. The first is the Register of 2d November 1816, the first number of the cheapened form, which was sold at twopence, and so acquired the name of 'Twopenny Trash,' from a phrase of, as some say, Canning's, others Castlereagh's. The second is an early number of the papers written from America. They will, with the notes, explain themselves.)
LETTER TO THE JOURNEYMEN AND LABOURERS OF ENGLAND, WALES, SCOTLAND, AND IRELAND, ON THE CAUSE OF THEIR PRESENT MISERIES; ON THE MEASURES WHICH HAVE PRODUCED THAT CAUSE; ON THE REMEDIES WHICH SOME FOOLISH AND SOME CRUEL AND INSOLENT MEN HAVE PROPOSED; AND ON THE LINE OF CONDUCT WHICH JOURNEYMEN AND LABOURERS OUGHT TO PURSUE, IN ORDER TO OBTAIN EFFECTUAL RELIEF, AND TO ASSIST IN PROMOTING THE TRANQUILLITY AND RESTORING THE HAPPINESS OF THEIR COUNTRY.
Friends And Fellow-countrymen—Whatever the pride of rank, of riches, or of scholarship may have induced some men to believe, or to affect to believe, the real strength and all the resources of a country ever have sprung and ever must spring from the labour of its people; and hence it is that this nation, which is so small in numbers and so poor in climate and soil compared with many others, has, for many ages, been the most powerful nation in the world: it is the most industrious, the most laborious, and, therefore, the most powerful. Elegant dresses, superb furniture, stately buildings, fine roads and canals, fleet horses and carriages, numerous and stout ships, warehouses teeming with goods; all these, and many other objects that fall under our view, are so many marks of national wealth and resources. But all these spring from labour. Without the journeyman and the labourer none of them could exist; without the assistance of their hands the country would be a wilderness, hardly worth the notice of an invader.
As it is the labour of those who toil which makes a country abound in resources, so it is the same class of men, who must, by their arms, secure its safety and uphold its fame. Titles and immense sums of money have been bestowed upon numerous Naval and Military Commanders. Without calling the justice of these in question, we may assert that the victories were obtained by you and your fathers and brothers and sons, in co-operation with those Commanders, who, with your aid, have done great and wonderful things; but who, without that aid, would have been as impotent as children at the breast.
With this correct idea of your own worth in your minds, with what indignation must you hear yourselves called the Populace, the Rabble, the Mob, the Swinish Multitude; and with what greater indignation, if possible, must you hear the projects of those cool and cruel and insolent men, who, now that you have been, without any fault of yours, brought into a state of misery, propose to narrow the limit of parish relief, to prevent you from marrying in the days of your youth, or to thrust you out to seek your bread in foreign lands, never more to behold your parents or friends? But suppress your indignation, until we return to this topic, after we have considered the cause of your present misery, and the measures which have produced that cause.
The times in which we live are full of peril. The nation, as described by the very creatures of Government, is fast advancing to that period when an important change must take place. It is the lot of mankind that some shall labour with their limbs and others with their minds; and, on all occasions, more especially on an occasion like the present, it is the duty of the latter to come to the assistance of the former. We are all equally interested in the peace and happiness of our common country. It is of the utmost importance that, in the seeking to obtain these objects, our endeavours should be uniform, and tend all to the same point. Such an uniformity cannot exist without an uniformity of sentiment as to public matters, and to produce this latter uniformity amongst you is the object of this address.
As to the cause of our present miseries, it is the enormous amount of the taxes which the Government compels us to pay for the support of its army, its placemen, its pensioners, etc., and for the payment of the interest of its debt. That this is the real cause has been a thousand times proved; and it is now so acknowledged by the creatures of the Government themselves. Two hundred and five of the Correspondents of the Board of Agriculture ascribe the ruin of the country to taxation. Numerous writers, formerly the friends of the Pitt system, now declare that taxation has been the cause of our distress. Indeed, when we compare our present state to the state of the country previous to the wars against France, we must see that our present misery is owing to no other cause. The taxes then annually raised amounted to about fifteen millions: they amounted last year to seventy millions. The nation was then happy; it is now miserable.