"The summary of the returns of 1831, respecting the occupations of males twenty years of age and upwards, throws considerable light upon the subject, by exhibiting them under several subdivisions. The males belonging to the families included in the non-agricultural and non-manufacturing classes, were given at the last census under four distinct heads of description, viz.:—
"Capitalists, Bankers, Professional, and other educated men.
"Labourers employed in labour, not Agricultural.
"Other males, twenty years of age, except servants.
"Male servants, twenty years of age.
"The whole number of males included under these heads, amounts to 1,137,270. Of these, 608,712 were actually employed in labour, which although, usually speaking, it was neither manufacturing nor trading, was yet necessary in the successful prosecution of some branch of trade or manufactures, such as mining, road-making, canal-digging, inland navigation, &c."
Of these 600,000, now probably augmented by a tenth, how many can be spared from their several employments for the construction of the railways, and how many are at this moment so employed, with their labour mortgaged for years? This is a question which Parliament ought most certainly—if it can be done—to get answered in a satisfactory manner. It must be remarked, that in this class are included the miners, who certainly cannot be withdrawn from their present work, which in fact is indispensable for the completion of the railways. If possible, their numbers must be augmented. The stored iron of the country is now exhausted, and the masters are using every diligence in their power to facilitate the supply, which still, as the advancing price of that great commodity will testify, is short of, and insufficient for the demand. From the agricultural labourers you cannot receive any material number of recruits. The land, above all things, must be tilled; and—notwithstanding the trashy assertions of popular slip-slop authors and Cockney sentimentalists, who have favored us with pictures of the Will Ferns of the kingdom, as unlike the reality as may be—the condition of those who cultivate the soil of Britain is superior to that of the peasantry in every other country of Europe. The inevitable increase of demand for labour will even better their condition, according to the operation of a law apparent to every man of common sense, but which is hopelessly concealed from the eyes of these spurious regenerators of the times. It is impossible to transform the manufacturer, even were that trade slack, into a railway labourer; the habits and constitution of the two classes being essentially differ
ent and distinct. Indeed, as the writer we have already quoted well remarks—"Experience has shown that uneducated men pass with difficulty, and unwillingly, from occupations to which they have been long accustomed," and nothing, consequently, is more difficult than to augment materially and suddenly the numbers of any industrial class, when an unexpected demand arises. To us, therefore, it seems perfectly clear, that even if the capital were forthcoming, there is not labour enough in the country for the simultaneous construction of a tithe of the projected schemes.
There are considerations connected with this matter which entail a great responsibility upon the government. The capitalists are, in fact, putting at its disposal the means of maintaining a great portion of the poorer population for many years to cone. If this be properly attended to, emigration, which principally benefits the labourer, may be discontinued. We have now arrived at a pass when the absence of those who have already emigrated becomes a matter of regret. There is work to be had nearer than the Canadian woods or the waterless prairies of Australia—work, too, that in its results must be of incalculable benefit to the community. But the government is bound to regulate it so, that, amidst superabundance of wealth, due regard is paid to the Economy of Labour. It is rumoured that some railway directors, fully aware of the facts which we have stated, are meditating, in their exuberant haste for dividends, the introduction of foreign labourers. We doubt whether, under any circumstances, such a scheme is practicable; but of this we entertain no doubt, that it is as mischievous a device as ever was forged in the cabinet of Mammon! Some years ago the cuckoo cry of the political quacks was over-population. Now it seems there is a scarcity of hands, and in order to supply the want—for we have drained the Highlands—we are to have an importation from Baden or Bavaria, without even the protecting solemnity of a tariff. If this be true, it seems to us that government is bound to interpose by the most stringent measures. It is monstrous to think, that whereas, for many years past, for mere slackness of labour, we have been encouraging emigration among the productive classes of our countrymen to a very great degree; draining, as it were, the mother country to found the colonies, and therein resorting to the last step which a paternal government, even in times of the greatest necessity, should adopt—now, when a new experiment, or social crisis—call it which you will—has arisen, when labour has again reached the point where the demand exceeds the supply, we are to admit an influx of strangers amongst us, and thereby entail upon ourselves and posterity the evils of prospective pauperism. We have been already too prone, in matters relating rather to the luxuries than the necessities of our social system, to give undue preference to the foreigner. British art has, in many branches, been thereby crippled and discouraged, and a cry, not unnatural surely, has ere now been raised against the practice. But how incomparably more dangerous it would be to inundate the country with an alien population, whose mere brute strength, without a particle of productive skill, is their only passport and certificate! This too, be it observed, is not for the purpose of establishing or furthering a branch of industry which can furnish permanent employment, but merely for carrying out a system of great change certainly, but of limited endurance. If labour required to be forced, it would certainly be more for our advantage to revise our penal institutions, and to consider seriously whether those who have committed offences against our social laws, might not be more profitably employed in the great works of the kingdom, than by transplanting them as at present to the Antipodes at a fearful expense, the diminution of which appears, in all human probability, impossible.
If, then, we are right in our premises, the two leading points which Parliament must steadily regard in forming its decisions connected with the new schemes, are the sufficiency of unfettered capital and the adequate supply of labour. Our conviction is, that neither exist to any thing like the extent which would be required were the present mania allowed to run it