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THE PROGRESS OF THE NATION . In a late article on this subject we called attention to some of the more striking phenomena which present themselves upon taking a general view of the increase of wealth , in Great Britain , since the commencement of the manufacturing system , and the wretched condition of the poor , notwithstanding all this marvellous accumulation of property . From a table in the last number of M ' Culloch ' s Commercial Dictionary we showed that the rent of land
has increased from £ 17 , 200 , 000 to £ 45 , 600 , 000 since 1775 ; that our shipping has increased from 697 , 300 to 4 , 052 , 160 tons during the same period ; that our consumption of cotton rose from 5 , 000 , 000 lb . in 1775 to 586 , 400 , 000 lb . in 1848 , and the production of iron from 50 , 000 to 1 , 850 , 000 tons ; all proving , as we remarked , how enormously the wealth , property , and production of the country have been increased , what a vast development of its resources has been effected , what an immense increase of available income , of comfort and luxury .
But this increase of wealth and property , as we conceive , does not represent that corresponding improvement in the condition of the great mass of the people which many persons imagine . " On the contrary , " as we stated , " the condition of the English people is in many respects worse . " For example , as regards the amount of taxes per head on the entire population , it is double what it was in 1775 . As regards employment and rate of wages , the most recent information would lead us to believe that a very great deterioration has taken place in most trades during the last twenty or thirty
years . In a very able letter , which will be found in our Open Council * Dr . Smiles , of Leeds , contend !
that we are altogether mistaken in supposing that the condition of the working class is worse than it has been at any former period . He insists that " the farther we recede from modern times the more miserable and hopeless has been their lot . " If he will look a little more closely into the evidence on the subject he will find that as regards the largest single section of the industrious poorthe agricultural labourers—their present condition is very much inferior to what it was during a considerable part of last century . In many of our
agricultural counties the money-rate of wages is very little higher than it was a century ago , while rent , butcher ' meat , milk , butter , cheese , beer , and other articles of food are from 100 to 150 per cent , dearer than they were at the former period . Or , taking a shorter range for the sake of comparison , let him inspect the poor-law returns for the last ten years , and he will find that , notwithstanding all our prosperity , the burden of
pauperism is much greater now than it was ten years ago . . In 1839 the total amount expended for the relief of the poor was £ 4 , 406 , 907 ; in 1849 the sum expended for the same purpose was £ 5 , 792 , 963 . Here we have an increase of £ 1 , 386 , 056 in the cost of pauperism in ten years . Now , an increase of more than thirty per cent , in that ugly item of our national accounts , does not square very well with a statement that the condition of the poor is
improving . Taking the other side of the picture—the enormous accumulation of wealth during the last forty years—we are forced to conclude that our social institutions are greatly to blame when we find so much of that wealth possessed by a comparatively small class of the community . Take the incometax returns , for example , and compare the gross income of the trading and professional classes a short time before the end of the war with what it is now . In 1812 , as we learn from a paper read by Mr . Porter before the British Association , the
total amount of income possessed by persons having incomes from £ 150 to £ 20 , 000 a-year and upward was £ 21 , 247 , 621 ; in 1848 , the gross income possessed by the same class was £ 56 , 990 , 224 . In thirty-six years it had increased nearly two hundred per cent . But this is only a portion of the wealth possessed by the more fortunate classes . Let us now turn to the class deriving their incomes from property . In 1812 , the amount of real property assessed to the income-tax was £ 55 , 784 , 533 ; in 1843 , the amount assessed had increased to
£ 95 , 284 , 497 , an increase of £ 39 , 499 , 964 in thirtyone years . It is thus evident that the gross income of the trading , professional , and property holding classes , excluding those under £ 150 per annum , is £ 75 , 242 , 567 greater than it was in 1812 . Nor is this all the difference . Money is now much more valuable than it was forty years ago . The prices of almost all the auxiliary comforts of life have been very much reduced since 1812 , so that we might safely estimate the real increase of income to the wealthier classes as at least £ 100 , 000 , 000 . Now , the very fact that this large portion of the national wealth is absorbed by a comparatively small portion
of the community might suggest a fear that something was wrong , even had we not arrived at the painful conclusion by looking into the actual condition of the working classes . Let any man enquire among tradesmen , and he will find th « universal complaint is , that very few succeed in making more than a bare living , that hundreds are continually sinking down into pauperism , or adding to that enormous and constantly-increasing unseen , poor rate , with which most of the middle classes are so familiar , in the shape of aid for dependent relatives who have been unfortunate in business , and are unable to procure a living in any trade or
profession . If we turn to the artisan class , the whole of the evidence furnished by the indefatigable commissioners employed by the Morning Chronicle goes to prove that , whatever the nominal rate of wages may be , nearly every trade is greatly overstocked with hands ; that few have constant employment , except those who are willing to work at wages far below the rate fixed by the trade ; and that an immense number are altogether without employment . Now and then , indeed , a case may occur in which a few people make good wages ; but , looking at the principal trades , —those of tailors , shoemakers , ioiners , carpenters , and similar
occupations , it seems beyond all doubt that the total amount of wages earned per thousand men , taking the whole of those connected with any particular trade into account , U very much smaller now than it was in 1812 .
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paration of the Australian colonies from the mother country . His Australian League is to agitate by means of lectures and publications . Means have been found to fetter Dr . Lang by casting him into prison for debt : some untoward friend of the Government has converted the political agitator into a persecuted man . When he last sailed from set
England he sent a letter to the Spectator , ting forth the grievances of his constituents , and declaring that he left the shores of England like another Franklin ; by which he implied that the United States of America are to be reflected in history by the United States of Australia . The Government has done the utmost to give him the opportunity and the aspect of a Franklin .
Mr . Adderley is a country gentleman belonging to the Liberal Conservative section of menibers ; his history is equally remarkable and instructive . He has gained his eminent position by acting as the volunteer representative of the Cape of Good Hope in its quarrel with the Government . The case in dispute between the colony and Downing-street was this . Some sessions back Lord Grey announced £ hat , as convict transportation to Australia in the lump had been discontinued , and as it was necessary to
provide in some way for the redundant convict population of Great Britain , he had resolved to distribute some portion of that population among the colonies to which it had not hitherto been sentamong others , to the Cape ; but he declared that the step would not be taken without previous communications to ascertain the feelings of the colonists . The Cape has had a standing quarrel with the Colonial-office . The descendants of the Dutch farmers had sustained two practical grievances of
the most serious kind ; they had been deprived of their Negro slaves , and , although they necessarily submitted to the decree from home , their stable minds bore a grudge against the English office for that act of power . Living chiefly on the border , they have been subject to the inroads of the aboriginal tribes around ; but the " humanity" of the Government at Cape Town has prevented their acting with vigour against the marauders . Under the name of humanity , therefore , the angry Dutch farmers were constrained to see their cattle driven
away before their eyes , and prevented from using the arms in their hands . Many of them rebelled against the Government , and , after much vain contest , they attempted to pass the English border , in order to establish an independent settlement at Port Natal . They were reduced by a large military force . It is this colony which receives Lord Grey ' s announced intention , in breach of former pledges , that convicts are to be sent , if the
colonists are willing to receive them . The colonists make up their minds that they will not receive them , and they call upon the English Government to stand by their previous pledges , more than once repeated * . What is their surprise and disgust when the announcement of Lord Grey ' s intention is followed up , without allowing any time for reply , by an order upon the Government to receive a ship full of convicts from Bermuda . The colonists at once form
an Anti-Convict Association , which provisionally governs the colony upon sufferance . They take a pledge to employ no emigrants from England while the order for admitting convicts should be in force , lest they should employ convicts , to hold no communication with anybody who employs convicts ; and when the convict-ship actually arrives they declare to the Government that they will not furnish Government with provisions or supplies of any kind so long as the convict-ship remains in the bay . They not only demand that the Governor
shall forbid the convicts to land , but that he shall order the ship to sail . He pleads his technical incapacity to do so , —which is unquestionable . They stand by their demand . Some few leading men who show a disposition to flinch are mobbed . The recusants are officially told that their conduct is " rebellion "; but the recognition of their desperate resistance only makes them persevere the more . Ultimately , under orders received from Downing-street , the Government abandons its position ; and the convict-ship sails from the bay .
rhe Cape has rebelled , and is conquered , lo this colony , thus rebelling and thus conquering , Lord John Russell proposes a bonti fide constitution like that of Canada . It appears that while the Whig Government boldly defies its friends at home , snubbing even the most subservient of its most radical supporters , it is generous in patronizing its rebel colonies abroad . The more rebellious , the better treated . It appears from Mr . Adderley's
letter that the Colonial Reform Society , established to concentrate and direct the representation of colonial interests in this country , has been very successful in modifying the course taken by the Government . It has forced Ministers to pay an unusual attention to colonial interests , it has obliged Lord Grey almost to reverse his contemplated policy in the Australian Colonies
Government Bill . Mr . Adderley , the original promoter of the Society , as we have said , attained his eminent position by the vigour and determination with which he enforced the resistance of the Cape ; because , with the consciousness of the important matters at stake in the colonies , the actual conflict , and the resolute determination with which the colonists braved every extremity , his speech acquired the force of an effective influence almost forgotten
in Parliamentary oratory . The colonies , North and South , East and West , perfectly understand the uses of that extreme form of opposition which is dislogistically termed rebellion , and they employ it with a readiness which may alarm our rosewater politicians . In our day men dread the very thought of anything so violent even as a riot , not because they are timid , but because , in the rationalistic view , the idea of " physical force" is ill-bred , unpolite , not comme il faut . It has been almost expressly declared that ,
whatever Ministers choose to do or not to do , resistance to them shall be purely verbal not practical . Opposition in our time is becoming a shadow of traditions without practical weight or force . People talk of " pressure from without , " but it is a pressure devoid of a weight upon the screw . Therefore is it that we get nothing ; we cannot even obtain the most paltry and confessedly just extension of the suffrage . The Whig Ministers will not even do that which they allow to be expedient and necessary . The " pressure from without" is too feeble to carry them even up to their own intentions . Talk of obliging to fulfil their pledges , and they laugh at you . The very Jew Bill which Lord John Russell volunteered to carry , stands over indefinitely . The Colonists it is that recal to us the true meaning of
" pressure from without , " a pressure having some substantial weight on the end of the lever . They teach us that the true position of command for one who would coerce the Government is , to stand on the verge of rebellion . We do not say so in bravado : the conclusion is one inevitably drawn from the facts before us . We have practically given to the Whig Ministry a blank acceptance which they are filling up with noughts session after session . The Colonies rebel —the Colonies obtain what they want ; and knowing the profit of that course they are persevering in it . In England we are degenerate ; it is in the Colonies that we tind the true spirit of Englishmen .
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562 ®! l * yLta ^ tt . [ Satorday ,
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 7, 1850, page 562, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1852/page/10/
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