Harriet Martineau

“ One fine summer morning Armstrong went to his arbour at the bottom of the garden to read the newspaper, preferring the smell of the honeysuckles to the heat of the porch, where the sun was shining in. He had left Margaret busy within doors, as usual at that time of day; and was surprised, when he had done reading and went in for his fishing-tackle, to find her dressed in her best, with her mob-cap and beaver, such as the Welsh women wear, of the shape of a man’s hat. She was putting a clean cloth into the basket which hung on her arm, and preparing to set out. ”

“ You wish to say that though it is a good thing for us capitalists, it is not for you labourers. Hear me while I show you the truth. If we could have brought back the state of the world to what it was four years ago; if we could have made the foreign iron-works melt into air, and some nearer home sink into the ground; if we could have made the demand what it once was, and have raised the prices to the highest ever known, you would not have cared whether we put up machinery or not, because there would have been employment enough for everybody notwithstanding. ”

“ While the race at large has still so many wants and wishes ungratified, it ought to be an easy thing for any quantity of labour which is turned away from one kind of work to find employment in another. That it is not easy, is the fault of the constitution of society, and we should be far from remedying the evil by repressing the principle and restricting the power of labour.”
“So you think that if labour had its free course, all over the world, machinery might be extended to the utmost perfection without doing any thing but good to the whole of the race?” ”

“ It matters nothing to the slave whether his master employs his capital actively or profitably or not; while this is the all-important consideration between the free labourer and his employer. It is the interest of our men and ourselves that the productiveness of our trade should be increased to the utmost; that we should turn out as much work as possible, and that therefore we should improve our machinery, divide our labour to the best advantage, and bring all our processes to the greatest possible perfection. ”

“ Can anything more nearly concern all the members of any society than the way in which the necessaries and comforts of life may be best procured and enjoyed by all? Is there anything in any other study (which does not involve this) that can be compared with it in interest and importance? And yet Political Economy has been less studied than perhaps any other science whatever, and not at all by those whom it most concerns,—the mass of the people. ”

“ All besides who quit their work to-morrow, quit it for ever.”
“Suppose we make you quit your works?” cried an insolent voice.
“You have it in your power to do so by withdrawing your labour; but the day when yonder furnaces are out of blast will be the day of your ruin. If you force us to choose between two evils, we had rather close our concern, and go whence we came, than carry on the most prosperous business under the control of those who depend on our capital for subsistence.” ”

“ Labour is saved by machinery, when a machine either does what man cannot do so well, or when it does in a shorter time, or at a less expense, the work which man can do equally well in other respects. This last was the case with our new machinery. It did not, like the furnaces and rollers, do what man could not do; but it did in a quicker and cheaper manner what man had hitherto done. It was a saving of labour; and as all saving of labour is a good thing, our machinery was a good thing. ”

“ Wallace looked doubtfully at him, as if to ask whether they had not better save his wife from alarm by being private. Armstrong understood him.
“Sit down, madam, if you please,” said he. “Women are not often so cowardly as they are said to be, if they are but treated fairly, and given to understand what they are to expect. It is too much to look for courage from such as know that the worst they have to dread is often kept from them. So you shall hear, ma’am, and judge for yourself. ”

“ My own convictions, from all that I heard, were, that no man can be properly regarded as an enemy to the public who so manages his capital as that it may produce the largest returns, whether that capital consists of ten thousand acres, with droves of cattle and spacious granaries, or of half an acre with a single pig. If a man obtains his property by fair purchase, and makes it produce the utmost that it can, he is a friend to the public as well as to himself and his family; since production is the aim of all such management, and the interest of every individual in the society. ”

“ If statesmen and legislators saw that usages and laws must be varied with lapse of time and change of circumstances, we should be freed from many useless institutions. If our men of power saw that what is beneficial to a country in one age may be hurtful in another, we should have a better economy and a wiser distribution of our wealth. If our people discerned the same thing, they would leave off complaining of new measures because they are not old, and railing against their best friends because the advice they offer would not have suited the condition of our grandfathers. ”

“ Indeed, I hope to find we are, for unless some change can be made in our mode of operation, I shall be quite at a loss to know what answer to make to all the entreaties for help in the works we have in hand. Our people seem to think I can command labour to any extent.”
“All governors,” said Mr. Stone, “are supposed to have boundless resources, and are doomed to disappoint their subjects. You only pay the regular tax for your dignity. But do you think there is a proper economy of labour in our society?” ”

“ There are no bounds to what labour can do when directed by knowledge.”
“We were saying one night over our fire, captain, (as I dare say you remember,) that it is Nature that works, and that human labour only brings her materials together. Now,—as we do not know nearly all the materials that there are in nature, nor nearly all the different ways in which they may be combined, we do not know nearly all that human labour can do.” ”

“ If his master had followed his advice, his plantations would not only have made a very extraordinary zig-zag patchwork, but the expense of fencing round so many odd angles would have exceeded the saving in good land; to say nothing of the advantage lost to the trees planted in a poor soil by having none of the protection of more flourishing neighbours. Sir Henry and his forester laughed together at the idea of having his plantations look like an assortment of pincushions, and of rearing a mile of fence where half a mile would do, for the sake of saving a few acres more for the plough. ”

“ Till all the arts and sciences are exhausted, till Nature has furnished the last of her resources, and man found the limit of his means of making use of them, the greatest possible supply of human labour is wanted, and it is our duty to make the utmost possible saving of it.”
“I remember,” said his wife, “what the captain said about labour being a power of which man is the machine; and I see how it must be for man’s advantage to economise this power to the utmost. But I cannot reconcile this with the evils caused by the introduction of machinery where labour is abundant.” ”

“ Some who went away to find work, returned continually to spread discontent wherever they could, and to aggravate the existing distress by adding ill-will to poverty and anxiety. On pay-days especially, they gathered round the doors when the people went to receive their wages, and laughed at them for the smallness of their earnings, and tried to exasperate them by reminding them how much was now done by wood and iron that was till lately wrought by human labour, and how prosperous they had all been once when less machinery was in use. ”

“ If printing and paper-making, for instance, were still unknown, we should have no newspapers; if the machinery were very imperfect, they would be so expensive as to be within reach of none but the wealthy; but, as the produce of both arts is abundant and therefore cheap, we find newspapers in every alehouse, and if it were not for a duty which has nothing to do with their production, we should see them lying in many a cottage window. Thus the public are equally obliged to the owners of printing presses and their workmen. These workmen are obliged to the masters whose capital sets them to work ”

“ He took no notice of the neighbours, whether they laughed at him for a miser, or whether he might have laughed in his turn at their petitions for a loan of money. Altogether, those who cared for Paul had as much sorrow as comfort on his account; for if it was a pleasant thing to see one who was once a beggar acquiring property every day, it was a sad thought that he could not enjoy his earnings reasonably, but pinched himself with want and care as much as if he had still been a beggar. ”

“ If it has been interesting to watch and assist the improvement of domestic economy from the days of feudal chiefs till now, can it be uninteresting to observe the corresponding changes of a state? If it has been an important service to equalize the lot of the hundred members of a great man’s family, it must be incalculably more so to achieve the same benefit for the many millions of our population, and for other nations through them. ”

“ In some districts the soil is so fertile that it repays most amply whatever labour is spent upon it. On the banks of certain rivers, and sometimes throughout a whole province, the little farmers are very comfortably off as long as they make their children provide for themselves by some other way than cutting the land into strips. But I think I may say that wherever capital is required to improve the soil, and wherever an estate is liable to be divided into roods, or half and quarter roods, such a possession is more of a curse than a blessing to the owner and to society. ”

“ It was a singular sight to see the gentlemen and Paul, and a portion of the mob labouring together at the fire, while the rest of the rioters were pushing their work of destruction, unresisted but by the small force of orderly work-people, which they soon put to flight. It was the aim of the leaders to show that they confined their vengeance to the machinery; but when vengeance once begins, there is no telling where it will stop. The very sight of the fire was an encouragement to the evil-disposed, and many thefts were committed and much violence done which had no connection with machinery. ”

“ In the morning he pays his devotions after the manner of society,—the last social custom he has retained. In the afternoon, when the weather is fine, he climbs yonder peak, with a microscope in his pocket and his telescope in his hand, and there he by turns examines the heaths and mosses under foot, and looks out for fleets on the far horizon, repeating at intervals with the full power of his voice, the hundred and fourth—his favourite psalm. ”

“ Hal once observed to Gray that he wondered he could spend so much time and toil on his bit of ground, such a trifle as it was.
“It is no trifle to me,” said Gray. “The time I spend upon it is not great; and as for the toil,—a man with eight children must never grudge labour.”
“Why now, Gray, how much time do you spend on your plot? I see you at work when I get out of bed every morning; and when I come back from the Arms in the twilight, I hear your everlasting spade behind the hedge.” ”

“ I looked on every labourer as a public benefactor who put his wages out to increase, 33either on his slip of garden-ground, or in improving the condition of his cow and pigs, or in the Savings Bank. Every man who assists the accumulation of cattle is a public benefactor, because he improves the fund for the employment of labour, and adds to the means of human subsistence and comfort. It was now George Gray’s turn to try what he could do for society by improving his own condition. ”

“ Prest, the butcher’s wife, “have done so much, setting aside your farm, that it would be a sin to say you have not toiled night and day for us. If there was a person sick or unhappy, or if your advice was wanted any hour in the twenty-four, you were always ready to help us. But you would not call yourself a labourer, would you?”
“Certainly,” replied Mr. Stone. “There is labour of the head as well as of the hands, you know. Any man who does anything is a labourer, as far as his exertion goes.” ”

“ If some one had discovered a gold mine in the midst of their dwellings, he would not have conferred such means of wealth as Richard by his single waggon-load of wood and iron. Labour was that of which there was the greatest deficiency in the community; and the means of shortening and easing labour was therefore the most valuable present which could be conferred. While the gentlemen understood this fully, the children picked it up after their own manner. One had heard his father say that if he could but lay his hand on a plough again, he should feel as much at ease as a prince ”

“ We propose to show what Labour can effect, and how it is to be encouraged and economized and rewarded: to treat of Capital, its nature and operation, and the proportions of its increase; and to exhibit the union of these two mighty agents of Production. Under the second head, Distribution, occur the great questions of Rent, Profits, Wages, and Population, the various modes of Interchange at home and abroad, including the consideration of all Monopolies, domestic and foreign. Under the third head, Consumption, are considered the modes of Demand and Supply, and of Taxation. ”

“ If the net were now lying ready on the bank, we should be no better for the fish, unless some one took the trouble of drawing them out of the water. I do not say that unassisted labour will furnish us with all that we want; but I do say that nothing can be had without the exertion of getting it; that is, that there is no wealth without labour.”
“True,” said the captain. “Even the manna in the wilderness would have been of no more use to the Hebrews than the carp in the pool to us, if they had not exerted themselves to gather it up. Food was never yet rained into the mouth of any man.” ”