The only way, therefore, in which the physical circumstances of the
great body of mankind can be ameliorated, or room can be afforded for
the moral and intellectual elevation of such of them as have received
from nature minds susceptible of such training, is by restoring
_the equilibrium between the demand for labour and the numbers of
the people_, which our late measures have done so much to subvert.
By that means, and that means _alone_, can the innumerable social
evils under which we labour be alleviated. Without it, all the other
remedies devised by philanthropy, pursued with zeal, cherished by
hope, will prove ineffectual. How that is to be done must be evident
to every person of common understanding. The demand for labour must
be increased, the supply of labour must be diminished. The first can
only be done, by a moderate degree of Protection to Native Industry, at
present beat down to the dust in every department by the competition
of foreign states, where money is more scarce and taxation lighter,
and consequently production is less expensive. The second can only be
attained by a systematic emigration, conducted at the public expense,
and drawing of annually an hundred or an hundred and fifty thousand
of the _most destitute_ of the community, who have not the means of
transport for themselves, and, if not so removed, will permanently
encumber our streets, our jails, our workhouses.
But money is required for these things; and where, it will be asked, is
money to be found in this already overtaxed and suffering community?
The answer is, the money-question is the easiest of all; for it
will be attained in abundance by the very means requisite to attain
the other objects. Protection, even on the most moderate scale, to
Native Industry, is not to be attained without the imposition of
import-duties; and that will at once produce the funds requisite
for the attainment of all these objects. Laid on the importation of
all goods, rude or manufactured, they would yield such a revenue as
would enable us to take off the Income Tax, and thereby let loose
L.5,500,000 a-year, now absorbed by it, for the encouragement of
domestic industry. Agriculture, manufactures of all sorts, would take
a renewed start from the exclusion, to a certain degree, of foreign
competition. Domestic industry would cease to languish, because the
ruinous competition of foreigners working at a third of our wages would
be checked. By these means an ample fund would be raised to enable us
to transport, at the public expense, and comfortably settle in their
new habitations, some hundred thousand annually of the most destitute
class of our people--that class who cannot get away themselves, and,
as they are thrown out of employment by Free Trade, now encumber our
hospitals, jails, and workhouses. We would convert them from paupers
into healthful and sturdy emigrants, doubling in numbers, with constant
additions from the parent state, every ten years; and consuming L.8
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