The Slave Trade, Domestic and Foreign: Why It Exists, and How It May Be ExtinguishedCarey, Henry Charles
History
The Slave Trade, Domestic and Foreign: Why It Exists, and How It May Be Extinguished
Carey, Henry Charles
Labor; Slave trade; Slavery; Slavery -- United States; Tariff -- United States; Working class
As England became more and more flooded with the wretched people of
the sister island, driven from home in search of employment, the
wealthy found it more and more easy to accomplish "the great works"
for which, as the London _Times_ inform us, the country is indebted to
the "cheap labour of Ireland," and the greater the influx of this
labour the more rapid was the decline in the power of both Ireland and
Britain to furnish a market for the products of the manufacturing,
labour of England. Hence arose, of course, a necessity for looking
abroad for new markets to take the place of those before obtained at
home, and thus cheap labour, a _consequence_ of the system, became in
its turn a _cause_ of new efforts at dispensing with and further
cheapening labour. As the Irishman could no longer buy, it became
necessary that the Hindoo should be driven from his own market. As the
Highlander was expelled, it became more and more necessary to
underwork the spinners and weavers of China. As the Bengalese now
become impoverished, there arises a necessity for filling the Punjab,
and Affghanistan, Burmah and Borneo, with British goods. Pauperism
lies necessarily at the root of such a system. "It is," said a speaker
at the late Bradford election for representative in Parliament--
"Its root. That system is based on foreign competition. Now I assert,
that _under the buy cheap and sell dear principle, brought to bear on
foreign competition, the ruin of the working and small trading
classes must go on. Why?_ Labour is the creator of all wealth. A man
must work before a grain is grown, or a yard is woven. But there is
no self-employment for the working-man in this country. Labour is a
hired commodity--labour is a thing in the market that is bought and
sold; consequently, as labour creates all wealth, labour is the first
thing bought. 'Buy cheap! buy cheap!' Labour is bought in the
cheapest market. But now comes the next. 'Sell dear! sell dear!' Sell
what? _Labors produce_. To whom? To the foreigner--ay! and to _the
labourer himself_--for labour not being self-employed, the labourer
is _not_ the partaker of the first-fruits of his toil. 'Buy cheap,
sell dear.' How do you like it? 'Buy cheap, sell dear.' Buy the
working-man's labour cheaply, and sell back to that very working-man
the produce of his own labour dear! The principle of inherent loss is
in the bargain. The employer buys the labour cheap--he sells, and on
the sale he must, make a profit: he sells to the working-man
himself--and thus every bargain between employer and employed is a
deliberate cheat on the part of the employer. Thus labour has to sink
through eternal loss, that capital may rise through lasting fraud.
But the system stops not here. THIS IS BROUGHT TO BEAR ON FOREIGN
COMPETITION--WHICH MEANS, WE MUST RUIN THE TRADE OF OTHER COUNTRIES,
AS WE HAVE RUINED THE LABOUR OF OUR OWN. How does it work? The
high-taxed country has to undersell the low-taxed. _Competition
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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