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whose men can never get drunk, unless he chooses they shall do so? and
who, so far from being able to raise their wages by combination, are obliged
to take whatever pittance he thinks it most for his interest to allow. In all
other manufactories those members of a family who can and will work
must earn enough to maintain, not only themselves, but those who either
cannot or will not work. Each master of a family must earn enough to
maintain, or at least help maintain, a wife, and to maintain such as
are yet helpless amongh his children My manufacturer's workmen, however
cramped in other respects, have the good or ill fortune to be freed from this
incumbrance: a freedom, the advantage of which will be no secret to their
master, who, seeing he is to have the honour of their custom in his
capacity of shopkeeper, has taken care to get the measure of their earning
to a hairs breadth. What other manufacturers are there, who reap their
profit at the risk of other people, and who have the purse of the nation to
support them, in case of any blameless misfortune? And, to crown the whole by
the great advantage which is the peculiar fruit of this new principle,
what other master or manufacturer is there, who, to appearance constantly,
and in reality as much as he thinks proper, has every look and
motion of each workman under his eye? Without any of these advantages,
we see manufacturers not only keeping their heads above water, but
making their fortunes every day. A manufacturer in this situation
may certainly fail, because so may he in any other. But the probability
is he would not fail; because, even without these great advantages,
much fewer fail than thrive, or the wealth of the country would not
have gone on increasing, as it has done, from the reign of Brutus
to the present. And if political establishments were to wait, till
probability be converted into certainty before trial, Parliament might as
well go to bed at once, and sleep on the same pillow with sister Corovocation.
To speak in sober sadness I do dearly love, as you will know, in
human dealings no less than in divine, to think, and to say, as far as conscience
will allow me, that "whatever is, is right," as well concerning those
things which are done, as conscioning those which have been left undone.
The gentlemen who gave themselves so much trouble about the
Penitentiary-house plan did extremely well: and, for aught I know, the
Gentlemen who put it under the table at last may have done still better: If
you have a mind to share with me in this comfortable feeling, turn once
more to that discarded favourite, and observe what load of expence, some
part then necessary, some part perhaps not altogether so, it was to have thrown
upon the nation; and, at the same time, what will be still more comfortable
to you, how great a pro-portion of that expence would be struck of
by the new and of course still greater favourite which I have ventured
to introduce to you.
In the first place, there was to have been a vast extent of ground
for it was to have had rope-walks, and timber-yards; and it is well it wa
not to have Dockyards. Then, for the sake of healthiness, that ground was to
have had a command of running water; then again, for the convenience of
dignified Inspectors, that ground and that water were to have been in the vicinity
of the metropolis. It was to have been on the banks of the Thames, somewhe
I think, about Wandsworth and Battersea: and a site fit for I know not
how many dozen of the most luxuriant villas, that fancy could conceive
or Christie describe, were to have been buried under it. Seven and twenty
thousand pound, I think, was the price talked of, and for aught I know paid
for the bare ground, before so much as a spade was put in it. As
my Contractors, eighteen or twenty acres of the most unprofitable
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Identifier: | JB/550/222/002 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 550.
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