It has indeed been said by some sapient legislators,both Lords and Commoners,that the journeymen will do themselves incalculable mischief by driving capital out of the country;and one of the reasons urged for the new law was that it would prevent the journeymen injuring themselves.Whenever the devil wants to do mischief he assumes the garb of holiness,and whenever a certain class of persons wish to commit a more than usually flagrant violation of justice it is always done in the name of humanity.If the labourers are disposed blindly to injure themselves I see no reason for the legislature interfering to prevent them;except as a farmer watches over the health of his cattle,or a West India planter looks after the negroes because they are his property,and bring him a large profit.The journeymen,however,know their own interest better than it is known to the legislator;and they would be all the richer if there were not an idle capitalist in the country.I shall not enter into any investigation of the origin of this opinion that the workmen will injure themselves by driving away capital;but it would not be difficult to show that it springs from the false theory I have opposed,and that it is based on a narrow experience.Because there are a few instances of political and religious persecution,driving both masters and journeymen,or a large quantity of national stock of skilled labour,from different countries,greatly,I admit,to the injury,and justly so,of the remaining inhabitants who permitted or practised this persecution,it has been asserted that this injury was caused by the banishment,not of the men but of the capital;and it being,therefore,now concluded that the proceedings of the workmen will in like manner banish capital from this country it has been affirmed that they will injure both themselves and the rest of the inhabitants.But they carry on neither political nor religious persecution,and it is somewhat preposterous in the race of politicians,by way,perhaps,of throwing a veil over their own crimes,to attribute to the actions of the workmen the same consequences as have been produced by some of the absurd and cruel proceedings of their own class.If the workmen do not frighten away the skill of the contriver and the master --and where can that be put to so good a use as where there are plenty of skilful hands --and even if they should,the wide spread of education among the mechanics and artisans will soon repair the loss,they will frighten away no other part of the national advantages.The merest tyro in political economy knows that the capitalist cannot export any great quantity of food,clothing and machines from this country,nor even the gold and silver which forms the current coin of the realm,to any advantage;either he must bring back an equivalent,which returns him a profit when consumed here,or he must carry with him those skilled labourers who have hitherto produced him his profit as they have consumed his food and used his instruments and machines.There is not a political injury on the one hand and both masters and workmen on the other;but on the one side is the labourer and on the other the capitalist,and however successful the workmen may be,the smallest fraction of their produce which the capitalist can scrape up he will assuredly stay to collect.The combination of the workmen will not frighten away their own skill,nor unlearn them what thy have learned.Their hand will not forget its cunning,when its produce goes no longer into the pocket of the capitalist.Capitalists,who can grow rich only where there is an oppressed body of labourers,may probably carry off some of their cloth,and their corn,and their machines to some country like Prussia,where the poor people can learn nothing but what the king and his schoolmasters please;or like France,where a watchful police allows no man to utter a thought but such as suits the views of a government and priesthood anxious to restore despotism and superstition;but they cannot,unless the labourers please,carry with them the mouths which consume,or the hands which make their capital useful;and where these are there will be the productive power.Our labourers already possess in an eminent degree the skill to execute,and they are rapidly acquiring also the skill to contrive.Never was there a more idle threat uttered,therefore,than that the combinations of skilled labourers to obtain greater rewards than they now possess will drive skilled labour from the country.
This analysis also of the operations of capital leads us at once boldly to pronounce all those schemes of which we have of late heard so much for improving countries,by sending capital to them,to be mere nonsense.Of what use,for example,would the butter and salt beef and pork and grain now exported from Ireland be of in that country if they were to be left there,or if they were to be sent back?All these articles form some of the most valuable parts of circulating capital,and so far from there being any want of them in Ireland,they are constantly exported in great quantities.It is plain,therefore,that there is no want of circulating capital in Ireland,if the capitalist would allow the wretched producer of it to consume it.Of what use also would steam engines or power looms or stocking frames or mining tools be to the ragged peasantry of Ireland?Of none whatever.
