Those who of late have shown themselves so ready to resist the just claims of labour,who,under the influence of interest and passion,have hurried into the arena with their penal laws,and have come forward,brandishing their parchment statutes,as if they,poor beings,could whip mankind into patience and submission,when these weapons of theirs --these penal laws and parchment statutes --derive all their power,whether for evil or for good,from the sanctity with which we are pleased to invest them,and as if they also did not know that they are as powerless as the meanest individual whom they are so prompt to scourge,except as we are pleased to submit and to honour them --they may thank themselves should their haste and their violence beget a corresponding haste and violence in others;and,should the labourers,who have hitherto shown themselves confiding and submissive --losing that reverence by which laws are invested with power,and to which Government is indebted for its existence --turn their attention from combining for higher wages,to amending the state,and to subverting a system which they must now believe is intended only to support all the oppressive exactions of capital.Ministers are undoubtedly,for the moment,very popular,but it does not require any very enlarged view to predict that by openly committing the Government during the last session of Parliament,when the great mass of the community are able both to scan the motives of their conduct and its consequences,and zealous in doing it,to a contest between capital and labour,taking the side of idleness against industry,of weakness against strength,of oppression against justice,they are preparing more future mischief than any ministry this country has ever seen.They profess liberal principles --and they make laws to keep the labourer in thraldom.By their innovations they encourage inquiry,and convince us the system is neither sacred nor incapable of improvement.They have practically told the labourer there is nothing deserving his reverence,and have excited his hostility both by insult and oppression.
I do not mean,on the present occasion,to point out all the consequences which result from this view of capital,but there is one so important in a theoretical point of view,and so well calculated to relieve the wise system of the universe from the opprobrium which has been cast upon it in these latter times,that I cannot wholly pass it by.An elaborate theory has been constructed to show that there is a natural tendency in population to increase faster than capital,or than the means of employing labour.In Mr Mill's Elements of Political Economy,a work distinguished by its brevity,several sections and pages are devoted merely to announce this truth.If my view of capital be correct,this,as a theory of nature,falls at once baseless to the ground.That the capitalist can control the existence and number of labourers,that the whole number of the population depends altogether on him,I will not deny.But put the capitalist,the oppressive middleman,who eats up the produce of labour and prevents the labourer from knowing on what natural laws his existence and happiness depend,out of view --put aside those social regulations by which they who produce all are allowed to own little or nothing--and it is plain that capital,or the power to employ labour,and co-exiting labour are one;and that productive capital and skilled labour are also one;consequently capital and a labouring population are precisely synonymous.
In the system of nature,mouths are united with hands and with intelligence;they and not capital are the agents of production;and,according other rule,however it may have been thwarted by the pretended wisdom of law makers,wherever there is a man there also are the means of creating or producing him subsistence.If also,as I say,circulating capital is only co-existing labour,and fixed capital only skill labour,it must be plain that all those numerous advantages,those benefits to civilisation,those vast improvements in the condition of the human race,which have been in general attributed to capital,are caused in fact by labour,and by knowledge and skill informing and directing labour.Should it be said,then,as perhaps it may,that unless there be profit,and unless there be interest,there will be no motives for accumulation and improvement,I answer that this is a false view,and arises from attributing to capital and saving those effects which result from labour;and that the best means of securing the progressive improvement,both of individuals and of nations,is to do justice,and allow labour to possess and enjoy the whole of its produce.
