ation; production was every day
becoming cheaper; exports and imports in consequence increasing; and all
the external symptoms of the highest prosperity, according to the doctrine
of the _wealth_ of nations, in the most flourishing state. But all these
blessings have been neutralized, and a large portion of the community
precipitated into the most woful degradation, by the operation of the very
causes which have produced this vast increase of wealth, and its
astonishing accumulation in the hands of the commercial community. The
incessant efforts to lessen the cost of production have beat down the
wages of labour, in many departments, to the lowest point; the strenuous
exertions made to facilitate cheaper importation, have reduced the
remuneration of domestic industry to the lowest point consistent with its
existence. Incredible have been the efforts made by all classes to
counterbalance by additional industry this disastrous progress; but the
only effect of these efforts has been to augment the evil complained of,
by increasing the necessity for exertion, and augmenting the mass of
productions with which society is flooded. Production in every line has
come, in ordinary times, to outstrip consumption. Machinery has quadrupled
its power; gorged markets are constantly complained of as depriving
industry of its just, and often of any reward at all. Society has become a
great gambling-house, in which colossal fortunes are made by a few, and
the great majority are turned adrift penniless, friendless, to
destitution, ruin, or suicide. The condition of a considerable portion of
the working-classes has, in this terrible strife, generally been wofully
changed for the worse. Brief periods of high prices, which induce habits
of extravagance among them, are succeeded by long seasons of distress,
which spread the reality of woe. In the desperate effort made to extend
the foreign market, by cheapening production, nearly all the kindly
relations of life have been snapped asunder. The operative is unknown to
the master-employer; he is turned off at a moment's warning into a cold
world, in which he can find no other employment. The tenant is too often
unknown to the landlord; or, at least, strangers are constantly brought on
the land. The labourer, even, is unknown to the farmer; his place can
always be supplied by a stranger, ready, probably, to work for less wages,
because in greater distress. Every thing is put up to auction, and sold t