Rural Rides Page 39

  It is manifest enough, that the population of this valley was, at one time, many times over what it is now; for, in the first place, what were the twenty-nine churches built for? The population of the 29 parishes is now but little more than one-half of that of the single parish of Kensington; and there are several of the churches bigger than the church at Kensington. What, then, should all these churches have been built FOR? And besides, where did the hands come from? And where did the money come from? These twenty-nine churches would now not only hold all the inhabitants, men, women, and children, but all the household goods, and tools, and implements, of the whole of them, farmers and all, if you leave out the wagons and carts. In three instances, FIFIELD, MILSTON, and ROACH-FEN (17, 23, and 24), the church-porches will hold all the inhabitants, even down to the bed-ridden and the babies. What then, will any man believe that these churches were built for such little knots of people? We are told about the great superstition of our fathers, and of their readiness to gratify the priests by building altars and other religious edifices. But, we must think those priests to have been most devout creatures indeed, if we believe, that they chose to have the money laid out in useless churches, rather than have it put into their own pockets! At any rate, we all know that Protestant Priests have no whims of this sort; and that they never lay out upon churches any money that they can, by any means, get hold of.

  But, suppose that we were to believe that the Priests had, in old times, this unaccountable taste; and suppose we were to believe that a knot of people, who might be crammed into a church-porch, were seized, and very frequently too, with the desire of having a big church to go to; we must, after all this, believe that this knot of people were more than giants, or that they had surprising riches, else we cannot believe that they had the means of gratifying the strange wishes of their Priests and their own not less strange piety and devotion. Even if we could believe that they thought that they were paving their way to heaven, by building churches which were a hundred times too large for the population, still we cannot believe, that the building could have been effected without bodily force; and, where was this force to come from, if the people were not more numerous than they now are? What, again, I ask, were these twenty-nine churches stuck up, not a mile from each other; what were twenty-nine churches made FOR, if the population had been no greater than it is now?

  But, in fact, you plainly see all the traces of a great ancient population. The churches are almost all large, and built in the best manner. Many of them are very fine edifices; very costly in the building; and, in the cases where the body of the church has been altered in the repairing of it, so as to make it smaller, the tower, which every where defies the hostility of time, shows you what the church must formerly have been. This is the case in several instances; and there are two or three of these villages which must formerly have been market-towns, and particularly PEWSY and UPAVON (4 and 13). There are now no less than nine of the parishes, out of the twenty-nine that have either no parsonage-houses, or have such as are in such a state that a Parson will not, or cannot, live in them. Three of them are without any parsonage-houses at all, and the rest are become poor, mean, falling-down places. This latter is the case at UPAVON, which was formerly a very considerable place. Nothing can more clearly show, than this, that all, as far as buildings and population are concerned, has been long upon the decline and decay. Dilapidation after dilapidation have, at last, almost effaced even the parsonage-houses, and that too in defiance of the law, ecclesiastical as well as civil. The land remains; and the crops and the sheep come as abundantly as ever; but they are now sent almost wholly away, instead of remaining as formerly, to be, in great part, consumed in these twenty-nine parishes.

  The stars, in my map, mark the spots where manor-houses, or gentlemen’s mansions, formerly stood, and stood, too, only about sixty years ago. Every parish had its manor house in the first place; and then there were, down this Valley, twenty-one others; so that, in this distance of about thirty miles, there stood FIFTY MANSION HOUSES. Where are they now? I believe there are but EIGHT, that are at all worthy of the name of mansion houses; and even these are but poorly kept up, and, except in two or three instances, are of no benefit to the labouring people; they employ but few persons; and, in short, do not half supply the place of any eight of the old mansions. All these mansions, all these parsonages, aye, and their goods and furniture, together with the clocks, the brass-kettles, the brewing-vessels, the good bedding and good clothes and good furniture, and the stock in pigs, or in money, of the inferior classes, in this series of once populous and gay villages and hamlets; all these have been by the accursed system of taxing and funding and paper-money, by the well-known exactions of the state, and by the not less real, though less generally understood, extortions of the monopolies arising out of paper-money; all these have been, by these accursed means, conveyed away, out of this Valley, to the haunts of the tax-eaters and the monopolizers. There are many of the mansion houses, the ruins of which you yet behold. At MILTON (3 in my map) there are two mansion houses, the walls and the roofs of which yet remain, but which are falling gradually to pieces, and the garden walls are crumbling down. At ENFORD (15 in my map) BENNET, the Member for the county, had a large mansion house, the stables of which are yet standing. In several places, I saw, still remaining, indubitable traces of an ancient manor house, namely a dove-cote or pigeon-house. The poor pigeons have kept possession of their heritage, from generation to generation, and so have the rooks, in their several rookeries, while the paper-system has swept away, or, rather swallowed-up, the owners of the dove-cotes and of the lofty trees, about forty families of which owners have been ousted in this one Valley, and have become dead-weight creatures, tax-gatherers, barrack-fellows, thief-takers, or, perhaps, paupers or thieves.

  Senator SNIP congratulated, some years ago, that preciously honourable ‘Collective Wisdom’5 of which he is a most worthy Member; SNIP congratulated it on the success of the late war in creating capital! SNIP is, you must know, a great feelosofer, and a not less great feenanceer. SNIP cited, as a proof of the great and glorious effects of paper-money, the new and fine houses in London, the new streets and squares, the new roads, new canals and bridges. SNIP was not, I dare say, aware, that this same paper-money had destroyed forty mansion houses in this Vale of Avon, and had taken away all the goods, all the substance, of the little gentry and of the labouring class. SNIP was not, I dare say, aware, that this same paper-money had, in this one Vale of only thirty miles long, dilapidated, and in some cases, wholly demolished, nine out of twenty-nine even of the parsonage houses. I told SNIP at the time, (1821), that paper money could create no valuable thing. I begged SNIP to bear this in mind. I besought all my readers, and particularly Mr MATHIAS ATWOOD (one of the members for Lowther-town), not to believe that paper-money ever did, or ever could, CREATE any thing of any value. I besought him to look well into the matter, and assured him, that he would find that though paper-money could CREATE nothing of value, it was able to TRANSFER every thing of value; able to strip a little gentry; able to dilapidate even parsonage houses; able to rob gentlemen of their estates, and labourers of their Sunday-coats and their barrels of beer; able to snatch the dinner from the board of the reaper or the mower, and to convey it to the barrack-table, of the Hessian or Hanoverian grenadier; able to take away the wool, that ought to give warmth to the bodies of those who rear the sheep, and put it on the backs of those who carry arms to keep the poor, half-famished shepherds in order!

  I have never been able clearly to comprehend what the beastly Scotch feelosofers mean by their ‘national wealth’; but, as far as I can understand them, this is their meaning: that national wealth means, that which is left of the products of the country over and above what is consumed, or used, by those whose labour causes the products to be. This being the notion, it follows, of course, that the fewer poor devils you can screw the products out of, the richer the nation is. This is, too, the notion of BURDETT as expressed in his silly
and most nasty, musty aristocratic speech of last session. What, then, is to be done with this over-produce? Who is to have it? Is it to go to pensioners, placemen, tax-gatherers, dead-weight people, soldiers, gendarmerie, police-people, and, in short, to whole millions who do no work at all? Is this a cause of ‘national wealth’? Is a nation made rich by taking the food and clothing from those who create them, and giving them to those who do nothing of any use? Aye, but, this over-produce may be given to manufacturers, and to those who supply the food-raisers with what they want besides food. Oh! but this is merely an exchange of one valuable thing for another valuable thing; it is an exchange of labour in Wiltshire for labour in Lancashire; and, upon the whole, here is no over-production. If the produce be exported, it is the same thing: it is an exchange of one sort of labour for another. But, our course is, that there is not an exchange; that those who labour, no matter in what way, have a large part of the fruit of their labour taken away, and receive nothing in exchange. If the over-produce of this Valley of Avon were given, by the farmers, to the weavers in Lancashire, to the iron and steel chaps of Warwickshire, and to other makers or sellers of useful things, there would come an abundance of all these useful things into this valley from Lancashire and other parts; but if, as is the case, the over-produce goes to the fund-holders, the dead-weight, the soldiers, the lord and lady and master and miss pensioners and sinecure people; if the over-produce go to them, as a very great part of it does, nothing, not even the parings of one’s nails, can come back to the valley in exchange. And, can this operation, then, add to the ‘national wealth’? It adds to the ‘wealth’ of those who carry on the affairs of state; it fills their pockets, those of their relatives and dependants; it fattens all tax-eaters; but, it can give no wealth to the ‘nation’, which means, the whole of the people. National Wealth means, the Commonwealth or Commonweal; and these mean, the general good, or happiness, of the people, and the safety and honour of the state; and, these are not to be secured by robbing those who labour, in order to support a large part of the community in idleness. DEVIZES is the market-town to which the corn goes from the greater part of this Valley. If, when a wagon-load of wheat goes off in the morning, the wagon came back at night loaded with cloth, salt, or something or other, equal in value to the wheat, except what might be necessary to leave with the shopkeeper as his profit; then, indeed, the people might see the wagon go off without tears in their eyes. But, now, they see it go to carry away, and to bring next to nothing in return.

  What a twist a head must have before it can come to the conclusion, that the nation gains in wealth by the government being able to cause the work to be done by those who have hardly any share in the fruit of the labour! What a twist such a head must have! The Scotch feelosofers, who seem all to have been, by nature, formed for negro-drivers, have an insuperable objection to all those establishments and customs which occasion holidays. They call them a great inderance, a great bar to industry, a great drawback from ‘national wealth’. I wish each of these unfeeling fellows had a spade put into his hand for ten days, only ten days, and that he were compelled to dig only just as much as one of the common labourers at Fulham. The metaphysical gentleman would, I believe, soon discover the use of holidays! But, why should men, why should any men, work hard? Why, I ask, should they work incessantly, if working part of the days of the week be sufficient? Why should the people at MILTON, for instance, work incessantly, when they now raise food and clothing and fuel and every necessary to maintain well five times their number? Why should they not have some holidays? And, pray, say, thou conceited Scotch feelosofer, how the ‘national wealth’ can be increased by making these people work incessantly, that they may raise food and clothing, to go to feed and clothe who do not work at all?

  The state of this Valley seems to illustrate the infamous and really diabolical assertion of MALTHUS, which is, that the human kind have a NATURAL TENDENCY, to increase beyond the means of sustenance for them. Hence, all the schemes of this and the other Scotch writers for what they call checking population. Hence all the beastly, the nasty, the abominable writings, put forth to teach labouring people how to avoid having children. Now, look at this Valley of AVON. Here the people raise nearly twenty times as much food and clothing as they consume. They raise five times as much, even according to my scale of living. They have been doing this for many, many years. They have been doing it for several generations. Where, then, is their NATURAL TENDENCY to increase beyond the means of sustenance for them? Beyond, indeed, the means of that sustenance which a system like this will leave them. Say that, Sawneys, and I agree with you. Far beyond the means that the taxing and monopolizing system will leave in their hands: that is very true; for it leaves them nothing but the scale of the poor-book: they must cease to breed at all, or they must exceed this mark; but, the earth, give them their fair share of its products, will always give sustenance in sufficiency to those who apply to it by skilful and diligent labour.

  The villages down this Valley of Avon, and, indeed, it was the same in almost every part of this county, and in the North and West of Hampshire also, used to have great employment for the women and children in the carding and spinning of wool for the making of broad-cloth. This was a very general employment for the women and girls; but, it is now wholly gone; and this has made a-vast change in the condition of the people, and in the state of property and of manners and of morals. In 1816, I wrote and published a LETTER TO THE LUDDITES,6’ the object of which was to combat their hostility to the use of machinery. The arguments I there made use of were general. I took the matter in the abstract. The principles were all correct enough; but their application cannot be universal; and, we have a case here before us, at this moment, which, in my opinion, shows, that the mechanic inventions, pushed to the extent that they have been, have been productive of great calamity to this country, and that they will be productive of still greater calamity; unless, indeed, it be their brilliant destiny to be the immediate cause of putting an end to the present system.

  The greater part of manufactures consists of clothing and bedding. Now, if by using a machine, we can get our coat with less labour than we got it before, the machine is a desirable thing. But, then, mind, we must have the machine at home and we ourselves must have the profit of it; for, if the machine be elsewhere; if it be worked by other hands; if other persons have the profit of it; and if, in consequence of the existence of the machine, we have hands at home, who have nothing to do, and whom we must keep, then the machine is an injury to us, however advantageous it may be to those who use it, and whatever traffic it may occasion with foreign States.

  Such is the case with regard to this cloth-making. The machines are at Upton-Level, Warminster, Bradford, Westbury, and Trowbridge, and here are some of the hands in the Valley of Avon. This Valley raises food and clothing; but, in order to raise them, it must have labourers. These are absolutely necessary; for, without them this rich and beautiful Valley becomes worth nothing except to wild animals and their pursuers. The labourers are men and boys. Women and girls occasionally; but the men and the boys are as necessary as the light of day, or as the air and the water. Now, if beastly MALTHUS, or any of his nasty disciples, can discover a mode of having men and boys without having women and girls, then, certainly, the machine must be a good thing; but, if this Valley must absolutely have the women and the girls, then the machine, by leaving them with nothing to do, is a mischievous thing; and a producer of most dreadful misery. What, with regard to the poor, is the great complaint now? Why, that the single man does not receive the same, or any thing like the same, wages as the married man. Aye, it is the wife and girls that are the burden; and to be sure a burden they must be, under a system of taxation like the present, and with no work to do. Therefore, whatever may be saved in labour by the machine is no benefit, but an injury to the mass of the people. For, in fact, all that the women and children earned was so much clear addition to what the family earns now. The greatest part of the clothing in the U
nited States of America is made by the farm women and girls. They do almost the whole of it; and all that they do is done at home. To be sure, they might buy cheap; but they must buy for less than nothing, if it would not answer their purpose to make the things.

  The survey of this Valley is, I think, the finest answer in the world to the ‘EMIGRATION COMMITTEE’ fellows, and to JERRY CURTEIS (one of the Members for Sussex), who has been giving ‘evidence’ before it. I shall find out, when I can get to see the report, what this ‘EMIGRATION COMMITTEE’ would be after. I remember, that, last winter, a young woman complained to one of the Police Justices, that the Overseers of some parish were going to transport her orphan brother to Canada, because he became chargeable to their parish! I remember also, that the Justice said, that the intention of the Overseers was premature’; for that ‘the BILL had not yet passed’! This was rather an ugly story; and I do think, that we shall find, that there have been, and are, some pretty propositions before this ‘COMMITTEE’. We shall see all about the matter, however, by-and-by; and, when we get the transporting project fairly before us, shall we not then loudly proclaim ‘the envy of surrounding nations and admiration of the world’!