XU] coroom GN THEY STATE OF THE OOUNTBY. ¥ 248

talked of improved machinery for a time turning people out
of employment ; Cobden proved with chapter and verse Ziv. 38.
bow gradual the improvement in the power-locms had been,
0d pointed out that Manchester, Bolton, Stockport, snd
other towns in the north, were really the creation of labour-Ving
 machines. Peel bad spoken as if it were merely a
cotton question and a Manchester quesfion : Cobden, out of
the fulness of his knowledge, showed that the stockingframes
 of Nottingham were as idle as tho looms of Stock-Port,
 that the glass-cutters of Stourbridge and the glovers
°f Yeovil were undergoing the same privation as the potbers
of Stoke and the miners of Staffordshire, where five-andbWenty
 thousand were destitute of employment. He knew
of a place where a hundred wedding-rings had been pawned
IR & single week to provide bread ; and of another place
Where men and women subsisted on boiled nettles, and dug
Up the decayed carcase of a COW rather than perish of
hunger, «7 say you are drifting to confnsion,” he exclaimed,
“Without rudder and without compass, . . . . Those who
are 80 fond of laughing at political economy forget that they
have a political economy of their own: and what is it?
That they will monopolize to themselves the fruit of the
Wdustry of the great body of the community—that they
slow the productions of the spindle aud the loom to go
abroad to furnish them with luxuries from the farthest
Corners. of the world, but refuse to permit to be brought
back in exchange what would minister to the wants and
comforts of the lower orders. What would the consequence
 be? Wo are sowing the seeds broadeast for a
Plentiful harvest of workmen in the western world. Thou-3ands
 of workmen are delving in the mines of the western
“Ontinent, where coals can be raised for a shilling a ton.
We are sending there the labourers from our cotton mantfactoricg,
 from omy woollen, and from our silk, They ave

1842.