A Visit to the United States in 1841 Part 9

At the suggestion of the benevolent and intelligent superintendent of the Boott Company, we waited to see the people turn out to dinner, at half-past twelve o'clock. We stood in a position where many hundreds pa.s.sed under our review, whose dress, and quiet and orderly demeanor would have done credit to any congregation breaking up from their place of worship. One of the gentlemen with me, who is from a slave State, where all labor is considered degrading, remarked, with emotion, "What would I give if, (naming a near relative in the slave States,) could witness this only for a quarter of an hour!" We dined with one of our abolition friends at Lowell, who informed us that many hundreds of the factory girls were members of the Anti-Slavery Society; and that, although activity in this cause has been pretty much suspended by the division in the ranks of its friends, yet there is no diminution of good feeling on the subject. The following extracts, from a pamphlet published by a respectable citizen of Lowell, will further ill.u.s.trate the moral statistics of the place, which, I believe, can be paralleled by no other manufacturing town in the world. The work is dated July, 1839:--

"There are now in the city fourteen regularly organized religious societies, besides one or two others quite recently established. Ten of these societies const.i.tute a Sabbath School Union. Their third annual report was made on the fourth of the present month, and it has been published within a few days. I derive from it the following facts. The number of scholars connected with the ten schools at the time of making the report, was four thousand nine hundred and thirty-six, and the number of teachers was four hundred and thirty-three, making an aggregate of five thousand three hundred and sixty-nine. The number who joined the schools during the year, was three thousand seven hundred and seventy, the number who left was three thousand one hundred and twenty-nine. About three-fourths of the scholars are females. A large proportion of the latter are over fifteen years of age, and consist of girls employed in the mills. More than five hundred of these scholars have, during the last year, become personally interested in practical piety, and more than six hundred have joined themselves to the several churches. Now let it be borne in mind, that there are four or five Sunday Schools in the city, some of which are large and flourishing, not included in this statement. Let it be borne in mind, too, that a great proportion of these scholars are the factory girls, and furthermore, that these most gratifying results just given, have nothing in them extraordinary--they are only the common, ordinary results of several of the past years. There has been no unusual excitement; no noise, no commotion. Silently, quietly, un.o.btrusively, from Sabbath to Sabbath, in these little nurseries of truth, duty and religion, has the good seed been sowing and springing up--watered by the dews, and warmed by the smiles of heaven--to everlasting life....

"I shall now proceed to enumerate some of the influences which have been most powerful in bringing about these results. Among these are the example and watchful care and oversight of the boarding house keepers, the superintendents, and the overseers.... But a power vastly more active, all pervading and efficient, than any and all of these, is to be found in the jealous and sleepless watchfulness, over each other, of the girls themselves.... The strongest guardianship of their own character, as a cla.s.s, is in their own hands, and they will not suffer either overseer or superintendent to be indifferent to this character with impunity.

"The relationship which is here established between the Sunday school scholar and her teacher--between the member of the church and her pastor--the attachments which spring up between them, are rendered close and strong by the very circ.u.mstances in which these girls are placed. These relationships and these attachments take the place of the domestic ties and the home affections, and they have something of the strength and fervency of these."

The next extract shows their prosperity in a pecuniary point.

"The average wages, clear of board, amount to about two dollars a week. Many an aged father or mother, in the country, is made happy and comfortable, by the self-sacrificing contributions from the affectionate and dutiful daughter here. Many an old homestead has been cleared of its inc.u.mbrances, and thus saved to the family by these liberal and honest earnings. To the many and most gratifying and cheering facts, which, in the course of this examination I have had occasion to state, I here add a few others relating to the matter now under discussion, furnished me by Mr. Carney, the treasurer of the Lowell Inst.i.tution for Savings. The whole number of depositors in this inst.i.tution, on the 23d July, was nineteen hundred and seventy-six; the whole number of deposits was three hundred and five thousand seven hundred and ninety-six dollars and seventy cents, (about 60,000.) Of these depositors, nine hundred and seventy-eight are factory girls, and the amount of their funds now in the bank, is estimated by Mr. Carney, in round numbers, at one hundred thousand dollars, (about 20,000.) It is a common thing for one of these girls to have five hundred dollars (about 100 sterling) in deposit, and the only reason why she does not exceed this sum is the fact, that the inst.i.tution pays no interest on any larger sum than this. After reaching this amount, she invests her remaining funds elsewhere."

In confirmation of this description of the state of the Lowell population, I have obtained, through the kindness of a friend in Ma.s.sachusetts, the following parallel statistics to a recent date:--

"PUBLIC SCHOOLS.--By the report of the school committee for the year ending on the 5th of Fourth Month (April) 1841, it appears that the whole number of pupils in the schools, who attended during the whole or part of the year, was 5,830. The whole amount expended by the city for these schools, during the year, was 18,106 dollars, 51 cents.

"SABBATH SCHOOLS.--The number of scholars and teachers in the Sabbath Schools, connected with the various religious societies in Lowell, during the year ending on the 5th of Seventh Month (July) 1841, was 5,493.

"SAVINGS BANK.--The Lowell Inst.i.tution for Savings, in its report of Fifth Month (May), 1840, acknowledges 328,395 dollars, 55 cents, deposits, from 2,137 persons; together with 16,093 dollars, 29 cents, nett amount received for interest on loans and dividends in stocks, less expense and dividends paid--making in all, 344,488 dollars, 84 cents; nett amount of interest, 24,714 dollars, 61 cents. Within the year, 120,175 dollars, 69 cents, had been deposited, and 70,384 dollars, 24 cents, drawn out.

"PAUPERS.--The whole expense of the city for the support of the poor, during the year ending on the 31st of Twelfth Month (December) 1840, was 2,698 dollars, 61 cents."

As a proof, slight yet significant, of the spread of intellectual cultivation, I ought not to omit a notice of the "Lowell Offering," a little monthly magazine, of original articles, written exclusively by the factory girls. The editor of the _Boston Christian Examiner_ commends this little periodical to those who consider the factory system to be degrading and demoralizing; and expresses a doubt "whether a committee of young ladies, selected from the most refined and best educated families in any of our towns and cities, could make a fairer appearance in type than these hard-working factory girls."

The city of Lowell has been distinguished by British tourists as the Manchester of the United States; but, in view of the facts above related, an American has declared it to be "_not_ the Manchester of the United States."

Besides the general prosperity of the operatives, the shareholders in the different corporations divide from eight to fifteen per cent, per annum on their capital.

The inquiry naturally suggests itself, why the state of things in the manufacturing districts of Great Britain should be so widely different from this? Some may satisfy themselves by recollecting that England is an old and America a young country; though, to my mind, this affords no reasonable explanation of the contrast--since, from the possession of surplus capital, complete machinery, and facility of communication, et cet., the advantages for _commerce and manufactures_, under a system of perfectly unrestricted exchange, must preponderate greatly in favor of the former. But whatever the solution of the difficulty, it is quite evident that the statesman who would elevate the moral standard of our working population, must begin by removing the physical depression and dest.i.tution in which a large proportion of them, without any fault of their own, are compelled to drag out a weary and almost hopeless existence. To some peculiarly const.i.tuted minds, "over-production" is the explanation of the present appalling distresses of this country; and what they are pleased to consider a healthy state of things, is to be restored by a diminution of production;--yet nothing is more certain, than that the largest amount of production which has ever been reached, is not more than adequate to supply our increasing population with the necessaries of life, on even a very limited scale of comfort. A diminished production implies the starving down of the population to such a diminished number as may obtain leave to toil, and leave to subsist, from legislators, who, either in ignorance or selfishness, set aside nature's laws, and disregard the plainly legible ordinances of Divine Providence. If we reflect on the part which commerce is made to perform in the moral government of the world, on the one hand as the bond of peace between powerful nations, by creating a perpetual interchange of temporal benefits; and, on the other, as the channel for the diffusion of blessings of an intellectual and spiritual kind; we are conducted irresistibly to the conclusion, that any arbitrary interruption of its free course must draw down its own punishment.

Though the laws of nature may not permit the limited soil of this country to grow food enough for its teeming population, yet while Great Britain possesses mineral wealth, abundant capital, and the largest amount of skilled industry of any nation in the world, the tributary supplies of other countries would not only satisfy our present wants, but would, I firmly believe, with an unfettered commerce, raise our working population, the most numerous, and by far the most important part of the community, to the same level of prosperity as the same cla.s.s in the United States. Then would there be more hope for the success of efforts to elevate the standard of moral and intellectual cultivation among them, for as an improvable material they are no way inferior to any population upon earth. John Curtis of Ohio, a free trade missionary to this country, has published a pamphlet full of important statistical facts, ill.u.s.trating the suicidal policy of Great Britain, from which I venture to take the following extracts:

"England already obtains luxuries in superabundance; but these can never supply the wants of her artizans--they demand substantial bread and meat, and a market where their labor can procure these necessaries. Tropical climates are not adapted to supply their wants. For this reason trade either with the East or West Indies cannot give effectual relief: it may furnish luxuries, but England is overstocked with them already. The food of tropical climates, with the exception of rice, is not calculated for export. The people of England, if they are to import food, need the production of a climate similar to their own. In this respect America is well adapted to supply them.

"All parts of the United States between thirty-seven and forty-four degrees of north lat.i.tude will produce wheat. But that part of the country best adapted to furnish an abundant supply is, beyond all question, the northern part of the Mississippi valley, and the contiguous country south of the great lakes. It has been styled _par excellence_ the wheat-growing region of America. Within its limits lie the six north-western States of the American Union, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Iowa, and Wiskonsan (including as States the two territories of Iowa and Wiskonsan, about to be admitted into the Union.) These States, exclusive of two hundred thousand square miles, the t.i.tle to which is yet mostly in the Indian tribes, cover an area of two hundred and thirty-six thousand and eleven square miles. The country is, generally, an undulating prairie, interspersed with groves of trees, and unbroken by hill or mountain. The soil commonly rests upon a strata of limestone, is fertile beyond description, and abundantly watered by the finest springs and streams. Its climate is clear and salubrious, and the country as well calculated as any other on the globe to minister to the support and happiness of civilized man. As already explained, for an inland country, it possesses unequalled facilities for foreign intercourse and commerce, by means of its great lakes and rivers. The most distant parts of it are now reached in twenty days from Liverpool. The energies of the American people have been chiefly expended, during the last few years, in opening and taking possession of this region, which they consider destined to become the future seat of American wealth and greatness.

"Wheat once formed a leading article in the exports of the United States. The trade of that country with Great Britain was then double the present amount in proportion to the number of the population. Had the trade of the two countries continued free, it would have increased with the increase of population and capital. The legitimate exchange trade has decreased between England and America for thirty years. What part has the restrictive system had in producing this result? A few facts may enable us not only to answer this question, but to antic.i.p.ate the consequences of a continuance of the same policy. From the time of the revolutionary war in America until 1812, the trade between the two countries regularly increased with the increase of the population. The average annual consumption of foreign merchandise in the United States for each inhabitant was,

From 1790 to 1800, 39s. 4d.

" 1800 to 1810, 41s. 8d.

"In 1812 came the second American war, and in 1815 the British corn law, which was promptly followed by the high American tariff of 1816. For ten years prior to 1830, the annual average consumption of merchandize had fallen to 22s. 6d., while the population of the States was nearly double, and their capital treble that of the ten years preceding 1810. Soon after 1830 followed the modification of the American tariff, and the importations based on the great transatlantic loans of that period. But, notwithstanding the stimulation and extravagance of the time, the average annual consumption amounted to only 31s.

per head of foreign produce during the ten years prior to 1840.

Abating the importation based on the loans of the last few years, and the trade of England with the United States has not increased in amount for the last thirty years, while the population of England has increased from eighteen to twenty-seven millions, and that of the States from seven to seventeen millions.

"Let the reader observe this, that in the Eastern States, in that of Ma.s.sachusetts, for instance, in which State Boston is situated, the people bring a large part of their food from the Western States, where they obtain it in exchange for their manufactures. If free trade were allowed, is it possible for any man to give a reason why the manufacturer and laborer of Manchester would not be able to do as well as the manufacturer and laborer of Boston now does, abating the difference of transporting goods and grain across the Atlantic? At least, the consequence would be an extension of trade, and employment equal to the amount of food which would, in such case, be brought from America; and the limit to this quant.i.ty will be found only when the wants of Englishmen are supplied, and their ability to pay exhausted. The ability of America to supply any required quant.i.ty of food has already been shown. There lie the broad lands, ready for cultivation as soon as there shall be a demand for the produce. And if seventeen millions of people, sent chiefly from England, or descended from those who have been sent, are not sufficient to raise the requisite quant.i.ty of provisions demanded of them by those who remain in the parent country, then let more be sent, for the land lies equally open to the people of all nations.

"Then, as to the ability of Englishmen to pay for all they want, let us ask, what those who produce the food, or those who bring it, can want in exchange that England cannot furnish? Gold, it is said.[A] But for what do they want gold but to purchase other supplies than food? and as they would then have the means to pay, England would be the very country which, of all others, could supply them to advantage. Whatever was wanted which her own artizans do not produce themselves, they could still supply.

Englishmen would not at all be confined to a direct sale or exchange of their goods with the wheat grower, but can give him the merchandize of India and China, and the fruits of the tropics, for which English manufactures would pay. If the idle mills and idle laborers of England could at once be set at work to produce food for the people, new activity would be imparted to trade in every part of the world--from India to the frozen regions of Greenland and Labrador. But, on the other hand, how is it possible for England to extend her foreign trade while the present restrictions continue? Even with such a country as India, reduced under British sway, it cannot be done except by diminishing the commerce with other countries to the same extent. England cannot, in her present condition, greatly increase her consumption of such merchandize as India can furnish, or dispose of such merchandize abroad, to any great extent, for the reasons already given.

[Footnote A: "Englishmen, reasoning from a restricted course of trade, are constantly p.r.o.ne to the belief that the purchase of foreign corn, from some unexplained necessity, must take away their gold. Americans, from the same cause, reason in the same manner respecting the purchase of foreign goods. Under the action of the restrictive system, there may be some truth in the reasonings of each party, but they certainly form a beautiful running commentary upon each other."]

"As to any proposed gain by the Colonial trade, it is the very thing rejected by the restrictions on the trade with the United States. What are these States but the greatest colonies ever planted by Great Britain? and their independence does not at all prevent England from deriving all the advantage from them ever to be derived from colonies. The only good which England can derive from her extensive colonization is not to be gained by swaying a barren sceptre over distant colonies, but by spreading abroad her race, her language, her civilization, and thus enlarging the sphere of her commerce. Under a free system of intercourse England would not derive less benefit, at present, from the United States than if they had remained a part of the British dominions, for if trade were free, they would not trade the less because of their independence, or furnish less food, or at higher prices. England, however, seems determined to sacrifice all the advantages which naturally accrue to her from having colonized the finest part of the New World, and to refuse the abundance and relief thus providentially prepared by her own offspring."

The great importance of these extracts is the best apology for their length--but there is yet another branch of the subject. A country whose population is beyond its means of supply from its own soil, has no resources but that of her manufactures and foreign trade; if these be dried up, her people must emigrate or starve. But the United States has an alternative;--her first and best resource,--and the most profitable application of her industry is in her broad and fertile lands, the superabundant produce of which would not only feed, but, by exchange, clothe her population, and supply them with all the comforts of civilized life. She cannot avail herself of this to its full extent without our aid. But, if we refuse to trade on equal terms, her wants will not, therefore, go unsupplied. She can manufacture for herself--her resources for manufactures and commerce are, at least, equal to our own, with the exception of capital and population, which the lapse of a few more years will supply.

"The present may justly be considered a crisis in the commercial policy of America. If it be decided that foreign markets are to continue closed against American corn--if England, which is the princ.i.p.al corn market of the world, refuse to exchange the produce of her mills and workshops for that of the fields of the Americans, they have no other alternative than to erect mills and workshops from which to supply themselves. The effect of such a course would prove decisive on the trade with England, and go far to complete the ruin so effectually begun by the British corn law and corresponding restrictions. If forced from employment on the land, which an abundant and fertile soil has naturally made their most profitable one, it will be found that the Americans lack neither the talent, the energy, nor the means, at once to extend their present manufactures to the full supply of their own wants. They have water-power, coal, and iron, in greater natural abundance and perfection than any other part of the world."[A]

[Footnote A: "The United States are computed to contain not less than eighty thousand square miles of coal, or sixteen times as much as Europe. One of these coal fields extends nine hundred miles in length. The State of Pennsylvania has ten thousand square miles of coal and iron. Great Britain and Ireland have two thousand. All the north-western States of America contain large quant.i.ties of coal. The coal strata of the States generally lie above the level of the streams, and the coal is taken from the hill sides. The beds of coal and iron are to a great extent contiguous."]

This is not mere theory. The developement is actually begun:

"A few years since, the country smiths, and the matrons with their daughters at the household wheel and loom, were the princ.i.p.al manufacturers of America. Now the cotton mills alone are computed at one thousand, and the capital invested in manufacturing machinery at 23,500,000. The estimated value of some of the princ.i.p.al articles of manufacture is as follows:

Woollens, 15,750,000 Cotton, 11,250,000 Leather, 9,000,000 Hats and Caps, 3,575,000 Linen, 1,350,000 Paper, 1,350,000 Gla.s.s, 1,125,000 Iron and Steel, 11,250,000

"Some idea of the rapidity with which the American manufactures are now capable of being extended, may be formed from the past progress of the cotton manufacture. The consumption of raw cotton was,

In 1833, 196,000 bales.

1835, 236,700 "

1837, 246,000 "

1839, 276,000 "

"The United States already supply two-thirds of their own consumption of cottons. At the above rate of increase--of nearly fifty per cent, in five years--America will much more than supply its own market in five years to come. Never has the manufacturing interest of the United States been in as prosperous and sound a condition as at present. They need no high tariff to protect them against British compet.i.tion. _The English corn law is their best protection_."

It is the restrictive policy of Great Britain that has called into existence Lowell and the manufacturing cities of the United States, producing an immense amount of articles which were once the sole products of British industry and skill. If the same policy is continued, the prosperity of the United States will be impeded, but that of England will be destroyed.

The following is an extract from the memorial of Joshua Leavitt to Congress, on the wheat interests of the North Western States:

"Should it, indeed, come to be settled that there is to be no foreign market for these products, the fine country under contemplation is not, therefore, to be despaired of. Let the necessity once become apparent, and there will be but one mind among the people of the North-west. The same patriotism which carried our fathers through the self-denying non-importation agreements of the revolution, will produce a fixed determination to build up a home market, at every sacrifice. And it can be done. What has been done already in the way of manufactures, shows that it can be done. The recent application of the hot-blast with anthracite coal to the making of iron, and the discovery of a mine of natural steel, would be auxiliaries of immense value. We could draw to our factories the best workmen of Europe, attracted less by the temptation of wages, than by the desire to leave liberty and land as the inheritance of their children. But it would take a long time to build up a manufacturing interest adequate to supply the wants of the Northwest, or to consume the produce of these wide fields; and the burden of taxation for internal improvements, uncompleted and unproductive, would be very heavy and hard to bear: and all the population that is concentrated upon manufactures, is so much kept back from the occupation of that n.o.ble domain; and the national treasury would feel the effects of the curtailment of imports and the cessation of land sales; and the amount of misery which the loss of the American market would occasion to the starving operatives and factory children on the other side of the Atlantic, is worthy to be taken into the account, by every statesman who has not forgotten that he is a man."

If we refuse the Americans as customers, we compel them to become our rivals; and, after supplying their own wants, they will compete with us for the trade of the world, on more than equal terms. Our statesmen may yet employ America to build up the prosperity of our country whilst increasing her own, or they may suffer its rapidly developing and gigantic resources to work out our ruin: the alternative is before them and before the country--but decision must be prompt, for there is no pause in the march of events. However unwise the policy, we cannot be surprised that the American and Continental manufacturer are each applying to his government to follow our example, and protect home trade by fiscal regulations.

This question of trade with America has also most important anti-slavery bearings--and here, again, I find my own views antic.i.p.ated by the able writer already quoted: