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Journal at Brussels.
Memoir and Writings, (edited by his sister, Mrs. Bullen).
Commerce and Wealth vs. War
(From a speech in the House, 1837.)
A people well clad and well housed will be sure to provide themselves with all the other comforts of life; and it is the diffusion of these comforts, and the growing taste for them, among all classes of society in Europe, it is the desire of riches, as it is commonly called, that is gradually putting an end to the destructive and bloody game of war, and reserving all the resources hitherto wasted by it, for enterprises of industry and commerce, prosecuted with the fiery spirit which once vented itself in scenes of peril and carnage.
But, sir, the result of all this is that very inequality of wealth, that accumulation of vast masses of it in a few hands, against which we have heard so much said lately, as if it were something inconsistent with the liberties, the happiness, and the moral and intellectual improvement of mankind. Gigantic fortunes are acquired by a few years of prosperous commerce—mechanics and manufacturers rival and surpass the princes of the earth in opulence and splendor. The face of Europe is changed by this active industry, working with such mighty instruments, on so great a scale.
I have travelled in parts of the continent which the spirit of gain, with its usual concomitants, industry and improvement, has invaded since the peace, at an interval of fifteen years, and been struck with the revolution that is going on. There is a singularly beautiful, though rather barren tract of country between Liege and Spa, where, in 1819, my attention had been principally attracted by the striking features of a mountainous region, with here and there a ruin of the feudal past, and here and there a hovel of some poor hind,—the very haunt of the “Wild Boar of Ardennes” in the good old times of the House of Burgundy.
I returned to it in 1835, and saw it covered with mills and factories, begrimed with the smoke and soot of steam-engines; its romantic beauty deformed, its sylvan solitudes disturbed and desecrated by the sounds of active industry, and the busy hum of men. I asked what had brought about so great a change, and found that the author of it,—a man having a more numerous band of retainers and dependents than any baron bold of the fourteenth century, and in every respect more important than many of the sovereign princes on the other side of the Rhine—was an English manufacturer, who had established himself there some twenty years ago, without much capital, and had effected all this by his industry and enterprise.
Such, sir, is the spirit of the age; of course, in this young and wonderfully progressive country, it is more eager and ardent—and therefore occasionally extravagant—than anywhere else. But it is in vain to resist it. Nay, I believe it is worse than vain. It is evidently in the order of nature, and we must take it with all its good and all its evils together.