vessels only, whilst in 1833 nearly 1300 ships entered its port. Our exports to Russia in 1700 hardly amounted to £60,000: they have since increased upwards of forty-fold, having reached in 1820 no less a sum than £2,300,000. The army of Peter at his death did not exceed 15,000 men; the military resources of his successor Nicholas are at least 1,000,000 of disciplined soldiers: the Russian navy has sprung from a single ship, partly built by the first Czar himself: it is now found riding in all parts of the world. On the Black Sea alone, she had in 1834 fifty men-of-war, and her arsenals are crowded with workmen, whilst the Turkish fleet may be said literally to be hers, as it is completely in her power. Of her finance we know little officially, but we know that her money resources must be far above her internal wants: we know, too, that she fought through a war that burdened us with a debt to the amount of millions, without drawing one farthing extra from her people; and we know that all her establishments are in a state of the greatest efficiency. Her public debt is trivial; and she is a creditor of England, Persia, and Turkey.

Thus in one century has Russia risen from the dust, and placed herself in the van of European States. Can it for a moment be supposed that a power which has done this is wanting in means to hold her position, or that her resources are an indigested mass incapable of being brought to bear upon any one given point? It is an error to think so. Her policy destroyed Napoleon. Continental Europe was at his feet; but Russia, more elastic in her young strength than the old governments, crushed the most magnificent army that ever collected under one man, and exacted a dreadful retribution from the invader of her territories.

The government of Russia is a pure despotism, and her energies are swayed at the will of her sovereign without let or control. Religion, which in other States has erected itself as a great and often an independent imperium in imperio, is here merged in the Crown. The Emperor is to his own subjects what the Pope has been to Christendom, and what the Khalifs were to the Moslem; he is their temporal and spiritual lord, and thus concentrates in his own person the two agents most powerful in their operation on mankind-superstition and the possession of unlimited power. His wishes are laws, and this gives a readiness of action unknown to other modern nations: the political rights of the people are the will of the sovereign, as there is no middle class to serve as a breakwater between it and the serfs it is the emperor and his vassals, the master and his slaves.

With an army of one million ready for emergencies-with military colonies, generating races of soldiers-with a navy already numerous and well appointed-with a flourishing revenue and extending commerce with the blind submission of an immense population-with despotic power, and with a perfect knowledge of her positionRussia becomes an object for anxious deliberation: she undoubtedly holds the destinies of Europe in her hands. England may be considered as her chief counterpoise-the one mighty from territorial extent, and the other equally mighty by her commercial resources. We might fail to check the onward career of Russia;

but as the addition of Turkey would complete her frontier and change the present States System of Europe, we are bound to look warily upon her progress. No words but those of peace proceed from the lips of the Emperor; but his peace is the peace of war: his policy has been—

"In pace, ut sapiens, aptarit idonea bello."

We are desirous that war should be avoided, and we have given the best evidences of this, perhaps, in the utter absence of opposition to the designs of Russia; but it cannot be that kingdom after kingdom shall disappear from amongst the family of European States: the compact that binds them together will not permit of such easy severance, and we are compelled in a spirit of doubt to say to her

and to ask why such immense preparations-why a military establishment so formidable-and why are fortresses and dockyards in all the bustle of active preparation?

We think the time is not remote when our statesmen will discover that the resources of Russia are in an available condition, and not in that crude state, the belief of which has cradled us into supineness and neglect. Principles are developing themselves here and elsewhere that are viewed with evil eyes by more than one continental potentate; and the apology for war may be sought in the open seizure of a defenceless friend. Diplomacy is at work: whether it tends to give up peaceable possession of one of the most productive and improvable portion of the world to a nation already overgrown, for the safety of the balance of European power, remains to be seen. We think it does tend to that, unless home politics should render a foreign collision desirable. France, as well as ourselves, is placed in a delicate and moveable position, whilst the more immediate neighbours of Russia may be literally said to be overshadowed by her Eagle's wing. The horizon has more than one tempest cloud upon it: causes are at work, the effects of which cannot long be kept in check. It would be presumptuous and perhaps idle to vaticinate too minutely on the events of the next year, but

"The end crowns all;

And that old common arbitrator-Time,
Will one day end it."

The statistics of this empire are so little known, that an exposé of them will be a labour of some value. The necessity for keeping down to data may perhaps make the subject a dry one, but its importance must be our apology for entering in our future numbers at some length into it.

THE COTTON MANUFACTURERS.*

"THE ancient feeling of contempt entertained by the country gentlemen towards the burghers, which vented itself during the lawless period of the middle ages in every form of contumely and outrage, seems still to rankle in the breasts of many members of our Aristocracy, is still fostered by the panegyrists of their order, and displayed itself not unequivocally in the late parliamentary crusade against the factories. One of their most eloquent advocates and partisans speaks of the great developement of our mechanical industry in the following scornful terms: It is a wen, a fungus excrescence, from the body-politic: the growth might have been checked, if the consequences had been apprehended in time: but now it has acquired so great a bulk, its nerves have branched so widely, and the vessels of the tumour are so inoculated into some of the principal veins and arteries of the natural system, that to remove it by absorption is impossible, and excision will be fatal.'

"Could a metaphor have proved any thing, a more appropriate one might have been found in the process of vegetable and animal generation, to illustrate the great truth that Providence has assigned to man the glorious function of vastly improving the productions of nature by judicious culture, and of working them up into objects of comfort and elegance with the least possible expenditure of human labour-an undeniable position, which forms the basis of our Factory System. While its morbid distemperature is certainly not so great as that of the agricultural system of England, it is much more accessible to control and amelioration. There is a fact which ought to change Mr. Southey's tone of thought about our manufacturers; it is that literature finds in them its principal patron the book-trade of Great Britain flourishes and fades with its manufactures in vital sympathy, while it is nearly indifferent to the good or bad state of its agriculture. Which then is the moral and intellectual popula

tion ?

66

It has, however, been the fate of this polytechnic, as of the best philanthropic dispensation ever made to man, to be misrepresented and reviled, not only by strangers ignorant of its intrinsic excellence, but the very objects of its bounty-the children of its care. When the wandering savage becomes a citizen, he renounces many of his dangerous pleasures for tranquillity and protection. He can no longer gratify at his will a revengeful spirit upon his foes, nor seize with violence a neighbour's possessions. In like manner, when the handicraftsman exchanges hard work with fluctuating employment and pay, for continuous labour of a lighter kind, with steady wages, he

# Philosophy of Manufactures, by Dr. Ure."-Charles Knight, London.

must necessarily renounce his old prerogative of stopping when he pleases, because he would thereby throw the whole establishment into disorder. Of the amount of the injury resulting from the violation of the rules of automatic labour, he can hardly ever be a proper judge: just as mankind at large can never fully estimate the evils consequent upon an infraction of God's moral law. Yet the Factory Operative, little versant in the great operations of political economy, currency, and trade, and actuated too often by an invidious feeling towards the capitalist, who animates his otherwise torpid talents, is easily persuaded by artful demagogues that his sacrifice of time and skill is beyond the proportion of his recompence, or that fewer hours of industry would be an ample equivalent for his wages. This notion seems to have taken an early and inveterate hold of the Factory mind, and to have been riveted from time to time by the leaders of those secret combinations so readily formed among a peculiar class of men, concentrated in masses within a narrow range of country.

"Instead of repining as they have done at the prosperity of their employers, and concocting odious measures to blast it, they should on every principle of gratitude and self-interest have rejoiced at the success resulting from their labours, and by regularity and skill have recommended themselves to monied men desirous of engaging in a profitable concern, and of procuring qualified hands to conduct it. Thus good workmen would have advanced their condition to that of overlookers, managers, and partners in new concerns, and have increased at the same time the demand for their companions' labour in the market. It is only by an undisturbed progression of this kind, that the rate of wages can be permanently raised or upheld. Had it not been for the violent collisions and interruptions resulting from erroneous views among the Operatives, the Factory System would have been developed still more rapidly and beneficially for all concerned than it has been, and would have exhibited still more frequently gratifying examples of skilful workmen becoming opulent proprietors. Every misunderstanding either repels capital altogether, or diverts it from flowing for a time in the channels of a trade liable to strikes.

"It is therefore deeply deplored for the sake of all parties, as well as for our country's welfare, that the cotton-spinners in particular have been so blinded by prejudice and passion as never rightly to comprehend this elementary principle. Had their conduct been governed by it, they would have had better wages, and might have appropriated to their own use the whole amount of their earnings, instead of squandering no inconsiderable portion of them upon the fomenters of misrule, the functionaries of their Unions. The means which they have all along enjoyed for maintaining themselves and families in comfort have been, generally speaking, better than those possessed in other parts of the kingdom."

We have made this very long extract in order to place before our readers, at one view, Dr. Ure's Confessio Fidei, regarding the Factories. Firstly, he believes them to be the nurseries of men, fitted in every way to cope with our ancient Aristocracy;-secondly, that the

Factory Operatives are an intellectual and moral body of men, and, as a corollary, the supporters of literature;-thirdly, that the Operatives themselves are as incapable of estimating the mischief of interfering with the operations of automatic labour, as mankind are of estimating the evils consequent upon an infraction of God's moral law;-fourthly, that notwithstanding the intelligence and morality of the Operatives, they have been constantly blind to their own interests, and have acted with the blackest ingratitude towards their employers; and fifthly, that but for this singular perversion of opinion, the Factory System would have flourished still more vigorously, and would have been greatly more advantageous to the Operatives; and farther, we find that Dr. Ure holds the belief, that female Factory labourers have altogether not a little of the Grecian style of beauty, and are so modest that they blush when spoken to; and, in short, that the labourer's Paradise is reached when he is once installed in a Factory.

The book of Dr. Ure's, which serves as the basis of our article, taken as a whole, is one of very great value, being full of practical details and sound commercial views; and is destined for considerable popularity. And yet his views have not gone far enough on some very important points-points which he may overlook, but which appear to us of the greatest magnitude. Dr. Ure views the developement of mechanism as a vast blessing; he luxuriates over the extraordinary skill displayed in, and the life-like actions and the amazing capabilities of, the machines which now crowd our manufactories; and he maintains that the men are utterly wrong in their suspicion and hostility towards their masters. Our voice has been raised more than once against the insane actions of misguided Unionists; and it is beyond all question that they have done for themselves no small amount of mischief. Yet it is not surprising that they have united; and though they are gradually succumbing beneath mechanism, there is one more struggle to be gone through before human labour is finally crushed or subjugated. It is to this point that the tide is flowing; and it is here that Dr. Ure, carried away by admiration of the splendid details connected with the economy of manufactures, has overlooked and rated far too lightly their influence upon the fate of the labourers. The question is one of the most momentous kind; it is one too never examined by those who take a merely commercial or mechanical view of our manufactures. Such parties, indeed, dazzled by the unbounded prospects opened by the extraordinary growth of mechanism, and its constantly increasing applicability, may well estimate the value of the automaton human labourer as secondary ; and if this human labourer could be quietly got rid of without injury to himself or his country, we should readily join in the cheer raised by a contemplation of our magnificent manufactories. It is needful the question should be viewed and reviewed; it is needful that thinkers should devise some plan to enable the labourer to withdraw himself when his services are no longer wanted-for if the time be not yet come for a large and simultaneous abandonment of human labour, it is not remote. Dr. Ure may examine with