Chapter V: Letter IV

Arrived in England, we find there everywhere the same tendency towards centralization. Of the 200,000 small landed proprietors of the days of Adam Smith but few remain, and of even those the number is gradually diminishing. Great landed estates have everywhere absentees for owners, agents for managers, and day laborers for workmen. The small landowner was a resident, and had a personal interest in the details of the neighborhood, not now felt by either the owner or the laborer. This state of things existed to a considerable extent five-and-thirty years ago, but it has since grown with great rapidity. At that time Great Britain could exhibit to the world perhaps as large a body of men and women of letters, with world-wide reputation, as ever before existed in any country or nation, as will be seen from the following list:--

Byron, Wilson, Clarkson,
Moore, Hallam, Landor,
Scott, Roscoe, Wellington,[1]
Wordsworth, Malthus, Robert Hall,
Rogers, Ricardo, Taylor,
Campbell, Mill, Romilly,
Joanna Baillie, Chalmers, Edgeworth,
Southey, Coleridge, Hannah More,
Gifford, Heber, Dalton,
Jeffrey, Bentham, Davy,
Sydney Smith, Brown, Wollaston,
Brougham, Mackintosh, The Herschels,
Horner, Stewart, Dr. Clarke.

[Footnote 1: Wellington's dispatches place him in the first rank of
historians.]

DeQuincey was then just coming on the stage. Crabbe, Shelley, Keats, Croly, Hazlitt, Lockhart, Lamb, Hunt, Galt, Lady Morgan, Miss Mitford, Horace Smith, Hook, Milman, Miss Austen, and a host of others, were already on it. Many of these appear to have received rewards far greater than fall now to the lot of some of the most distinguished literary men. Crabbe is said to have received 3,000 guineas, or $15,000, for his "Tales of the Hall," and Theodore Hook 2,000 guineas for "Sayings and Doings," and, if the facts were so, they prove that poets and novelists were far more valued then than now. At that time, Croker, Barrow, and numerous other men of literary reputation co-operated with Southey and Gifford in providing for the pages of the "Quarterly." All these, men and women, were the product of the last century, when the small landholders of England yet counted by hundreds of thousands.

Since then, centralization has made great progress. The landholders now amount, as we are informed, to only 30,000, and the gulf which separates the great proprietor from the cultivator has gradually widened, as the one has become more an absentee and the other more a day laborer. The greater the tendency towards the absorption of land by the wealthy banker and merchant, or the wealthy cotton-spinner like Sir Robert Peel, the greater is the tendency towards its abandonment by the small proprietor, who has an interest in local self government, and the greater the tendency towards the centralization of power in London and in the great seats of manufacture. In all those places, it is thought that the prosperity of England is dependent upon "a cheap and abundant supply of labor."[1] The "Times" assures its readers that it is "to the cheap labor of Ireland that England is indebted for all her great works;" and that note is repeated by a large portion of the literary men of England who now ask for protection in the American market against the effects of the system they so generally advocate.

[Footnote 1: _North British Review_, November, 1852.]

The more the people of Scotland can be driven from the land to take refuge in Glasgow and Paisley, the cheaper must be labor. The more those of Ireland can be driven to England, the greater must be the competition in the latter for employment, and the lower must be the price of labor. The more the land of England can be centralized, the greater must be the mass of people seeking employment in London, Liverpool, Manchester, and Birmingham, and the cheaper must labor be.

Low-priced laborers cannot exercise self-government. All they earn is required for supplying themselves with indifferent food, clothing, and lodging, and they cannot control the expenditure of their wages to such extent as to enable them to educate their children, and hence it is that the condition of the people of England is as here described:--

"About one half of our poor can neither read nor write. The test of signing the name at marriage is a very imperfect absolute test of education, but it is a very good relative one: taking that test, how stands Leeds itself in the Registrar-General's returns? In Leeds, which is the centre of the movement for letting education remain as it is, left entirely to chance and charity to supply its deficiencies, how do we find the fact? This, that in 1846, the last year to which these returns are brought down, of 1,850 marriages celebrated in Leeds and Hunslet, 508 of the men and 1,020 of the women, or considerably more than one half of the latter, signed their names with marks. 'I have also a personal knowledge of this fact--that of 47 men employed upon a railway in this immediate neighborhood, only 14 can sign their names in the receipt of their wages; and this not because of any diffidence on their part, but positively because they cannot write.' And only lately, the "Leeds Mercury" itself gave a most striking instance of ignorance among persons from Boeotian Pudsey: of 12 witnesses, 'all of respectable appearance, examined before the Mayor of Bradford at the court-house there, only one man could sign his name, and that indifferently.' Mr. Neison has clearly shown, in statistics of crime in England and Wales from 1834 to 1844, that crime is invariably the most prevalent in those districts where the fewest numbers in proportion to the population can read and write. Is it not, indeed, beginning at the wrong end to try and reform men after they have become criminals? Yet you cannot begin with children, from want of schools. Poverty is the result of ignorance, and then ignorance is again the unhappy result of poverty. 'Ignorance makes men improvident and thoughtless--women as well as men; it makes them blind to the future-- to the future of this life as well as the life beyond. It makes them dead to higher pleasures than those of the mere senses, and keeps them down to the level of the mere animal. Hence the enormous extent of drunkenness throughout this country, and the frightful waste of means which it involves.' At Bilston, amidst 20,000 people, there are but two struggling schools--one has lately ceased; at Millenhall, Darlaston, and Pelsall, amid a teeming population, no school whatever. In Oldham, among 100,000, but one public day-school for the laboring classes; the others are an infant-school, and some dame and factory schools. At Birmingham, there are 21,824 children at school, and 23,176 at no school; at Liverpool, 50,000 out of 90,000 at no school; at Leicester, 8,200 out of 12,500; and at Leeds itself, in 1841 (the date of the latest returns), some 9,600 out of 16,400 were at no school whatever. It is the same in the counties. 'I have seen it stated that a woman for some time had to officiate as clerk in a church in Norfolk, there being no adult male in the parish able to read and write.' For a population of 17,000,000 we have but twelve normal schools; while in Massachusetts they have three such schools for only 800,000 of population."

Poverty and ignorance produce intemperance and crime, and hence it is that both so much abound throughout England. Infanticide, as we are told, prevails to an extent unknown in any other part of the world. Looking at all these facts, we can readily see that the local demand for information throughout England must be very small, and this enables us to account for the extraordinary fact, that in all that country there has been no daily newspaper printed out of London. There is, consequently, no local demand for literary talent. The weekly papers that are published require little of the pen, but much of the scissors. The necessary consequence of this is, that every young man who fancies he can write, must go to London to seek a channel through which he may be enabled to come before the public. Here we have centralization again. Arrived in London, he finds a few daily papers, but only one, as we are told, that pays its expenses, and around each of them is a corps of writers and editors as ill-disposed to permit the introduction of any new laborers in their field as are the street-beggars of London to permit any interference with their "beat." If he desires to become contributor to the magazines, it is the same. To obtain the privilege of contributing his "cheap labor" to their pages, he must be well introduced, and if he make the attempt without such introduction he is treated with a degree of insolence scarcely to be imagined by any one not familiar with the "answers to correspondents" in London periodicals. If disposed to print a book he finds a very limited number of publishers, each one surrounded with his corps of authors and editors, and generally provided with a journal in which to have his own books well placed before the world. If, now, he succeeds in gaining favorable notice, he finds that he can obtain but a very small proportion of the price of his book, even if it sell, because centralization requires that all books shall be advertised in certain London journals that charge their own prices, and thus absorb the proceeds of no inconsiderable portion of the edition. Next, he finds the Chancellor of the Exchequer requiring a share of the proceeds of the book for permission to use paper, and further permission to advertise his work when printed.[1] Inquiring to what purpose are devoted the proceeds of all these taxes, he learns that the centralization which it is the object of the British cheap-labor policy to establish, requires the maintenance of large armies and large fleets which absorb more than all the profits of the commerce they protect. The bookseller informs him that he must take the risk of finding paper, and of paying the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the "Times" and numerous other journals; that every editor will expect a copy; that the interests of science require that he, poor as he is, shall give no less than eleven copies to the public; and that the most that can be hoped for from the first edition is, that it will not bring him in debt. His book appears, but the price is high, for the reason that the taxes are heavy, and the general demand for books is small. Cheap laborers cannot buy books; soldiers and sailors cannot buy books; and thus does centralization diminish the market for literary talent while increasing the cost of bringing it before the world. Centralization next steps in, in the shape of circulating libraries, that, for a few guineas a year, supply books throughout the kingdom, and enable hundreds of copies to do the work that should be done by thousands, and hence it is that, while first editions of English works are generally small, so very few of them ever reach second ones. Popular as was Captain Marryat, his first editions were, as he himself informed me, for some time only 1,500, and had not then risen above 2,000. Of Mr. Bulwer's novels, so universally popular, the first edition never exceeded 2,500; and so it has been, and is, with others. With all Mr. Thackeray's popularity, the sale of his books has, I believe, rarely gone beyond 6,000 for the supply of above thirty millions of people. Occasionally, a single author is enabled to fix the attention of the public, and he is enabled to make a fortune--not from the sale of large quantities at low prices, but of moderate quantities at high prices. The chief case of the kind now in England is that of Mr. Dickens, who sells for twenty shillings a book that costs about four shillings and sixpence to make, and charges his fellow-laborers in the field of literature an enormous price for the privilege of attaching to his numbers the advertisements of their works, as is shown in the following paragraph from one of the journals of the day:--

"Thus far, no writer has succeeded in drawing so large pecuniary profits from the exercise of his talents as Charles Dickens. His last romance, "Bleak House," which appeared in monthly numbers, had so wide a circulation in that form that it became a valuable medium for advertising, so that before its close the few pages of the tale were completely lost in sheets of advertisements which were stitched to them. The lowest price for such an advertisement was £1 sterling, and many were paid for at the rate of £5 and £6. From this there is nothing improbable in the supposition that, in addition to the large sum received for the tale, its author gained some £15,000 by his advertising sheets. The "Household Words" produces an income of about £4,000, though Dickens, having put it entirely in the hands of an assistant editor, has nothing to do with it beyond furnishing a weekly article. Through his talents alone he has raised himself from the position of a newspaper reporter to that of a literary Croesus."

[Footnote 1: The tax on advertisements has just now been repealed, but
that tax was a small one when compared with that imposed by
centralization.]

Centralization produces the "cheap and abundant supply of labor" required for the maintenance of the British manufacturing system, and "cheap labor" furnishes Mr. Dickens with his "Oliver Twist," his "Tom-all-alone's," and the various other characters and situation by aid of whose delineation he is enabled, as a German writer informs us, to have dinners

"at which the highest aristocracy is glad to be present, and where he
equals them in wealth, and furnishes an intellectual banquet of wit and
wisdom which they, the highest and most refined circles, cannot
imitate."

Centralization enables Mr. Dickens to obtain vast sums by advertising the works of the poor authors by whom he is surrounded, most of whom are not only badly paid, but insolently treated, while even of those whose names and whose works are well known abroad many gladly become recipients of the public charity. In the zenith of her reputation, Lady Charlotte Bury received, as I am informed, but £200 ($960) for the absolute copyright of works that sold for $7.50. Lady Blessington, celebrated as she was, had but from three to four hundred pounds; and neither Marryat nor Bulwer ever received, as I believe, the selling price of a thousand copies of their books as compensation for the copyright.[1] Such being the facts in regard to well-known authors, some idea may be formed in relation to the compensation of those who are obscure. The whole tendency of the "cheap labor" system, so generally approved by English writers, is to destroy the value of literary labor by increasing the number of persons who must look to the pen for means of support, and by diminishing the market for its products. What has been the effect of the system will now be shown by placing before you a list of the names of all existing British authors whose reputation can be regarded as of any wide extent, as follows:--

Tennyson, Thackeray, Grote, McCulloch,
Carlyle, Bulwer, Macaulay, Hamilton,
Dickens, Alison, J. S. Mill, Faraday.

[Footnote 1: This I had from Captain Marryat himself.]

This list is very small as compared with that presented in the same field five-and-thirty years since, and its difference in weight is still greater than in number. Scott, the novelist and poet, may certainly be regarded as the counterpoise of much more than any one of the writers of fiction in this list. Byron, Moore, Rogers, and Campbell enjoyed a degree of reputation far exceeding that of Tennyson. Wellington, the historian of his own campaigns, would much outweigh any of the historians. Malthus and Ricardo were founders of a school that has greatly influenced the policy of the world, whereas McCulloch and Mill are but disciples in that school. Dalton, Davy, and Wollaston will probably occupy a larger space in the history of science than Sir Michael Faraday, large, even, as may be that assigned to him.

Extraordinary as is the existence of such a state of things in a country claiming so much to abound in wealth, it is yet more extraordinary that we look around in vain to see who are to replace even these when age or death shall withdraw them from the literary world. Of all here named, Mr. Thackeray is the only one that has risen to reputation in the last ten years, and he is no longer young; and even he seeks abroad that reward for his efforts which is denied to him by the "cheap labor" system at home. Of the others, nearly, if not quite all, have been for thirty years before the world, and, in the natural course of things, some of them must disappear from the stage of authorship, if not of life. If we seek their successors among the writers for the weekly or monthly journals, we shall certainly fail to find them. Looking to the Reviews, we find ourselves forced to agree with the English journalist, who informs his readers that "it is said, and with apparent justice, that the quarterlies are not as good as they were." From year to year they have less the appearance of being the production of men who looked to any thing beyond mere pecuniary compensation for their labor. In reading them we find ourselves compelled to agree with the reviewer who regrets to see that the centralization which is hastening the decline of the Scottish universities is tending to cause the mind of the whole youth of Scotland to be

"Cast in the mould of English universities, institutions which, from
their very completeness, exercise on second-rate minds an influence
unfavorable to originality and power of thought."--_North British
Review_, May 1853.

Their pupils are, as he says, struck "with one mental die," than which nothing can be less favorable to literary or scientific development.

Thirty years since, Sir Humphrey Davy spoke with his countrymen as follows:--

"There are very few persons who pursue science with true dignity; it is
followed more as connected with objects of profit than fame."--
_Consolation in Travel_.

Since then, Sir John Herschel has said to them:--

"Here whole branches of continental study are unstudied, and indeed
almost unknown by name. It is in vain to conceal the melancholy truth.
We are fast dropping behind."--_Treatise on Sound_.

A late writer, already quoted, says that learning is in disrepute. The English people, as he informs us, have

"No longer time or patience for the luxury of a learned treatment of
their interests; and a learned lawyer or statesmen, instead of being
eagerly sought for, is shunned as an impediment to public business."
--_North British Review_.

The reviewer is, as he informs us, "far from regarding this tendency, unfavorable as it is to present progress, as a sign of social retrogression." He thinks that

"Reference to general principles for rules of immediate action on the
part of those actually engaged in the dispatch of business, must, from
the delay which it necessarily occasions, come to be regarded as a
worse evil than action which is at variance with principle altogether."

Demand tends to procure supply. Destroy the demand, and the supply will cease. Science, whether natural or social, is not in demand in Great Britain, and hence the diminution of supply. We have here the secret of literary and scientific decline, so obvious to all who study English books or journals, or read the speeches of English statesmen. Empiricism prevails everywhere, and there is a universal disposition to avoid the study of principles. The "cheap labor" system, which it is the object of the whole British policy to establish, cannot be defended on principle, and therefore principles are avoided. Centralization, cheap labor, and enslavement of the body and the mind, travel always in company, and with each step of their progress there is an increasing tendency towards the accumulation of power in the hands of men who should be statesmen, the difficulties of whose positions forbid, however, that they should refer to scientific principles for their government. Action must be had, and immediate action in opposition to principle is preferable to delay; and hence it is that real statesmen are "shunned as an impediment to public business." The greater the necessity for statesmanship, the more must statesmen be avoided. The nearer the ship is brought to the shoal, the more carefully must her captain avoid any reference to the chart. That such is the practice of those charged with the direction of the affairs of England, and such the philosophy of those who control her journals, is obvious to all who study the proceedings of the one or the teachings of the other. From year to year the ship becomes more difficult of management, and there is increasing difficulty in finding responsible men to take the helm. Such are the effects upon mind that have resulted from that "destruction of nationalities" required for the perfection of the British system of centralization.

England is fast becoming one great shop, and traders have, in general, neither time nor disposition to cultivate literature. The little proprietors disappear, and the day laborers who succeed them can neither educate their children nor purchase books. The great proprietor is an absentee, and he has little time for either literature or science. From year to year the population of the kingdom becomes more and more divided into two great classes; the very poor, with whom food and raiment require all the proceeds of labor, and the very rich who prosper by the cheap labor system, and therefore eschew the study of principles. With the one class, books are an unattainable luxury, while with the other the absence of leisure prevents the growth of desire for their purchase. The sale is, therefore, small; and hence it is that authors are badly paid. In strong contrast with the limited sale of English books at home, is the great extent of sale here, as shown in the following facts: Of the octavo edition of the "Modern British Essayists," there have been sold in five years no less than 80,000 volumes. Of Macaulay's "Miscellanies," 3 vols. 12mo., the sale has amounted to 60,000 volumes. Of Miss Aguilar's writings, the sale, in two years, has been 100,000 volumes. Of Murray's "Encyclopedia of Geography," more than 50,000 volumes have been sold, and of McCulloch's "Commercial Dictionary," 10,000 volumes. Of Alexander Smith's poems, the sale, in a few months, has reached 10,000 copies. The sale of Mr. Thackeray's works has been quadruple that of England, and that of the works of Mr. Dickens counts almost by millions of volumes. Of "Bleak House," in all its various forms--in newspapers, magazines, and volumes--it has already amounted to several hundred thousands of copies. Of Bulwer's last novel, since it was completed, the sale has, I am told, exceeded 35,000. Of Thiers's "French Revolution and Consulate," there have been sold 32,000, and of Montagu's edition of Lord Bacon's works 4,000 copies.

If the sales of books were as great in England as they are here, English authors would be abundantly paid. In reply it will be said their works are cheap here because we pay no copyright. For payment of the authors, however, a very small sum would be required, if the whole people of England could afford, as they should be able to do, to purchase books. A contribution of a shilling per head would give, as has been shown, a sum of almost eight millions of dollars, sufficient to pay to fifteen hundred salaries nearly equal to those of our Secretaries of State. Centralization, however, destroys the market for books, and the sale is, therefore, small; and the few successful writers owe their fortunes to the collection of large contributions made among a small number of readers; while the mass of authors live on, as did poor Tom Hood, from day to day, with scarcely a hope of improvement in their condition.

Sixty years since, Great Britain was a wealthy country, abounding in libraries and universities, and giving to the world some of the best, and best paid, writers of the age. At that time the people of this country were but four millions, and they were poor, while unprovided with either books or libraries. Since then they have grown to twenty-six millions, millions of whom have been emigrants, in general arriving here with nothing but the clothing on their backs. These poor men have had every thing to create for themselves--farms, roads, houses, libraries, schools, and colleges; and yet, poor as they have been, they furnish now a demand for the principal products of English mind greater than is found at home. If we can make such a market, why cannot they? If they had such a market, would it not pay their authors to the full extent of their merits? Unquestionably it would; and if they see fit to pursue a system tending to cheapen the services of the laborer in the field, in the workshop, and at the desk, there is no more reason for calling upon the people of this country to make up their deficiencies towards those who contribute to their pleasure or instruction by writing books, than there would be in asking us to aid in supporting the hundreds of thousands of day laborers, their wives and children, whom the same system condemns, unpitied, to the workhouse.

But, it will be asked, is it right that we should read the works of Macaulay, Dickens, and others, without compensation to the authors? In answer, it may be said, that we give them precisely what their own countrymen have given to their Dalton, Davy, Wollaston, Franklin, Parry, and the thousands of others who have furnished the bodies of which books are composed--and more than we ourselves give to the men among us engaged in cultivating science--fame. This, it will be said, is an unsubstantial return; yet Byron deemed it quite sufficient when he first saw an American edition of his works, coming, as it seemed to him, "from posterity." Miss Bremer found no small reward for her labors in knowing the high regard in which she was held; and it was no small payment when, even in the wilds of the West, she met with numerous persons who would gladly have her travel free of charge, because of the delight she had afforded them. Miss Carlen tells her readers that "of one triumph" she was proud. "It was," she says, "when I held in my hand, for the first time, one of my works, translated and published in America. My eyes filled with tears. The bright dreams of youth again passed before me. Ye Americans had planted the seed, and ye also approved of the fruit!" This is the feeling of a writer that cultivates literature with some object in view other than mere profit. It differs entirely from that of English authors, because in England, more than in any other country, book-making is a trade, carried on exclusively with a view to profit; and hence it is that the character of English books so much declines.

But is it really true that foreign authors derive no pecuniary advantage from the republication of their books in this country? It is not. Mr. Macaulay has admitted that much of his reputation, and of the sale of his books at home, had been a consequence of his reputation here, where his Essays were first reprinted. At the moment of writing this, I have met with a notice of his speeches, first collected here, from which the following is an extract:--

"We owe much to America. Not content with charming us with the works of
her native genius, she teaches us also to appreciate our own. She steps
in between the timidity of a British author, and the fastidiousness of
the British public, and by using her' good offices' brings both parties
to a friendly understanding."--_Morning Chronicle_.

If the people of England are largely indebted to America for being made acquainted with the merits of their authors, are not these latter also indebted to America for much of their pecuniary reward? Undoubtedly they are. Mr. Macaulay owes much of his fortune to American publishers, readers, and critics; and such is the case to perhaps a greater extent with Mr. Carlyle, whose papers were first collected here, and their merits thus made known to his countrymen. Lamb's papers of "Elia" were first collected here. It is to the diligence of an American publisher that De Quincey owes the publication of a complete edition of his works, now to be followed by a similar one in England. The papers of Professor Wilson owe their separate republication to American booksellers. The value of Mr. Thackeray's copyrights has been greatly increased by his reception here. So has it been with Mr. Dickens. All of those persons profit largely by their fame abroad, while the men who contribute to the extension of knowledge by the publication of facts and ideas never reap profit from their publication abroad, and are rarely permitted to acquire even fame. Godfrey died poor. The merchants of England gave no fortune to his children, and Hadley stole his fame. The people of that country, who travel in steam-vessels, have given to the family of Fulton no pecuniary reward, while her writers have uniformly endeavored to deprive him of the reputation which constituted almost the sole inheritance of his family. The whole people of Europe are profiting by the discovery of chloroform; but who inquires what has become of the family of its unfortunate discoverer? Nobody! The people of England profit largely by the discoveries of Fourcroy, Berzelius, and many other of the continental philosophers; but do those who manufacture cheap cloth, or those who wear it, contribute to the support of the families of those philosophers? Did they contribute to their support while alive? Certainly not. To do so would have been in opposition to the idea that the real contributors to knowledge should be "hewers of wood and drawers of water" for the gentlemen who dress up their facts and ideas in an attractive form and place them before the world in the form of cloth or books.

We are largely indebted to the labors of literary men, and they should be well paid, but their claims to pecuniary reward have been much exaggerated, because they have held the pen and have had always a high degree of belief in their own deserts. Their right in the books they publish is precisely similar to, and no greater than, that of the man who culls the flowers and arranges the bouquets; and, when that is provided for, their books are entitled to become common property. English authors are already secured in a monopoly for forty-two years among a body of people so large that a contribution of a shilling a head would enable each and all of them to live in luxury; and if British policy prevents their countrymen from paying them, it is to the British Parliament they should look for redress, and not to our Executive. When they shall awaken to the fact that "cheap labor" with the spade, the plough, and the loom, brings with it necessarily "cheap labor" with the pen, they will become opponents, and cease to be advocates of the system under which they suffer. All that, in the mean time, we can say to them is, that we protect our own authors by giving them a monopoly of our own immense and rapidly growing market, and that if they choose to come and live among us we will grant them the same protection. We may now look to the condition of our own literary men.