Page:Karl Marx - Wage Labor and Capital - tr. Harriet E. Lothrop (1902).djvu/97

 greatest sacrifices to raise those wages by means of the Anti-Corn Law League.

They build great palaces, at immense expense, in which the league takes up its official residence. They send an army of missionaries to all corners of England to preach the gospel of free trade; they print and distribute gratis thousands of pamphlets to enlighten the workingman upon his own interests. They spend enormous sums to buy over the press to their side. They organize a vast administrative system for the conduct of the free trade movement, and bestow all the wealth of their eloquence upon public meetings. It was at one of these meetings that a workingman cried out:

"If the landlords were to sell our bones, you manufacturers would be the first to buy them, and to put them through the mill and make flour of them."

The English workingmen have appreciated to the fullest extent the significance of the struggle between the lords of the land and of capital. They know very well that the price of bread was to be reduced in order to reduce wages, and that the profit of capital would rise by as much as rent fell.

Ricardo, the apostle of the English free traders, the leading economist of our century, entirely agrees with the workers upon this point. In his celebrated work upon Political Economy he says: "If instead of growing our own corn … we discover a new market from which we can supply ourselves … at a cheaper price, wages will fall and profits rise. The fall in the price of agricultural produce reduces the wages, not only of the laborer employed in cultivating the soil, but also of all those employed in commerce or manufacture."

Do not believe, gentlemen, that it is a matter of indifference to the workingman whether he receives only four