conditions: They were to work long and hard, early and late, to add
fresh value to his raw cotton by manufacturing it. Out of the value thus
created by them, they were to recoup him for what he supplied them with:
rent, shelter, gas, water, machinery, raw cotton--everything, and to pay
him for his own services as superintendent, manager, and salesman. So
far he asked nothing but just remuneration. But after this had been
paid, a balance due solely to their own labor remained. 'Out of this,'
said my father, 'you shall keep just enough to save you from starving,
and of the rest you shall make me a present to reward me for my virtue
in saving money. Such is the bargain I propose. It is, in my opinion,
fair and calculated to encourage thrifty habits. If it does not strike
you in that light, you can get a factory and raw cotton for yourselves;
you shall not use mine.' In other words, they might go to the devil and
starve--Hobson's choice!--for all the other factories were owned by men
who offered no better terms. The Manchesterians could not bear to starve
or to see their children starve, and so they accepted his terms and went
into the factory. The terms, you see, did not admit of their beginning
to save for themselves as he had done. Well, they created great wealth
by their labor, and lived on very little, so that the balance they gave
for nothing to my father was large. He bought more cotton, and more
machinery, and more factories with it; employed more men to make wealth
for him, and saw his fortune increase like a rolling snowball. He
prospered enormously, but the work men were no better off than at first,
and they dared not rebel and demand more of the money they had made, for
there were always plenty of starving wretches outside willing to take
their places on the old terms. Sometimes he met with a check, as, for
instance, when, in his eagerness to increase his store, he made the men
manufacture more cotton than the public needed; or when he could not get
enough of raw cotton, as happened during the Civil War in America. Then
he adapted himself to circumstances by turning away as many workmen as