In his conclusion the journalist makes this reflection: "Since
1836 there has been a retrograde movement in the cotton
industry";--that is, it no longer keeps up its relation with
other industries: another result foreseen from the theory of the
proportionality of values.
Today workmen's coalitions and strikes seem to have stopped
throughout England, and the economists rightly rejoice over this
return to order,-- let us say even to common sense. But because
laborers henceforth--at least I cherish the hope--will not add
the misery of their voluntary periods of idleness to the misery
which machines force upon them, does it follow that the situation
is changed? And if there is no change in the situation, will not
the future always be a deplorable copy of the past?
The economists love to rest their minds on pictures of public
felicity: it is by this sign principally that they are to be
recognized, and that they estimate each other. Nevertheless
there are not lacking among them, on the other hand, moody and
sickly imaginations, ever ready to offset accounts of growing
prosperity with proofs of persistent poverty.
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