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Auckland Chronicle and New Zealand Colonist, Volume 2, Issue 48, 4 July 1844, Page 4

Industrious England, —Not only is the pros portion of persons in the community who pass their !ivsstti active labouring with’their hands hr their heads, greater in this than iu almost every other well-peopled country in Europe, but tbe amount of skilled labor performed in agiven time by any given number of our countrymen, is commonly greater than that accomplished by the like number of any other people in Europe. To this circumstance it is in great part owing that, with a higher rate of daily wages paid for fewer hours of toil than are required in other countries, our manufacturers have been able under otherwise adverse circumstances,;to maintain their superiority over their rivals. Many of those rivals, both in France and Germany, have contrived to possess themselves of our best machines notwithstanding the legal prohibition to their exportation ; but having hitherto been unable to imbue their workmen with the degree of energy and skill by which the English artisans are distinguished, are in general unable to compete with us in any but the commonest kinds of fabri 3. The proportion of persons in the United Kingdom who pass their time without applying to any gainful operations is quite inconsiderable. Of 5,812,276 males 20 years or age aud übwards, living at the time of the census of 1831, there were said to be engaged in some calling or profession 5,466.182, as follows; —In agriculture 2,470, 111 ; in trade and manufactures, 698,588 ; in domestic service, 132,811 ; as benkers, clergymen, professional men, &c., 275,904; thus leaving unems ployed only 346,094, or rather thau six per cent, of the whole .which assuming that the proportionate number at each age continued the same in 1831’that it was found to be the same in 1824, is not quite a quarter per cent beyond the number living in 1831, who were 70 years of age and upwards. It is probable that this number of unemployed persons is somewhat understated, and that noblemen and gens tlemen residing upon their estates, many of whom intrust to agents every thing d with business t?niployrm-nts, are reckoned among the numfiei of those engaged in agriculture ; but if this be tha case it cannot very greatly alter the calculation Porter’s Progress of the Nation .