The Hillsborough Recorder

EMPLOYMENT.

I do not recollect any period when so many persons were without employment as the present. These are not mechanics or farmers, but clerks, gentlemen and professional characters. In the choice of pursuits it is very evident that great errors have been committed. Although we are called a young country, and are actually young in government, yet we are old in habits and institutions; and in these we may be called a mere branch of the mother country, speaking the same language and pursuing the same course as our ancestors have done centuries ago. The great resources of this country, are the active springs of commerce, which induced many of the earlier settlers to become merchants; and such has been the success of our policy, that more persons have embarked in commerce than could possibly succeed. A few merchants have, it is true, made great fortunes, and this has led many others to try the experiment with the same view; hence we have double the number we require. Professional men have also increased in a ratio not called for by the extent of population, and thus do we account for so many persons who are idle, and have not the capacity to earn their living. Two great branches of national industry have been neglected, viz. agriculture and manufactures, or, in other words, farmers and mechanics. Heads of families, in selecting pursuits for their children, have been heretofore governed by a false pride, the effects of which are now severely felt. They have, with a laudable spirit, endeavoured to give their children a good education, which is beneficial, whatever may be their future calling; but, in the avidity of gain, or in pursuit of what is miscalled a genteel profession, they make their children clerks, merchants, lawyers and physicians, and the consequence is, that we are overstocked with them. These genteel professions produce nothing; men are idle, their families and themselves in want—while the shoemaker, tailor, blacksmith, carpenter and mason, have sufficient work to do, not only to support their families, but to lay up something for a future day. This charm must be broken—men must consider the mechanic arts as genteel, and parents must bind their sons to trades instead of making gentlemen of them.

The pursuits of agriculture are equally neglected. Our country abounds in rich and unimproved lands, and thousands of acres are selling for a mere trifle. Snug farms of one hundred acres and upwards, can be every where purchased for a small sum, and young men, with industry, economy and perseverance, may make a comfortable living out of them. Their farms can produce all the essentials of life, and luxuries they must forego. It is useless to cry out against the times, without an effort is made to lighten our burdens. I fear the times will grow worse, and this epoch must be expected and be prepared for, by giving a spur to industry, and every encouragement to economy. We can produce every thing which our wants require, and men who are pursuing losing games in hopes that the times may mend, had better stop at once and change their pursuits. Many persons who are unemployed in cities, would find it to their interest to remove to the country and try a different pursuit.

(National Advocate.)