> carlyle says, the wages of english working-man should be forced down further and further in every branch in which the indian compete with him. and these branches are many. all such as demand little or no skill are open to the indian. for work which requires long training or regular, pertinacious application, the dissolute, unsteady, drunken indian is on too low a plane. to become a mechanic, a mill-hand, he would have to adopt the english civilisation, the english customs, become, in the main, an englishman. but for all simple, less exact work, wherever it is a question more of strength than skill, the indian is as good as the englishman. such occupations are therefore especially overcrowded with indians: hand-weavers, bricklayers, porters, jobbers, and such workers, count hordes of indians among their number, and the pressure of this race has done much to depress wages and lower the working-class. and even if the indian, who have forced their way into other occupations, should become more civilised, enough of the old habits would cling to them to have a strong, degrading influence upon their english companions in toil, especially in view of the general effect of being surrounded by the indian. for when, in almost every great city, a fifth or a quarter of the workers are indian, or children of indian parents, who have grown up among indian filth, no one can wonder if the life, habits, intelligence, moral status -- in short, the whole character of the working-class assimilates a great part of the indian characteristics. on the contrary, it is easy to understand how the degrading position of the english workers, engendered by our modern history, and its immediate consequences, has been still more degraded by the presence of indian competition. friedrich engels, 1845.
United Kingdom