University of Virginia Library

FASHION.[57]

An humble address has been lately presented to the Prince
of Wales by the Buckle Manufacturers of Birmingham, Wassal,
Wolverhampton, and their environs, stating that the
Buckle Trade gives employment to more than Twenty Thousand
persons, numbers of whom, in consequence of the prevailing
fashion of Shoestrings & Slippers, are at present without
employ, almost destitute of bread, and exposed to the horrors
of want at the most inclement season; that to the manufactures
of Buckles and Buttons, Birmingham owes its important
figure on the map of England; that it is to no purpose
to address Fashion herself, she being void of feeling and deaf
to argument, but fortunately accustomed to listen to his
voice, and to obey his commands: and finally imploring his
Royal Highness to consider the deplorable condition of their
trade, which is in danger of being ruined by the mutability of
fashion, and to give that direction to the public taste, which
will insure the lasting gratitude of the petitioners.

Several important reflections are suggested by this address.

I. The most precarious of all occupations which give
bread to the industrious, are those depending on mere fashion,
which generally changes so suddenly, and often so considerably,
as to throw whole bodies of people out of employment.

II. Of all occupations those are the least desirable in a
free state, which produce the most servile dependence of one
class of citizens on another class. This dependence must increase
as the mutuality of wants is diminished. Where the
wants on one side are the absolute necessaries; and on
the other are neither absolute necessaries, nor result from the
habitual œconomy of life, but are the mere caprices of fancy,
the evil is in its extreme; or if not.

III. The extremity of the evil must be in the case before
us, where the absolute necessaries depend on the caprices of
fancy, and the caprice of a single fancy directs the fashion of
the community. Here the dependence sinks to the lowest
point of servility. We see a proof of it in the spirit of the
address. Twenty thousand persons are to get or go without
their bread, as a wanton youth, may fancy to wear his shoes
with or without straps, or to fasten his straps with strings or
with buckles. Can any despotism be more cruel than a situation,
in which the existence of thousands depends on one
will, and that will on the most slight and fickle of all motives,
a mere whim of the imagination.

IV. What a contrast is here to the independent situation
and manly sentiments of American citizens, who live on their
own soil, or whose labour is necessary to its cultivation, or
who are occupied in supplying wants, which being founded
in solid utility, in comfortable accommodation, or in settled
habits, produce a reciprocity of dependence, at once ensuring
subsistence, and inspiring a dignified sense of social rights.

V. The condition of those who receive employment and
bread from the precarious source of fashion and superfluity,
is a lesson to nations, as well as to individuals. In proportion
as a nation consists of that description of citizens, and
depends on external commerce, it is dependent on the consumption

and caprice of other nations. If the laws of propriety
did not forbid, the manufacturers of Birmingham,
Wassal, and Wolverhampton, had as real an interest in supplying
the arbiters of fashion in America, as the patron they
have addressed. The dependence in the case of nations is
even greater than among individuals of the same nation: for
besides the mutability of fashion which is the same in both,
the mutability of policy is another source of danger in the
former.