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COMBINATIONS AND STRIKES
FROM
THE TEACHER’S POINT OF VIEW.
BY
WILLIAM ELLIS.
^Reprinted from “ The Museum and English Journal of Education.”)
LONDON:
THOMAS NELSON AND SONS, PATERNOSTER ROW:
»
AND EDINBURGH.
MDCCCLXV.
�COMBINATIONS AND STRIKES FROM THE TEACHER’S POINT
OF VIEW.
N a journal not devoted to education,
some apology might be required for
introducing a subject so hackneyed
as “Combinations and Strikes.’’ This
subject, like that of education itself,
has become distasteful to the general reader, on ac
count of the flood of vague and irrelevant matter
with which our periodical literature has been
deluged, both directly from the pen, and indirectly
from speeches at public meetings, where these sub
jects have been treated of.
The subject of Combinations and Strikes can
not, however, have become distasteful to teachers
as teachers, because it has seldom found its way
into schools. And our purpose now is to invite
them to consider whether this subject do not de
serve some of their attention, and whether the
judicious treatment of it in schools will not shield
it from some of that ill-treatment outside which
it has met with so undeservedly.
If we can show teachers that correct views
upon the probable influence of Combinations and
Strikes will materially affect the future well-being
of their pupils, and also that it is quite within the
scope of school instruction that correct views shall
be formed by the pupils in their schools, we feel
quite sure of obtaining their attention; and if
we cannot do thus much, none of their atten
tion ought to be bestowed upon us, due as it may
be, nevertheless, to the matter which we shall
have failed in elucidating.
As for the importance to the young of correct
views upon the probable effect of Combinations
and Strikes, we need do little more than state
what that effect is expected to be, viz., increased
wages, or, which is the same thing, less work with
undiminished wages. Few teachers can contem
plate the present state and future prospects of
adults now at work, without desiring for their
pupils better prospective wages than those which j
widely prevail, however well they may be recon- I
efled to the modicum reasonably to be expected
at starting. Neither can teachers consider this
thought to be otherwise than a wholesome one for |
their pupils to carry into industrial life ;—w By 1
what means may we hope to become entitled to
and possessed of, such wages as will enable us, at
least, to live decently and comfortably?”
How far it is possible to qualify the young
while yet in our schools, to judge of the means
likely to be accessible to them for obtaining satis
factory wages, or for obtaining an increase of the
unsatisfactory wages which they may be com
pelled to put up with for a time, is a matter to
which a little space and attention must be de
voted before we can ask teachers to agree or to
discuss with us. We must bespeak, at the same
time, a certain amount of indulgence, if our at
tempted exposition should be more elementary
and elaborate than might appear called for be
tween teachers and teachers. They will kindly
bear in mind that we are addressing the parents
of the children in their schools as well as them
selves. We can hardly hope to escape mystifica
tion, confusion, and obscurity, except by avoiding
to use many of the general terms in common use,
or by deferring their use until we have established
the existence, and obtained a firm hold of the
ideas, for which those terms are the names. To
this precaution against admissions not warranted
by experience under cover of vague and ambigu
ous language, may be added another against the
unguarded introduction into schools of subjects
that are beyond the comprehension of the children
to be instructed in them. Such subjects might
be overlooked in a crowd. To secure inspection,
therefore, we will enumerate, one by one, some of
the subjects which, in our judgment, are at once
important to be known, and teachable to the
young. Attention will thus be fixed upon each
separately, and whatever is deemed inadmissible
can easily be objected to at once.
Assuming it to be desirable that all the young
should take from school as correct and vivid an
impression as is possible at their age, of the
nature of the life which awaits them, we will pro
ceed, briefly and succinctly, to place before our
readers some of the matters important to be under
stood, on which the young may be brought to ob
serve, and. jiudge correctly, and feel strongly, if
�COMB[XATIOWS AND STRIKES
thW’ be but under the direction of teachers cap
able qL supporting and guiding them.
1. They and all their fellow-creatures are subsisting upon the produce of past labour—partly
even of the labour of some of the men who lived
many ages ^go. If the produce of past labour
were suddenly destroyed, all men would perish,
with the exception of a few here and there in the
warmer climates, who might subsist upon the
spontaneous products of the earth.
2. They and their fellow-creatures are day by
day consuming the produce of past labour—some
things rapidly, as articles of food; others more
slowly, as articles of clothing, and furniture, and
dwellings. If, then, men are to continue to live
as comfortably, and in as large numbers, as at
present, the produce of past labour must be re
placed as fast as it is consumed. If they are to
live more comfortably, and in larger numbers, the
produce consumed must be more than replaced.
No portion of the labour, and of the knowledge
and skill to assist it, which were at work in the
past, can be spared in the present and future, if
society is not to deteriorate. More of each must
be brought to bear upon production, if society is
to be improved.
3. Maintenance of the stores of produce, and
encouragement of future production, are indis
pensable for the continued subsistence of society
as it is. Other efforts must be added to these, in
order to bring about an improved state of society.
Side by side with these truths, it has become
known to us that some men will not work to pro
duce, and will spoil and waste as well as consume.
Not only do they fail to replace what they con
sume, but they would, if not prevented, destroy
the produce of other men’s labour, and thereby
discourage their efforts to produce and save for
the future.
4. A consciousness of the existence of such illdisposed persons interspersed among the other
members of society, fear of their increase, and
alarm lest the industry, knowledge, skill, and
economy upon which the subsistence and improve
ment of society depend, should decline or perish
under their assaults, have led to efforts to resist,
and, if possible, to overcome them. Combinations
Mil. contrivances for these purposes fall within
the province of what goes by the name of government, and must ever be the work of those who
desire to defend the happiness and progress of
society against those who are indifferent or averse
to that which is indispensable for the general
welfare.
L, 5. The conclusion arniled at, and acted upon,
by those who have been accgpted_as most, com
3
petent to organize and administer the powers of
government, is, that their efforts must be directed,
First, To securing to each member of society the
undisturbed enjoyment of the produce of his
industry: implying liberty to exchan gejjEroWirei
and sell, to lend and borrow, to give£and ^.lso
to appoint, subject to some few restrictions, who,
at his death, shall succeed to his possessions. The
powers thus enjoyed under the protectiorg^of
government constitute the “rights of property.”
The declarations of these rights by government
are a portion of the laws under which we enffij
property. The products of industry being cfflMal
“wealth,” property consists of wealth, and those
titles to wealth recognised by law. The penaltrM
by which rights are protected against those who
would invade them, are another portion of laws.
Second, To securing, chiefly through the pro
motion of the teaching and training of the young,
that knowledge, skill, and good habits—the human
agents in the production, preservation, and enjoy
ment of wealth—shall as nearly as possible be co
extensive with life itself.
6. A very cursory survey of society enables us
to recognise who are the principal possessors O’m
wealth, as we see them around us, and as they have
grown up under the protection of our laws, and
also who are those that possess little or no wealth.
The former are the elders, the inheritors of wealth, I
and the more capable, that is, the more intelligent,
industrious, economical, and trustworthy. The
latter are the younger, and the less capable, that
is, the uninstructed, the indolent, the dissipated,
and the untrustworthy. It cannot be qnAstiane J
that the former are much better fitted than the
latter to hold and dispose of that wealth, the
replacement of which, as fast as it is consumed, is
so essential to the welfare of society. To entw^giM
it to the latter is impossible, and would be fatal
were it possible. Nevertheless, no human being,
whatever his disqualifications, can be entirely shnj
out from access to some portion of wealth. To
shut him out, would be to sentence him to death
by starvation. It remains to be shewn how the
“rights of property” maybe maintained while
the “ duties to humanity ” are performed
7. The difficulty in the way of performing each
of these duties, without neglecting the other, al
though by no means overcome, is seen to be
greatly diminished when once attention is directed
to the practice prevailing among a large portion
of the possessors of wealth, and a still larger por
tion of the wealthless ; the first, devoting some of
that wealth which they reserve as a provision
against future want, to the purchase of lalwnj
wherpwith to acquire more; the second, selling^
�4
COMBINATIONS AND STRIKES.
their labour for some of that wealth, without
which they could neither work nor live. The
readiness, on one side, to part with present wealth
in order to obtain increased wealth in the future,
and on the other, to surrender the direction and
produce of one’s own labour to obtain the produce
of* past labour, has been accompanied and fol
lowed by a succession of contrivances, in the form
of machinery and other instruments of production,
by which the labour purchased is made to accom
plish results otherwise unattainable, and to bring
about the continually increasing accumulations of
wealth everywhere observable. It must be evi
dent that the duties to property and to humanity
will be performed together more and more in har
mony, progressively as the wealthy become less
wasteful, and the wealthless less incapable.
8. This practice of applying wealth to the pur
pose of procuring more wealth in the future, has
given rise to a number of arrangements and bar
gains to suit the convenience and ciroumstances
of the various persons disposed to apply a portion
of their wealth to this purpose.
AV hat these arrangements and bargains are,
ought to be understood ; but it would be tedious
to describe them without using the terms in general
use ; and it is dangerous to use these terms with
out making sure of the things which the terms are
the names of. Let us, therefore, rapidly run over
these things, and mention the names which have
been given to them.
a. Wealth applied to the purpose of obtaining
ncrease is called capital. Originally, capital can
have been little more than wealth, destined by its
owners for the purchase of labour. Progressively,
larger and larger portions of capital have assumed
the form of instruments of production, among the
latest developments of which may be named rail
ways and their appendages, agricultural, mining
and manufacturing machinery, ships, docks, har
bours, and canals.
b. Wealth obtained by sale of labour is called
wages. The portion of oapital set apart for this
purpose is spoken of as a wages-fund, to distin
guish it from other portions of capital evidently
no longer available for purchasing labour.
c. The increase of wealth, looked forward to
from the application of wealth as capital, is called
' profit.
d. Many owners of capital are not administra
tors of capital; some administer the capital of
others as well as their own. Where they are not,
as in the case of those who prefer to work for
wages, of professional men, and of men conscious
of incapacity for directing labour, they lend their
capitals, surrendering their title to the larger but
uncertain return called profit, and bargaining with
the borrower for a smaller but certain stipulated
return. This smaller and stipulated return, is
called interest.
e. Besides these arrangements for facilitating
the co-operation of capital and labour in the work
of production, there are various forms of partner
ship and joint-stock association, admitting, accord
ing to the tastes, capabilities, and means of each,
the separation, partial or complete, of the elements
of the total future profit expected ; these elements
being, remuneration for the superintendence, for
the risk, and for the use, without risk, of the
capital. The latter of these elements, as before
stated, is called interest.
f. Wealth, capital, wages, profit, and interest,
are more frequently than otherwise measured in
money, and distributed with the aid of money.
They are also, spoken of, and written about, as
money. But each of them is a thing of itself, inde
pendently of money. And money is another thing.
With the assistance of these terms, bearing in
mind that they are familiar to thousands who
attach no definite meanings to them, and keeping
on our guard, so as not to be entrapped into using
them, sometimes in one sense, sometimes in an
other, quite unconscious that the matters denoted
by them have been shifted, let us proceed further
to indicate what the pupils in our schools can be
led to deduce for themselves from what they have
already observed and thought over.
9. The tendency of administrators of capital or
employers, is for them to distribute the wagesfund at their command among the labourers whom
they employ, according to the estimate which they
form of the producing powers of each. Making
use of the term “labourers” in its widest signifi
cation, employers will give to some, £5000 a-year;
to some, £10 a-week; to some, 3s. a-day; and to
others they will refuse wages or employment
altogether.
10. The total capital, and hence the total wagesfund, is a limited quantity. If it were distributed
among labourers in equal portions to each, the
portion of each could not be more than the quo
tient of the whole wages-fund divided by the
number of labourers. If this portion or wage
were considered insufficient, its increase could
only be procured by increasing the total wagesfund, or hy diminishing the number of labourers.
The latter mode of increasing average wages does
not require to be considered, and the former can
only be brought about at some future time, near
or distant, rapidly or slowly, according to oppor
tunities and the means resorted to.
11. Increase of wages to all is no more possible
�FROM THE TEACHER'S POINT OF VTEW1
at once, because the wages-fund is distributed
among labourers according to their respective
producing powers, than if it were distributed
among them equally and irrespectively of their
comparative producing powers. If more than the
average share be given to some, there must re
main less than the average share for others. But
there are two compensating circumstances at
tached to the apportionment of wages according
to producing powers. Greater future wealth is
produced, and as the wages fall into the posses
sion of more capable men, they are more likely to
be well used, and to be partly added to capital
forthwith.
12, Employers and employed,—they who have
bought and they who have sold labour,—it will
be observed, are two classes much more distin
guishable than capitalists and labourers. In every
country where the industrial virtues flourish, and
in proportion as they flourish, labourers, except
ing the youngest, whose power of earning and
hence of saving is as yet undeveloped, are capi
talists. They lend their capitals because they
can earn more through wages and interest than
they see their way to earn by administering their
own capitals, either separately or in co-operation
with other capitalists. The savings banks alone,
with their deposits of more than £40,000,000, are
proofs apparent to everybody, and many more
might be produced, of the extent to which, in a
community still deplorably afflicted with ignor
ance and misconduct, labourers are capitalists.
The chart of life, and the sailing directions
which the young will take out of schools where
they receive this kind of instruction, points to
wealth as the reward of intelligence and good
conduct,—wages small at first, because producing
power is small, but growing with the growth of
the estimate formed of producing power. The
capable labourer does no damage to his less capa
ble fellow-labourer. He assists in the increase,
so urgently required, of future capital. If he
save, a portion of his wages becomes capital at
once, wherewith employers distribute more wages.
The incapable, he assists to support. Lessons
easy and pleasant to learn in schools become difficult and painful if deferred till those who never
learned such lessons begin to suffer from their
ignorance. To children who leave school with
correct chart and good sailing directions, with
capacity for using them and resolution to act
upon them, the world opens not as a scene of
storm and tempest,"in which shipwreck can with
difficulty be escaped, but as an arena for the exer
cise of industry, intelligence, and the other social
5
virtues, with probable success in the future, and
certain satisfaction from the performance of duty
in the present. Little comfort can be derived by
the victims of ignorance and vice from the know
ledge, if communicable to them, that their desti
tution and suffering are the consequences of
previous mistaken conduct. In the presence of
misery, it would be brutal, if possible, to trace to
the sufferers the causes, no longer removable, of
their sufferings.
Taking our leave of school days, we will accom
pany the young as they leave the schools in which
they had received instruction such as we have
faintly sketched. Four out of every five of them
will be more or less dependent for subsistence
upon the sale of their labour. They will rejoice
rather than complain that there are employers to
be found able and willing to buy their labour, and
able and willing to afford them opportunities of
increasing their powers of usefulness. They may
regret, if service satisfactory to themselves and
their friends is not easy to be found, that capital
and employers are not more abundant. They
will surely not murmur if employers, with capital
at command, are so much in want of labour that,
not waiting to be sought, they apply at the schools
to obtain recruits likely to be made efficient la
bourers and deserving of wages.
They have entered upon their industrial career
With the assistance of their friends they have
sought the best service accessible, in the estimate
of which neither prospective nor present advan
tages will have been overlooked. Some will be
less successful than others in the selection of the
employments offered to therm Employers also
will not always find the services which they have
hired worth the wages which they have bargained
to pay. Shiftings and re-engagements will be of
frequent occurrence. But in subsequent, as well
as in original engagements, there will be one
thought prevailing among employers and la
bourers. Each will wish to do the best for them
selves; and if their efforts in this direction are
made intelligently, they will also do the best for;
one another, the employers seeking labourers
whose labour will produce most in proportion to
the wages paid, and the labourers seeking em
ployers whose service is most likely to lead to
those industrial rewards of which immediate wages
are hut a part.
There is an incessant and, we may say, a
healthy activity of thought and effort for in
dividual and general advancement. It is felt
that there is room for improvement. Th era is
no denying that a very large number of people
are inadequately fed, clothed, and lodged; that
�6
COMBINATIONS AND STRIKES.
they have no capital; and that, thrown entirely
upon the wages-fund for support, they obtain
wages insufficient for decent and wholesome liv
ing. It would be a sadder spectacle to see this
state of things contentedly and inertly put up
with, than even to be compelled to acknowledge
that efforts at amelioration were taking a wrong
^direction. In this country, happily, there is no
danger of such passive submission, on the part
either of the immediate sufferers, or of society in
general. But efforts at amelioration will probably
be not wholly either in the right or in the wrong
direction ; susceptible, therefore, of better direc
tion. And it is desirable that the young should
be prepared to form a correct judgment upon the
plans submitted to them for obtaining increase of
wages, and for bettering their condition in other
respects.
We may now ask the specific question whieh
we had in our thoughts at starting : How should
the young, instructed as we say they ought to be,
deal with proposals to them to unite in combina
tions and strikes ?
We mention combinations and strikes together
because they are so commonly brought to our
notice together. But we may dismiss “strikes”
in a few words, and without much ceremony.
Strikes are acknowledged by everybody to be
evils, and they are resorted to only, as many other
evils are, to avert greater—as the destruction of
buildings to check the spread of conflagration, as
a jettison to preserve from foundering, or as am
putation to save life. Because strikes bring to
our notice the existence of combinations, it must
not be forgotten that many combinations exist
keeping clear of strikes. And it is contended
that all might be so managed as to keep clear of
strikes.
We may be quite sure that when combinations
are formed, the prevailing wish must be to keep
clear of strikes. Strikes are no more intended by
labourers who combine, than indigestions by the
hungry who eat. Proposals, accordingly, will
be made to the young to unite in a combination
by itself, and not in conjunction with a strike in
vidiously tacked to it. But before they could
accede to any such proposal, they would wish to
understand what advantages might be reasonably
expected by them and their fellows, and what
ought not to be expected, if they would escape
disappointment.
They might begin by considering the probable
effect of a combination upon wages. It ’ would
not increase the wages-fund. It could not, there
fore, increase general wages. If it were to alter
the distribution of the wages-fund, it would only
do so by interfering with the efforts of employers
to distribute the wages-fund among labourers
according to their several producing powers.
But that would be to diminish future wealtre, and
hence to check the growth of the future wagesfund.
But might it not maintain a high level of wages
in particular branches of business, or raise the
level of wages previously felt to be too low? It
could only do this by excluding additional labourers from access to those branches, or by
bringing additional capital into them. But additional capital cannot be attracted into a business
except by the prospect of profit equal to or greater
than that seen to be obtainable elsewhere. And
with this prospect, capital would flow in, not in
consequence, but in spite of a combination which
prevents labourers from following or accompany
ing the capital to share in the advantages offered by
it. The forcible exclusion of labourers from par
ticular branches of business can only mean con
demnation of the labourers excluded, to lower
wages, in order to maintain or to raise the wages
of those in possession.
Combinations among labourers, so far as they
can influence wages, can only do so by preventing
that distribution of the wages-fund which would
be made by employers left uncontrolled in their
efforts to employ their capitals to the greatest ad
vantage. Combinations among labourers can
scarcely, then, be said to be so much against emplovers as against other labourers, since they
can only control employers by withholding from
labourers permission to be employed. If decrease
of production be the consequence, future wages
will decrease also.
It will not be lost sight of that employers strive
to distribute the wages-fund among labourers
according to their respective producing powers,
i. e. according to the estimate formed of their re
spective industrial virtues. If the authority of
employers be susperseded by that of a combina
tion of labourers, will they also wish to distribute
the wages-fund so as to reward and encourage
the industrial virtues ? If so, which of the two,
the employers or the labourers, are, from their
experience and position, more likely to form a
correct estimate of industrial merits ? If not, the
development of those qualities upon which the
happiness and progress of communities depend
would scarcely be promoted by combinations
among labourers.
One can conceive of a combination among
labourers in which attempts to encroach upon the
prerogative of employers should neither be made
nor contemplated. Its object might be to dis-
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�FROM THE TEACHER'S POINT OF VIEW.
countenance ill conduct, to contribute out of their
wages towards the maintenance of those tem
porarily incapacitated, to introduce promising
recruits, to find other employment for super
numeraries, to form their capitals into a joint
stock, or to add them to a joint stock already
formed. A combination of labourers thus directed
would be a co-operation of labourers with capi
talists, and also of capitalists with one another.
Combinations have been formed, we are not
sure that some are not in existence still, to ex
clude machinery, or new contrivances for making
labour more effective, from particular branches of
business. Our intelligent young people could not
possibly enter into a combination for such a purposa. They would not be misled by the com
plaint, that it was wished to supersede labour by
machinery. Their intellectual exerdises will have
brought to their notice, that language may be used
to conceal a fallacy, as well as to express a truth.
The spade, the plough, and the thrashing-machine
make labour more effective, they do not supersede
it. And the pumping-engine which drains a
mine, which, without it, must remain submerged,
makes labour possible where it was previously im
possible. To obstruct employers in their efforts
to make the labour which they purchase as re
munerative as possible, is to obstruct the growth
of the wages-fund, from which alone general im
provement in wages is to be expected.
There are, and will continue to be, epochs in
most branches of industry, when, from the flow of
capital faster than that of labourers into them,
wages will rise; and also when, from the flow of
capital faster than that of labourers out of them,
wages will fall. If combinations, by spreading
information and organising facilities, could expe
dite the influx and efflux of labourers, to make
them correspond with the movements of capital,
they would unquestionably be useful, by assisting
to diffuse the benefits anticipated from the altered
applications of capital, and to diminish the suffer
ing of those who were about to be abandoned by
the capital upon which they depend for wages.
But if combinations attempt to make labourers
refuse to accommodate themselves to the move
ments of capital, they can only succeed by exclud
ing some from opportunities for bettering their
(condition, and by condemning others to look on
and clamour for undiminished wages, and, per
haps, pine in want, while the tide of capital is
flowing towards other parts, to confer increased
wages upon those who choose to accompany it.
When the workmen of employers who remain to
the last in a declining branch of business, or who
persist in conducting it by means since surpassed
by others, are compelled to submit to lower wages,
can it be said with propriety that capital has
w triumphed” ?
If combinations be so much less capable than
they have been imagined to be, of improving the
condition of under-paid and over-worked labourers, \
is there, it may be asked, no escape for them from
their misery in the present, and no hope of re
dress in the future? Before attempting to an
swer that appeal, it may be observed that there
are few instances of misery so sad that they might
not be made much sadder, and few lots so dark
that they might not be made darker; and com
binations would rather work in those directions
or encourage hopes doomed to disappointment.
There are expressions familiar to us all, which,
whether manufactured on purpose, or diverted
from former uses, have helped to blind us to our
follies and mistakes.* Restrictions on trade were
recommended to us under the name of “protec
tion.” Persistence in error so long as our neigh
bours chose to go wrong, was advised under the
name of “reciprocity.” The free circulation of
capital between borrowers and lenders was long
prevented through fear of the “extortions of
usurers.” And now, combinations among work
men are recommended as bulwarks against the
“tyranny of capitalists.”
The young should leave our schools qualified
not only to use language to express their own
thoughts appropriately, but to detect the misuse
of language by which they might otherwise be
confounded and misled. A tyrant, they know, is
supposed to be an oppressor. When they make
* For specimens of this use of language see letters from Mr
Fawcett in the Times of 17th and 22d March 1865. Some mat
ters are referred to by Mr Fawcett upon which, although beyond
the scope of our text, we would gladly have a little more in
formation. Mr Fawcett, speaking of the labourer of the present
times, says:—
“ He hears our statesmen eloquently describing the vast in
crease in the nation’s wealth, and he does not find that his own
lot is perceptibly improved; mechanical inventions have caused
untold wealth to be created, and yet his hours of toil have not
been materially shortened ; he hears glowing descriptions of
the growth of this mighty metropolis, and at the same time he
knows that the home of the London working man is not more
comfortable, because, as new streets are opened and other im
provements are introduced, places where the labourers can
dwell are more and more restricted.”
Is it true that labourers have not been benefited by “ the vast
increase in the nation’s wealth,” and are less comfortably
lodged in this metropolis ? If these statements cannot be made
with truth of labourers in general, to which in particular will
they apply 1 and why have some been excluded from participa
tion in the blessings enjoyed by others ? If he will tell us what
becomes of the labourers who are refused admittance to, or dis
missed from, the establishments of such employers as Sir Fran
cis Crossley, and thriving co-operative societies, and why they,
in common with the crowds at our dock gates, are thus unfor
tunately situated, he will assist us, and perhaps himself also, to
the information of which we are in search.
�8
COMBINATIONS AND STRIKES
their first attempts to sellltheir^abour, they
scarcely believe themselves. ioB™n the look out
for tyrants. When they obtain an advance of
wages, they do not become conscious of any
tyranny. When some new employer, hearing of
their efficiency, offers them better wages than
their former employers [can afford to give, they do
not suspect the tyrant. W hen employers attract
labourers from districts where they are earning
ten jfflEnings a-weekf by the promise of twenty
shillings; or when enterprising labourers, unsoli
cited by others, quit places where they were
earning ten shillings and apply for employment
at twenty shillings, the acceptance of their ser
vices will not appear tyrannical to them, unwel
come and tyrannical as it may appear to other
labourers in the receipt of thirty shillings.
We have no thought of escaping criticism or
refutation by affirming, that the expositions which
we have attempted are consistent with “ the prin
ciples of political economy,” or are correct appli
cations of those principles. Principles of political
economy, in common with all other principles,
are liable to be misinterpreted and misapplied,
and we do not seek shelter, accordingly, behind
them. Nor shall we be greatly alarmed by those
who do no more than assert that we have sinned
against political economy. Calculations can be
verified, and the analysis of a compound can be
tested by experiment, without ostentatiously ap
pealing to “ the principles of arithmetic or che
mistry.” We beg that our estimate of the probable
influence of combinations upon wages and well
being may be examined by similar methods.
We doubt whether any political economist, master
of his subject, would find much to dissent from in
what we have written. If he would not, he
certainly ought to refrain from the use of such
expressions as “antagonism between capital and
labour,” the effect of which must be to make
truth and sound doctrine unpalatable.
We were told, on one occasion, when comment
ing, perhaps a little warmly, upon this mischievous
trifling with matters of life and death, that such
11 bosh" did ~ot deserve our attention. To this
we replied, it may be very well for you to despise
“ bosh,” but those who listen to bosh as if it were
sense may rush to their ruin, and those who talk
bosh will never know nor talk sense till they can
see through their own bosh.
.
The expression, “ antagonism between capital
and labour,” must have been invented to foster a
prejudice rather than to recommend a truth. We
might as well talk of the antagonism between
food and appetite, or between the shivering body
and clothes. Passing from capital and labour to
capitalists and labourers, they seem to us to be
more attracted towards, than repelled from, each
other. Their respective wants and means of sup
plying wants draw them together. Apart they
are powerless. Buyers and sellers, borrowers
and lenders, are similarly drawn towards each
other. The antagonism, if there be any, is be
tween capitalists and capitalists, labourers and
labourers, buyers and buyers, sellers and sellers,
borrowers and borrowers, lenders and lenders,
each contending for a common object, and appear
ing to frustrate those against whom they contend.
We will not close this paper without reminding
teachers, that the subjects which we have been
urging upon their attention cannot be left un
heeded by their pupils. They, at the close of
school-life, will be compelled to act. The alter
native before them is not action or inaction, but
judicious or injudicious action, the one leading
towards well-being, the other away from it.
Surely there is misery enough caused by wilful
misconduct, and by “ the ills which flesh is heir
to.” Its increase through ignorance is a reproach
to those by whom the ignorance might have been
prevented. It is more in sorrow than in anger
that we blame the courageous, enduring, and
energetic men, who are adding misery to misery
by their mistaken efforts to obtain relief. But
we cannot suppress our anger at the apathy of
those instructors of youth, who persist in a course
of instruction, the end of which is to leave their
pupils in ignorance upon matters, a knowledge of
which is indispensable to good self-guidance
well-being.
�
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Victorian Blogging
Description
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Dublin Core
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Title
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Combinations and strikes from the teacher's point of view
Creator
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Ellis, William
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publiction: London and Edinburgh
Collation: 8 p. ; 23 p.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Reprinted from 'The Museum and English Journal of Education'. Printed in double columns. Date in Roman numerals.
Publisher
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Thomas Nelson and Sons
Date
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1865
Identifier
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G5620
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Education
Working conditions
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Combinations and strikes from the teacher's point of view), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
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Text
Language
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English
Conway Tracts
Education
Political Economy
Strikes
Working Classes