1 10 5 https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/abaa3b968d2b605afef2a38d68db5f33.pdf?Expires=1777507200&Signature=A8EWC2b3GhHHOv0CL16k4rlmFYBtPAtsLTsw%7EZVxKigKQcRxzj4s9dkCtqSCfI8kL2Qn7axPf8zJgB8-j5IBV8cu1%7EyNTtxkMbjkP6OPaC3yLgl1vWaWtBt3TUBecjY779IMv2B4h5wNimzG016uUPHqWTykY9fK2%7EquD86FLiYGkzEpvahcTqtg4RKuK8d7YKnevLfQNCaNkLE0m3psN3Z2LRsv2VLM643rSIo0Mo0LQKJ8Xjy%7E9WIg-7gpJ85GBaxWfk6RxjQ5NV2G-ULaeFxjuFJ1yu6-gC7N5q2dEPBeGK1xqOUwQRKM3dHX7TmHh2CRvtKqgzv6jFSdArM7DA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM d50665091f5b7b4de90cf53fb8d649b7 PDF Text Text Price One Penny. T4O/ POLITICS for the PEOPLE.—No. I. MINING RENTS — AND — ROYALTIES. By J. MORRISON DAVIDSON, BARRISTER-AT-LAW. Author of “Eminent Radicals,” “The New Book of Kings," “Book of Lords,” “ Useless, Dangerous, and Ought to be I I For Special Prices for quantities to distribute in to the Publishers. I Abolished,” &c., &c. Mining Districts apply LONDON : I THE MODERN PRESS, 13, Paternoster Row, E.C. agAgent for U.S.A, W. L. Rosenberg, 261, East Tenth Street, New \ ork City. �The Co-operative Commonwealth: Exposition of Modern Socialism. Gronlund, of Philadelphia. paper, price is. an By Laurence Demy 8-vo., cheaper edition, “ The book, while just as readable and captivating as Henry George’s Progress and Poverty, is far more logical and thoughtful: at the same time, it is in a masterly manner adapted to the Anglo-Saxon public.”—New York Volkszeitung (one of the largest Socialist papers in America). “ The best account of German or State Socialism in English.”—New York Sun (the largest capitalist newspaper in the States). “The grandest and highest minded statement of Socialism I have ever seen.”—H. D. Wright, Chief of Massachussetts Bureau of Labour Statistics. The Emigration Fraud Exposed. By H. M. Hyndman. With a portrait of the Author. Reprinted by permission from the Nineteenth Century for February, 1885. Crown 8-vo., price id. The Socialist Catechism. By J. L. Joynes. Reprinted with additions from Justice. price id. Fifteenth thousand. Socialism and the Worker. Sorge. Price id. Royal 8-vo., By F. A. An explanation in the simplest language of the main idea of Socialism. The Appeal to the Young. By Prince Peter Kropotkin. Translated from the French by H. M. Hyndman and reprinted from Justice. Royal 8-vo., 16-pp. Price one penny. Tenth thousand. The most eloquent and noble appeal to the generous emotions ever pen­ ned by a scientific man. Its author has just suffered five years imprison­ ment at the hands of the French Republic for advocating the cause of the workers. Are You a Social-Democrat ? tinted paper. "Why 4-pp., on fine Price 5s. per 1,000, post free. am a Social-Democrat. I 4-pp., on fine tinted paper. Price 5s. per 1,000, post free. The above with announcement of Lectures, meetings, &c., printed on last page, 8s. per 1,000, 28s. for 5,000. The Modern Press, 13, Paternoster Row, E.C. And YNL L. ROSENBERG, 261, East Tenth Street, New York City. �MINING RENTS AND ROYALTIES. F there be one thing in this world more astonishing than that individuals should claim private property in the surface of this planet, and have their claims allowed by the Legislature of a free country, it assuredly is that they should pretend to have a right to the contents of its interior. A coal-hewer descends into the bowels of the cold earth, and with infinite toil and danger raises a ton of fuel for tenpence or even eightpence. Another man, calling himself a landlord, who is meanwhile, perchance, gambling at Monaco or bear-hunting in the Rocky Mountains, successfully exacts a toll of thirteen or fourteen pence per ton on the entire output of a mine, or, it may be, a score of mines ! Could there be a more startlinganomaly ? “ O Lord what fools these mortals be ! ” is all the comment that any rational being can, in the circumstances, make. I �4 Yet this was the kernel of the case which the influential deputation of Members of Parliament, who, in April, 1886, brought the question of mining royal­ ties before the Liberal Home Secretary, had to sub­ mit. True, Mr. Childers’ mind was a taint la 1 asa as regards mining royalties, and not one of the deputation ventured to suggest their nationalisation —the only true remedy for the serious evils com­ plained of. Still much good was effected by the bare recital of the atrocious exactions which the land­ lords habitually make both on mine lessees and miners. Mr. Stephen Mason, representing one of the divisions of Lanarkshire, where trade depression is peculiarly severe, instanced the case of a ducal high­ wayman who preys on the mining industry of the district to the extent of ^114,000 per annum. His method of blackmail is this :—He benignly grants leases for twenty-one years at fixed “ rents,” varying from Z500 to ,£5,000. These are payable whether the mine is worked or not. If worked, the moment a certain output is attained “ royalties ” come into play. These vary from çd. to is. 6d. per ton. No mediaeval Rhine robber ever devised a more effectual system of brigandage. Indeed, the landlord is the undisputed master of the situation, and it is a marvel that he has not succeeded long ere now in completely �5 destroying the industrial supremacy of the country. Mr. Mason told of an instance where a company spent ^50,000 to get at a seam of coal. They reached it, but found that rent and royalty would together absorb every penny of profit. The land­ lord would, nevertheless, have his entire pound of flesh. Consequently the machinery has been stand­ ing idle for four years ! But it is when leases come to be renewed that the landlords’ harvest is really ripe. Mr. Conybeare, who represents a mining division of Cornwall, revealed a state of things in his neighbourhood of a singularly aggravated kind. When the lease of the Dolcoath mine was renewed a fine of ,£2 5,000 was exacted, The Duke of Bedford, in the case of the Devon Great Consols Mine, levied a £20,000 fine. As for the unfortunate lessees they might like it or lump it. If they lumped it their engine-houses and all their improvements went to the landlord without compensation. The landlord, moreover, on the ground-rent monopoly principle, charged from five to ten times agricultural value for the surface. As to the amount ofannual tribute paid by the nation on its mineral wealth to the landlords, no exact figures can be given. But it is has been estimated that in the year 1883 they pocketed on coal and iron ore alone the vast sum of eight millions sterling. This enor­ �mous drain in the face of falling and stagnant mar­ kets, it is not too much to say accounts for half the privations which working men are now suffering from low wages and no wages. Our two staple industries are admittedly iron and coal. They are controlling elements in rails, ships, and manufactures of every description. Every private toll levied on them is a blight on every related form of employment. Mr. Mason gave an instructive example of the effect of a comparatively low royalty. In Scotland the minimum royalty on pig-iron is 6s. Some of the Cleveland royalties on the other hand do not exceed 3s. 3d. per ton. What is the con­ sequence ? Scotland, where all the other conditions of production are rather more than equal, is invaded weekly by Cleveland iron to the extent of from 6,000 to 7,000 tons. Nor is this the worst. Differential home dues might be endured, but to handicap the British iron trade in its strenuous grapple with foreign competition is a much more serious affair. In most parts of Germany the royalty on pig iron is 6d. per ton ; in France it is 8d., and in both these countries royalties are national dues, and not, as with us, private black­ mail. In Belgium the ordinary State royalty is is. 3d. per ton, and even that handicap not improbably accounts in no small degree for the pre­ valent turbulence in that country of miners. �7 I quote the following weighty sentences from an admirable address by Mr. William Forsyth, the eloquent President of the Scottish Land Restoration League:—“Out of the eighty blast furnaces in Cumberland forty are at this moment standing idle, and the others are but partially employed. There are many causes which might have the effect of keeping these forty blast furnaces idle. They might be idle for want of capital; they might be idle for want of men willing to work. Well, gentlemen, the Cumberland furnaces are put out not because of any lack of capital, for only within the last week or two a company of employers there were willing to sink £20,000 in raising iron-ore, and were only prevented from doing so by the landlord’s ultimatum that he would not reduce his royalty of 2s. 6d. per ton on the ore which might be raised. The company found thatwith this charge they could not raise ore as cheaply as it could be imported from Spain, and they, therefore, abandoned their project. Neither can it be that there are not men able and willing to work, for an ironmaster in Cumberland writes saying that there are thousands of men unemployed who would be glad to find work of any kind in order to save their wives and children from starvation.” “ I am informed that the girders of the St. Enoch Railway Station, in our city, were imported from j �8 Belgium, and we know that the Barnsley Railway Station was built of imported iron. ’ The Midland Railway Company is at present importing large quantities of iron and steel sleepers from Belgium. The streets of London, Liverpool, Dublin, and Belfast are being laid with tramway rails of foreign manufacture. Our Glasgow Municipal Buildings are at this moment being built with iron girders brought from Belgium, and paid for from the taxes collected from the people of Glasgow. On looking up at these girders we see in prominent letters the name “ Maclellan,” and in our innocence we think that if the cost of these buildings is great at any rate the work is done by our own people. But this is not so. The ironmaster to whom I have referred is himself the owner of eight furnaces specially adapted to the manufacture of pig-iron and steel rails. Four of these furnaces are idle, and yet he is actually importing thousands of tons of iron and steel from Belgium and Germany.” Talk of high wages and short hours of labour “ driving trade out of the country ! ” Why, if these royalty footpads are not speedily got rid of there will soon be neither trade nor wages left in it. One blast furnace produces in a week six hundred tons of pig-iron. On that quantity the landlord’s royalties amount to ^202 ; while the wages of the employes �9 —managers, engineers, chemists, workmen all told— average less than one half, or ^95. The royalties on British steel rails paid to the landlords amount to 9s. 6d. per ton ; in Belgium they average is. 9d. Is it any wonder that the Indian Department of Government is monthly sending out to India thou­ sands of tons of imported iron and steel rails and sleepers ? Is it any wonder if in most cases it costs about three times as much to construct a mile of British railway as any other ? A Cunard liner making the double or return jour­ ney across the Atlantic consumes four thousand one hundred and twenty-five tons of coal. This means a royalty to the landlord of ^206 5s., or more than the wages of the entire crew from captain to cabin boy. Ina word, the owners of steamers pay to the lords of land a tribute of ,£274,100 per annum. Of course passengers and the producers of exports and the consumers of imports are the ultimate victims. What, then, is the remedy for this ruinous system of exploitation ? Is it to be cured, as the deputation suggested, and as Mr. Conybeare’s Mining Rates Bill weakly proposes, by establishing a sliding scale as between landlords and mine-lessees ? Certainly not, unless the State is to step into the landlord’s shoes. Every scheme to enable landlords to rob in moderation is bad. �IO We are not without examples of the true solution of the royalty problem in other lands. In Germany, speaking generally, the Prussian law of 1865 prevails. It vests all mineral royalties in the State. No freeholder can raise minerals on his freehold without a concession from the Government. He dare not even, after due notice, prevent private persons irom entering on his land to bore for the discovery of minerals. The concessionaire of a mine is entirely independent of the lord of the surface. Concessions are made to any qualified person or persons by a district oberbergamt, or office, on certain conditions. Concessionaires must (1) pay to the State in royalty and inspection dues 2 per cent, per annum on net produce ; and (2) form a- Benefit Society, or Knappschajt Verein, for their workmen, they contributing one-half the funds, the “ hands ” the other. The Knappschaft Verein supports and doctors invalid and injured miners, pensions widows, and educates children free of expense. In France private royalties were abolished at the Revolution and made national property. The pre­ sent law bears date 1810. It is the same in principle as the German law. The concessionaire pays 5 per cent, net produce to the State plus 10 centimes per franc additional to form an Accidents Relief Fund. A strictly limited rent is also payable to the lords of the surface. �11 The Belgian law (1810) is in the main similar to the French law', but concessions made under the law of 1837 are of a less favourable character, and in some cases the dues mount up to 4s. in the pound. But we need not go beyond the limits of our own Islands for a sound model of mining legislation. An admirable Act of the Scottish Parliament (1592) still in force, but audaciously set at defiance by the land­ lords of Scotland since the union with England, appoints a “ Master of the Metals,” with full State control of all mines and minerals in the realm. He is to secure 10 per cent, to the State, and is allowed 5 per cent, for inspection dues, &c. “ And by reason that the said miners are in daily hazard of their lives by the bad air of the mines and the danger of falling in the same, and other infinite miseries which daily occur in the said work, therefore our Sovereign Lord (James VI.) exempts said miners from all taxa­ tion whatever, both in peace and war, and takes them all, their families and goods, in his special protection,” &c. This is the sort of thing that is wanted, and not sliding scales to. give perpetuity to a system of pal pable robbery, by which the State is defrauded of some ten millions sterling per annum. And the robbers ! �12 What are they ? The drones of the community ! They feed on the mechanic’s labour ; The starved hind for them compels the stubborn glebe To yield its unshared harvest. And yon squalid form, leaner than fleshless misery, Drags out his life in darkness in the unwholesome mine To glad their grandeur. Many faint with toil That few may know the cares and woes of sloth. r � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; 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> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Mining rents and royalties Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Davidson, John Morrison [1843-1916] Description An account of the resource Place of publication: London Collation: 12, [4] p. ; 19 cm. Series title: Politics for the People Series number: No. 1 Notes: Publisher's advertisement p. 2. List of reviews of 'The New Book of Kings', by the author, on four unnumbered pages at the end. Tentative date of publication from KVK. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Modern Press Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource [1885?] Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context T401 Subject The topic of the resource Working conditions Socialism Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <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 (Mining rents and royalties), 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> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Mining Royalties Social conditions Socialism Working Classes https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/8899bef81859b5fc9cc65c3c51911504.pdf?Expires=1777507200&Signature=A9mNZaxLEgsa1sCAh5dPT3tAYoe8dAukHAwXE5S0X2vK2jeie4IGyf%7EKeQzWm2c6Sd65yncJGGzlD67outSI70Ta%7ElLYNobt25vNN-RpvQsAv%7EZYZMYw1VWUm73dShGHch9Raj7lmEzcTs9plgwYx-PadS1HCXFMwF9l39IqQokNX6lfZPdHjycBzgRe6oVT4UzoGw84lcbcZAfYJv2D0flunZn1dXVlLf7j-S7vEf9rs5ZKWOP0ORYC45JiOMA7fml7v%7ErXupcwH9KhpewOab2IiaONBVs0A2GEyyYBX2Ar9GV4XMZJriwGh9WWUqzjfES5EYatCWeKWDl9LCjasQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 1590b35f31ab4ac8c7b0436856512bd0 PDF Text Text PRICE ONE PENNY. Oh Slaves of these laborious years, Oh Freemen of the years to be : Shake off your blind and foolish fears, And hail the Truth that makes you free. WHAT A COMPULSORY 8 Hour Working Day MEANS By TO THE TOM WORKERS. Mi .zV TV ’2V , (Amalgamated Engineers). THE MODERN PRESS, 13, Paternoster Row, E.C. Agent for U.S.A., W. L. ROSENBERG, 261, EAST TENTH STREET, NEW YORK CITY. �The Emigration Fraud Exposed. By H. M. Hyndman. With a portrait of the Author. Reprinted by permission from the Nineteenth Century for February, 1885. Crown 8-vo., price id. The Socialist Catechism. By J. L. Joynes. Reprinted with additions from Justice. price id. Fifteenth thousand. Socialism and the Worker. Sorge. Royal 8-vo., By F. A. Price id. An explanation in the simplest language of the main idea of Socialism. The Working Man’s Programme (Arbeiter Programm). By Ferdinand Lassalle. Translated from the German by Edward Peters. Crown 8-vo., paper cover, price 6d. Social Progress and Individual Effort. Desirable Mansions. Co-operative Production. By Edward Carpenter. Price id. each. The Appeal to the Young. By Prince Peter Kropotkin. Translated from the French by H. M. Hyndman and reprinted from Justice. Royal 8-vo., 16-pp. Price one penny. Tenth thousand. The most eloquent and noble appeal to the generous emotions ever pen­ ned by a scientific man. Its author has just suffered five years imprison­ ment at the hands of the French Republic for advocating the cause of the workers. John Williams and the History of the Social-Democratic Federation. 8-vo., price id. With portrait. Royal The Modern Press, 13, Paternoster Row, E.C. And W. L. ROSENBERG, 261, East Tenth Street, New York City. �EIGHT HOURS A DAY. -------------- ♦-------------- HE appalling amount of distress that exists in every town in Britain must arrest the atten­ tion of all duty loving men and women. No one who sees the effects of want and the fear of want can passively behold the dire poverty of a large section of the workers. Rather will he probe and probe until he finds the cause of the disease. Socialists have probed and they find the disease of WANT to be spread by the profit-making system upon which all industry and Society itself is based. They know that five or six centuries ago, without machinery, Englishmen obtained for their work sufficient to keep them in vigorous health and that they were not subject to periodical trade depressions; and when they further reflect upon the fact that the working day then consisted of no more than eight* hours, no wonder that Socialists are discontented with the present state of affairs, and that they resolve to use every means in their power to replace the present discord, misery, and anarchy, with harmony, happiness, and order. The effect of our so-called labour-saving machinery (used really by its owners to save wages and not labour) is to cause continual distress amongst the workers by mercilessly throwing them out of employment without any compensation. It may then take a man often * See “Work and Wages” by Thorold Rogers, M.P. �months, sometimes years, to find an occupation of any kind and when found it is at a price much below that he was in receipt of before the machine disturbed him. Yet the machine has increased the ease and rapidity of wealth-production. This increase of wealth is of course enriching some one—a class of which many perform but little really useful work while the bulk of them serve no function useful in any way to the community. Look, again, at the effect of increased Scientific Knowledge. By a better knowledge of Chemistry and Metallurgy tons of metal are now extracted from the ore with the labour of fewer men than must formerly have been employed to produce one hundredweight. What I am concerned about is, that in spite of our advanced methods of producing wealth, the workers as a class get only a subsistence wage, whilst an increasing number of them cannot get the barest necessaries of life. Optimist Politicians are unwilling to admit that this is so. Anxious to make out a good case for the present basis of Society, they ignore the plainest of facts, so in confirmation of my contention I will quote from one or two non-Socialists. Professor Thorold Rogers, the present M.P. for Bermondsey, says on pages 185-6 of “ Six Centuries of Work and Wages,” written in 1884. It may be well the case, and there is every reason to fear it is the case, that there is collected a population in our great towns which equals in extent the whole of those who lived in England andfWales six centuries ago; but whose condition is more destitute, whose homes are more squalid, whose means are more uncertain, whose prospects are more hopeless than those of the poorest serfs of the Middle Ages and the meanest drudges of the mediaeval cities. The arm of the law is strong enough to keep them under, and Society has no reason to fear their despair; but I refuse to accept the superficial answer that a man is an admirer of the good old times because he insists that the vaunts of civilisation should be examined along with, and not apart from its failures. It is not possible to give the solution of one problem, the growth of opulence, and to refuse all attention to the other problem, the growth of penury. Joseph Cowen M.P. speaking at a Mechanics’ Institute at Newcastle, alluded to the labouring section as “ a hybrid class doomed to eat the bread of penury and drink the cup of misery. Precarious labour provided them with subsistence for the day, but the slightest �5 interruption threw them destitute. A week of broken weather brought thousands of these industrial nomads to the brink of starvation. An inscrutable influence seemed to sink them as it elevated those around and above them. Society, ashamed and despairing, swept them, like refuse, into dismal receptacles, where seething in their wretchedness, they constituted at once our weakness and reproach. How to sweeten these receptacles and help their forlorn occupants to help themselves was the problem of the hour. If Society did not settle it, it would in time settle Society.” To this Socialists answer that there is no permanent way of sweetening the lives of the class referred to except by the complete annihilation of the profit-mongers as a class, by forcing them all into the ranks of the useful workers. This will be apparent when it is realised that under the present system we are working to supply profits to profit-mongers instead of working to supply the legitimate requirements of the entire community, and when it is borne in mind that Shareholders and Employers are contented with nothing less than the Highest possible profits, it will also be seen that on the other hand we (the workers) can have nothing more than the lowest possible wages. To establish Society nn a proper basis is therefore the work of every rightminded man or woman. Demagogues have been at work—with good inten­ tions perhaps—but they have misled the workers from the true cause of their troubles. Among the blind leaders of the blind may be mentioned the Malthusians, the Teetotallers, the Financial Reformers, and wellintentioned Radicals. The first mentioned have taught that there are too many people in the country, and that the only way of bettering our condition is by curtailing the population, and this in face of the fact that every year wealth in this country is increasing much faster than population. The Temperance advocates hammer away at the blessings of sobriety as though drunkenness was the cause of poverty, when the fact is the other Way about. Well nigh as fast as they surround an old toper with influences that prevent his drinking tastes �6 being gratified, another fills up the hole out of which he was lifted. It is a useless expenditure of energy to be continually preaching temperance and thrift. Let all be blest with leisure, food, and healthy enjoyments, as they might be if the economic basis of Society was as it should be, and then these matters will all right themselves. The only reason people spend time upon these panaceas is because they fail to understand the law of wages, which is that all above a bare subsistence wage shall go to profit mongers as profit. The only way out is to destroy the profit mongers. The same argument applies to the financial reformer. All sensible persons are of course agreed that the country should be governed as economically as is con­ sistent with efficiency, as also all are agreed that we should live soberly. But the reformer fails to see that if we curtail taxation to its lowest possible minimum, reduce it if you will 90 per cent., not one farthing of it would be saved to the workers. The Iron Law would still be in force which says, “ So much as will keep life in you and no more shall go to you, O ye workers, so long as the profit making system remains.” These economic questions cannot be understood in a sufficiently clear manner by the mass of the workers while they are absorbed twelve, fourteen, sixteen, and even more hours a day while in work, and when out of work are walking about with the pangs of hunger eating out their vitals, and the blackness of despair staring them in the face at every turn. Now suppose those of us who can see these things in something like their grim reality, decide that come what may, we at least will do our part towards obtaining remunerative employment for all, and at the same time sufficient leisure that all may have a little breathing time after their work, what course can we take ? To this I reply, there is one way by which it can be done, viz., by at once concentrating our efforts towards the establishing of an eight hours working day. Let us examine a few figures in order to see clearly how this would affect us. We have something like 7,000,000 adult workers in the British Isles, working �7 nominally under the nine hours system, leaving overtime out of consideration for the moment. Let us see how many more hands would be put in employment if we struck off one hour per day from those in work. It is roughly estimated that of the above mentioned workers there are about 900,000 now out of work, representing a total population of 3I or 4 millions of men, women, and children who cannot get the barest necessaries of life. Now strike off one hour per day from the 6,000,000 in work. The result would be an immediate demand for 750,000 additional workers to keep up production at its present rate, and remembering that these 750,000 would immediately begin to buy more food, clothing, and general comforts, this of course would give an im­ petus to trade, and so add greatly to the comfort of the entire community for a year or two. These advan­ tages, however, would soon be swallowed up by fresh displacements of labour due to more efficient machinery and advancing scientific knowledge; but, during the year or two that it gave relief, see how immensely it would add to the leisure and therefore to the general intelligence of the workers. And increased intelligence means more active discontent with our conditions of life, and in due course a hastening of the overthrow of the present capitalistic domination. I am fully aware that there are some who claim to have a knowledge of the workers who contend that the very success of an Eight Hours Movement would simply mean a perpetuation of the present wretched system, as the people would become more contented if the conditions of life were made more tolerable. This I hold to be the very reverse of truth. As a workman who has worked from early boyhood on the farm, down the mine, and in the engineer’s shop, I repudiate such a slanderous statement. What means the continually increasing restlessness of late years of those workmen who are now, relatively to their former position, in a passable state of comfort ? I contend that it is in large part due to the additional leisure obtained under the nine hours system, though most of its advantages have now been swallowed up by more rapid machinery �and the cursed system of overtime we still tolerate. I ask myself what has been my guide in the formation of my opinions on social and political subjects, and, risking being charged with egotism, I reply that I have ever endeavoured to get correct views upon these and other subjects by fashioning my ideas upon the best models I could find, and the more leisure I had the better my opportunity for finding good models. I can understand a middle-class man holding this—to me— absurd theory. I can also understand some workmen reflecting the opinions of these theory-loving, poverty­ accentuating blockheads merely because they are middle-class. But I cannot understand a workman who through youth and early manhood has been battling against long hours in order that he might attend the institute, listen to the lectures, and read the works of able men, and by these means has succeeded in having a mind worth owning—I say I cannot under­ stand such an one hindering rather than helping in a shorter hours movement. He practically says by such conduct that the leisure he used so well as to become a man thereby, others will use so ill that they will con­ tinue fools. But men generally love what is best for all, and are prepared to do their part towards carrying it out so soon as they understand clearly what course they should take. Let those of us who see (or think we see) further than the average man, do all in our power towards enabling him to see as clearly as we do, and then, unless I am incapable of reading aright the lesson of life, he too will become in his turn an earnest and an energetic worker for the elevation of his class. I must apologise to some readers who may think that none of this reasoning is necessary. I emphasize it because I know there exist philosophers who strain at gnats and swallow camels, who talk of ameliorating human suffering, but hang back instead of assisting a movement the success of which must for a dead certainty largely ameliorate the pangs of the hungry men, women, and children who are now in the throes of despair. Another section raise the objection that however desirable it may be to curtail the hours of labour, �remembering the severe competition of other countries it is simply impossible either to raise wages or shorten hours unless a similar movement takes place on the Continent. I will endeavour to answer this first by showing that the English workers produce more per man than any of the Continental Nations, and second, by showing that with regard to our staple industries Foreign Competition is a bogie used by the Employer to frighten the workers into accepting harder terms in order that their master may make a greater profit. It may be of some service to point out the relative wealth per annum produced by the useful workers of this and other countries. I am assuming that the reader is clear concerning the source of wealth, that there is no other source than useful Labour, so that, having sufficient Raw Material for Workers to exercise their ingenuity upon, it will be seen that the more workers, the more the aggregate wealth, as in all ages men have been able to produce by their labour more than they and their families required for ordinary consumption. Quoting from Mulhall’s “Statistics,” we find that Britain with a Population of 36 millions produces wealth to the amount of £1,247,000,000 per annum ; France with 37I millions of people produces annually ^”965,000,000 (or with a million and a half more people about three-quarters the amount the English make; Germany, population 45 millions, wealth per annum, ^850,000,000 ; (or two thirds only of our amount); Russia with 80 millions of people, creates per annum only ^760,000,000, Austria, 38 millions population, only ^602,000,000 per annum ; and simarlarly with the smaller nations. These figures will serve to show that our method of producing wealth is a more effective one than that in vogue on the Con­ tinent, as although they generally work longer hours per day than the English yet the result of their year’s work compares unfavourably with ours. The important lesson to be learnt here is this, that it is not the amount paid as wages that decides whether or not one country can compete successfully with another ; or rather, it is not the countries where wages are low that compete most successfully with this country. This will be seen �IO when it is realised that the severest competitor we have to-day is America, a country that pays at least 25 per cent higher wages than are paid in this country. This of itself should be sufficient to encourage those timorous mortals who are always attributing our ex­ hausting toil to the competition of the lung hours of the Continent. The time may arrive when, with an equally advanced method of production, low paid labour will produce wealth as effectively as better paid labour, but that time has not yet come. By way of proving this let me here instance the Iron Shipbuilding industry. Many have been the disputes between employers and employed in this industry during the past two or three years, the employers continually urging that the Con­ tinental shipbuilders are getting all the trade, or at any rate will do so, unless our workmen submit to reductions in wages and longer hours. This argument was ad­ vanced repeatedly during the year 1885, so in order to thoroughly test the matter a delegation of workers was despatched to the Continent to bring back precise in­ formation upon the subject. They found that Germany was our chief competitor in Iron Shipbuilding, and that during the year 1885 that country produced 22,326 tons of shipping. But in this country one firm on the Clyde during the same period turned out 40,000 tons. France produced 10,000 tons, and Russia 7,867 tons— total for the two countries 17,867 tons. But the river Tyne alone launched no less than 102,998 tons. The Belgium output was 5,312 tons, that of Holland 2,651 tons, of Denmark 3,515 tons. To sum up, the whole of the Continental output was a little over 50,000 tons, while that of the English shipyards was 540,282 tons, or nearly eleven times as great as that of all the yards on the Continent put together. With facts like these before us is it not high time we demanded that our hours were curtailed so as to give a chance to those who now walk about in enforced idleness, without waiting for the Continent to take simultaneous action. The Americans, who pay their mechanics better wages, have had to concede the demands of their workmen for the eight hour working day—not universally, it is true, �II because a universal demand was not made. Just astheir success stimulates us, so our success will stimulate the Continental workers, and we shall find that they are as well prepared as we are to deal vigorously with the exploiting classes. To Trade Unionists I desire to make a special appeal. How long, how long will you be content with the present half-hearted policy of your Unions? I readily grant that good work has been done in the past by the Unions, but, in Heaven’s name, what good purpose are they serving now ? All of them have large numbers out of employment even when their particular trade is busy. None of the important Societies have any policy other than that of endeavouring to keep wages from falling. The true Unionist policy of aggression seems entirely lost sight of; in fact the Unionist of to-day should be of all men the last to be hope­ lessly apathetic, or supporting a policy that plays directly into the hands of the capitalist exploiter. Do not think I am a non-Unionist myself, and therefore denounce Unionists. T take my share of the work in the Trade Union to which I belong, but I candidly confess that unless it shows more vigour in the future than it is showing at the present time (June, 1886) I shall be compelled to take the view—against my will —that to continue to spend time over the ordinary squabble-investigating, do-nothing policy will be an unjustifiable waste of one’s energies. I am quite sure there are thousands of others in my state of mind—e.g., all those who concurred with T. R. Threlfall, the pre­ sident of the Trades Union Congress, when, in his Presidential Address, he told the delegates assembled at Southport that a critical time had arrived in the history of Trades Unions, and that in the future they must lead or follow, and that they could not hope to re­ tain advanced men with their present policy. In his magnificent address Mr. Threlfall did all a man could do to stir the Unionists up to take action in regard to the Eight Hour working day, but one looks in vain at each and all of our important Trade Societies to find any action being taken in the matter. It is not enough �12 to say their funds are low. Their funds are not too low to get up an agitation upon this subject. All over the country they have excellent organisations which might be used in the first place as the means for instruct­ ing their own members up to the required standard, and then spreading information amongst the non-Unionists, skilled and unskilled alike. When the bulk of these understood the pros and cons of the case the combined forces could make a demand for the immediate passing of an Eight Hours Bill, the details of which could be settled by a duly qualified committee. While this is being done attention should also be made to another important item alluded to by Mr. Threlfall viz., the payment of election expenses out of the local or Imperial rates and the support of Members of Parliament in a similar manner. When this is done we shall be able to command the services of those whom we believe in because of their merits, irrespective of what the depth of their pocket may be. Let me now invite attention to the effects of an Eight Hour Bill upon some of our monopolies. Let us take the Railways as a representative concern, using round figures such as will convey a correct idea to the ordinary reader without confusing him. The Blue Books bear out the following statements •>—At the present time the Annual Income of the British Railways may be put at ^70,000,000, of this vast sum one half goes to the Shareholders, who do no useful work whatever; one fourth to keep up rolling stock, permanent way &c.; and the remaining fourth to the workers, (including managers’ and superintendents’ salaries). The man who has not paid attention to Railway Income and Expenditure will denounce this as trash or probably by a stronger term. He will probably say that the figures must be wrong, as Railway Shareholders get only some 5 per cent on their capital. Exactly, but where nearly all make the mistake is in not making the distinction between percentage on money invested and percentage of Income. There are nominally more than ^920,000,000 invested in Railways in the British Isles, and 5 per cent on this means about five-eighths of the �total income, the entire income of 70 millions amounting only to 8 per cent on the investments. Consequently a Railway Company paying 4^ per cent to Shareholders actually pays more than half of the total income to these utterly useless individuals, leaving the remainder to go in about equal proportions to rolling stock and permanent way and as wages and salaries to Employees. This gives about 18s. per week to the 350,000 persons engaged on Railways in the British Isles. When we remember that superintendents and managers get very large salaries, we see that those who do the hard work and have the longest hours get much less than 18s. Now that we realise the enormous amount the idle shareholders take, let us see how generously they behave to those in their employ. At Nine Elms are situated the cleaning sheds of the South Western Railway. Until recently the “dirty cleaners” at this yard received £i os. 6d. per week. Instructions have been issued from Waterloo to curtail their wages from 20s. 6d. to 15s. at one stroke. On the same line, at Waterloo terminus, the parcels porters commence work at 5.20 in the morning and keep on till 9.45 in the evening with one Sunday off per fortnight, their wages being from 18s. to 22s. per week. Now assuming the average day on Railways to be 12 hours, what loss would it inflict on the Shareholders if a Bill were passed enforcing an Eight Hours’ Working Day ? We have seen that the Employees get about a quarter of the total income or about ^"17,000,000. To curtail the hours by one third means of course putting one half more men in work than are at present employed. To pay these at a similar rate to those already working would require £8,500,000 or less than one per cent on the nominal value of the shares, so that a Company paying 4^- per cent now, would, if one half more men were employed still pay 3^ per cent to the Fleecing Shareholders. What arrant nonsense then it is to urge that the Company cannot afford to curtail hours. Let us look now at the condition of our Colliers. Here we have men devoting themselves to underground toil from boyhood to old age, the majority never having �14 the opportunity of paying a visit to the Capital or any •other large town, practically kennelled in the earth, tied down with capitalistic chains, Spending a Sunless life in the unwholesome mines, for the wretched pittance of about 18s. per week. Surely an Eight Hours Bill requires no urging from me on behalf of those who work in and about the mines ; when we remember that of the value of coal raised •annually in this country (about £66,000,000) one third •only goes to the colliers who raise it. An item worth mentioning also was pointed out by Sir Lyon Playfair in his address before the British Association at Aberdeen in 1885, whilst deploring the fact that the exhaustion of the British coalfields made the coal increasingly difficult to get. It was proved that not only has man’s ingenuity conquered these obstacles, but owing to the increased power of steam •engines and hand-labour-saving appliances, two men now produce as much as three men did twenty years -ago. Yet coal is dearer now than it was then ! Thirty years ago eight sailors were required for the management of every 100 tons of shipping. Now, ow­ ing to improved machinery, less than half that number suffice. In twenty years the consumption of fuel on our ocean-going steamers has been reduced by one half, chiefly owing to the use of compound engines in place •of single ones as formerly. Thus on every hand a greater result is being shown with less labour. And it must be so or else there is no meaning in material pro­ gress. But “ less labour ” means under our existing system, and must mean so as long as industry is con­ trolled by the idle classes, not “ more leisure ” or shorter hours all round, but less wages, more unemployed, poverty, famine, and physical and moral degradation. What then can be more rational than to ease the burden of those in work and the starving stomachs of those who are out, by shortening the working day ? See what is going on in the watch-making industry, a fine example of the effects of machinery. Among the exhibits at last year’s Inventions Exhibition was that of the Waltham Watch Co. Some machines were there �T5 at work making screws for watches, of which it took 250,000 to make up a pound in weight. These machines were so perfectly made, that at the Company’s Factory in Massachusetts, one boy keeps seven of them going. The best wire to make one pound weight of screws costs ten shillings, but after this wire has been converted into screws by passing through this automatic machine, the screws are worth /’350, or seven hundred times the cost of the material. Imagine the number of men here thrown out of employment; the watches in large part being made by girls, and the enormous profits going to the owners of the machinery. Take another case, that of Bryant and May’s Match Factory in East London. Two years ago this firm was formed into a Limited Liability Company. Their work girls are most miserably paid, getting only some 8s. per week, and the Company refused to increase their pay when they made a demand a short time since. And yet that Company, during the first six months of its existence, after paying all working expenses, actually paid over ^33,000 to shareholders, who had not done a single stroke of work towards producing it. These girls are working ordinary factory hours, io^- per day They cannot live in comfort on such a miserable pittance as they are receiving. How many girls are compelled by this sort of thing, to take to the streets ? The above is only typical of what all our large firms are doing. Armstrong, Mitchell and Co., the great engineering firm at Newcastle-on-Tyne, for instance, last year after deducting for working expenses and depreciation of stock, paid to shareholders ^162,000. Whatever improvement may come through more efficient machinery etc., its effect, while owned by, and used for the profit of, the employing class, will be to throw men out of work and swell the already too full pockets of the capitalists. If we do not decide to cur­ tail the hours of labour, what then can we do ? Allow things to go from bad to worse ? That is what most assuredly will happen, unless we absorb the Unemployed into the ranks of the employed by rigidly suppressing overtime, and curtailing the nominal nine hours per day to something less. �i6 The question will be asked by some, “ What about wages if we work an hour a day less, are we to have an hour s less pay ? ” Most certainly not. Even when the curtailing principle was only partially applied 15 years ago by the Trade Unionists this did not happen. On the contrary in many instances the workmen were soon able to get a rise in actual wages in addition to the curtail­ ing of hours. The reason we cannot command a better wage now is because the Employer can say, “ If you don’t like it you may go, others will be glad to take your place,” but, as I think I have shown, if we make Eight Hours the labour day then the Unemployed will be absorbed and the workers will be able in their turn to dictate terms to the Employer. In conclusion I appeal to the workers of Great Britain to join hands over this business and let us make it a success. In a measure of this kind Liberal and Tory, Christian and Freethinker, Unionist and Non-Unionist, Mechanic and Labourer, Radical and Social-Democrat, Teetotaller or Vegetarian, whatsoever be your creed or sex, unite on common ground and let us fight this battle of the workers with vigour, with energy and determination. Be no longer apathetic. Take pleasure in the performance of your duty as an honest citizen and the result will be a hastening of that glorious time when the domination of a class shall be a matter of History, and when all shall have enough work and none shall have too much. For further information on all these subjects read “JUSTICE ” every Saturday, One Penny, which is owned by working men, edited by a working man, and independent of capitalist support. Also, if willing to assist in attaining these objects, write to H. W. Lee, Bridge House, Blackfriars, E.C. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; 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> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource What a compulsory 8 hour working day means to the workers Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Mann, Tom [1856-1941] Description An account of the resource Place of publication: London Collation: 16 p. : ill. (port.) ; 19 cm. Notes: Includes bibliographical references. Date of publication from KVK. Publisher's list on p. 2. Portrait of Mann in oval on front page. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Modern Press Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource [1886?] Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context T396 Subject The topic of the resource Working conditions Socialism Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <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 (What a compulsory 8 hour working day means to the workers), 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> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Social conditions Socialism Working Classes Working Conditions https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/cc6a58fab172aa4271d2bc2a982048bd.pdf?Expires=1777507200&Signature=nnO5gSFNFMQFdbXRNF3HajdC1-E1WWEto9%7EG11-6LraW3S6ahEIkvATXqh6YcB8pw-Ajb0X8iYrVMpW8BudP2qFEYvaC5-JsVC3qsVOmnub6JMd97OGUKZkPZGDENGpLJ1OUFxpxXUYmier8POn2hcXnlhbgZEUmXtCLZQ3CDbnTtADAQfFltNYYc6E3GXtQaPp3lxv34QahohoutrMg2u0chbhVQby5%7EkUpB70gZOF6fDHxZGWSuzvxwH1LPyvm9bwECAmzosEAVsmWoF7ZJdp5Inm6D59jiQL8WKPtpuuOf%7ErSAaKYq9C9%7E%7EWlNwCypc5B2dtiEYvdJR1Z9tds8g__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 34d596f23a1319c1cad76f235cfe628b PDF Text Text 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- !j t I 1 * a L ’I ■ W I j 11 ', . I j I i g jj 1 U fI | i7 J1 j| I If j> s |l 1E /I �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. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; 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> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Combinations and strikes from the teacher's point of view Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource 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 An entity responsible for making the resource available Thomas Nelson and Sons Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1865 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context G5620 Subject The topic of the resource Education Working conditions Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <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> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Conway Tracts Education Political Economy Strikes Working Classes https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/0b12dde8e1787c32ba170a88f1490ab3.pdf?Expires=1777507200&Signature=bi8Tp5BfH7lQpfwZQZsDyE1JCV%7E9sMfi1m6HTbHTh3VJNLQeyebqmZO2vXD-uUPnJzoDFhvxwrlc8aI9ma7zd1xGOAy6lpHqmpQZuCjgYHVnpSAIKUkjmjvbWmYTg5EbxVp-6Axkm70T2WfHQW7kM22DKVtqJvBT2foNj134VteJ7kHs3o3Q4BHy0yTfJhak%7Ek2ljMQd5qOzGH-vsak1UL-dK6Je6Dp3F-w61InFonMA33LIKICDDorlCAE275nZK9k0jH6wrG8Db%7Ejzk3UJhD5mI3BvAgXwUHxjeM8qVP4ss6kEIXX%7EmIKPDdvJLvkTVeHfyY9eJhv5-byXpYhZIQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 5d5bf740c686c1f6a44dc8ab384a3be4 PDF Text Text PRICE ONE PENNY THE FACTS - ABOUT THE - UNEMPLOYED. An Appeal and a Warning. BY ' iV A * -Me ONE cUaiM i &\ MIDDLE-CLASS.#^ OF <• THE :o: Beholding with the dark eye of a seer The evil days to gifted souls foreshown, Foretelling them to those who will not hear, As in the old days, till the hour will come When truth shall strike their eye through many a tear. —Prophecy of Dante. :o:~ LONDON: THE MODERN PRESS, 13, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C. AND W. L. ROSENBERG, 261, EAST TENTH STREET, NEW YORK CITY. 1886. �To sleep in when their pain is done. These were not fit for God to save. As naked hell-fire is the sun In their eyes, living, and when dead These have not where to lay their head.—Swinburne. To bring these hordes of outcast captainless soldiers under due captaincy ? This is really the question of questions, on the answer to which turns, among other things, the fate of all Governments, constitutional and other—the possibility of their continuing to exist or the impossibility. Captainless, uncommanded, these wretched outcast ‘ soldiers,’ since they cannot starve, needs must become banditti, street barricaders— destroyers of every Government that cannot make life human to them.—Thomas Carlyle. Socialism, in that sense, is the application of the power and resources of the State to benefit one particular class, especially the most needy. There stares us in the face the fact that the duty of maintaining the most necessitous class of the country by the public funds has, for three centuries, formed part of the law of the land. That is so strong a fact that it vitiates every argument which we can use from what is called sheer principle against measures of time.—Lord Salisbury, 30th September, 1885. The typhoon itself is not wilder than human creatures when once their passions are stirred. You cannot check them ; but if you are brave you can guide them wisely. —Froude. People are all very glad to shut their eyes. It gives them a very simple pleasure when they can forget that the bread that we eat, and the quiet of the family and all that embellishes life and makes it worth having, have to be purchased by death—by the deaths of men wearied out with labour, and the deaths of those criminals called revolu­ tionaries, and the deaths of those revolutionaries called criminals.—R. L. Stevenson. Hyde Park in the season is the great rotatory form of one vast squirrel cage: round and round it go the idle company, in their reversed streams, urging themselves to their necessary exercise. When they rest from their squirrellian revolutions, and die in the Lcrd and their works do follow them, these are what will follow them. They took the bread and milk and meat from the people of their fields ; they gave it to feed, and retain here in their service, this fermenting mass of unhappy human beings—news­ mongers, novel-mongers, picture-mongers, poison-drink-mongers, lust and death mon­ gers, the whole smoking mass of it one vast dead-marine store shop—accumulation of wreck of the Dead Sea, with every activity in it a form of putrefaction.—John Rushin. Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for youf miseries that shall come upon you. Behold the hire of the labourers, who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth ; and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth.—St. Janies. Yet there is a pause, a stillness before the storm ; lo, there is blackness above, not a leaf quakes ; the winds are stayed, that the voice of God’s warning may be heard. Hear it now, O chosen city in the chosen land ! Repent and forsake evil; do justice ; love mercy : put away all uncleanness from among you.—George Eliot. In God’s name, let all who hear nearer and nearer the hungry moan of the storm and the growl of the breakers, speak out! The past, wise with the sorrow and desola­ tion of ages, from amid her shattered fanes of wolf housing palaces, echoes speak ! But alas! the Constitution, and the Hon. Mr. Bagowind, M.P., say, Be dumb.—J. R. Lowell. Balance the two things against each other. At present you have what you call ■“ freedom of trade” in these respects—i.e., every capitalist has almost unlimited scope for his “ arrangements,” so as to screw out of his workmen the largest possible amount of labour for the smallest possible remuneration. But then what have you to do with it ? A population becoming more and more wretched, more and more vicious, more and more discontented, and who only need, at any moment, an able leader to be pre­ pared to revolutionise the Empire.—Remedies for the Perils of the Nation (1844). The Writer will be glad to hear from anyone who agrees with his conclusions. �THE FACTS ABOUT THE UNEMPLOYED. OR years past the optimist philosopher and the complacent statistician have declared that the material condition of the masses of the British nation has been steadily improving. But hard facts have a logic of their own, before which pretty theories and judicious compilations must give way when they are found out not to agree with the actual circumstances. Gradually the impos­ sibility of taking a rose-coloured view of the condition of the people has forced itself upon the intelligent public. The occurrences of last winter arrested attention, but the eventful struggles of political life have caused forgetfulness of the truth that whatever changes have taken place on the surface one thing remains unchanged—-the monotonous misery of the struggle for a living amongst a large proportion of our countrymen. So short are men’s memories, so prone are they, in their suspicion of the exaggerations of hysterical philanthropists and unscrupulous agitators, to discount estimates of distress, that it is necessary to repeat here the deliberate statements of officials writing in cold blood. It is impossible to give details as to the whole country, but those for the metropolis will serve as a guide, and are by far the most important on account of the danger arising from the congestion of misery in this huge city, where the striking contrast of squalid destitution and immense wealth is ever present. But if the numbers of the Unemployed in London in the winter of 1885 were greater than elsewhere, the misery has been even more intense in many provincial towns where the muni­ cipal institutions and local public feeling have enabled earnest if inadequate efforts to be made to mitigate the distress. In Hartlepool, Gateshead, Newport (Monmouth), Brighton, Gloucester, Sheffield, Jarrow, Northampton, Southampton, Pontypridd, Liverpool, Ashtonunder-Lyne, Salford, Wolverhampton, Dover, Burton-on-Trent, Derby. Walsall, Stoke-upon-Trent and many other towns all the horrors or famine have been experienced. This, autumn, threats of reduction of wages and dismissal of “ hands ” show only too clearly to those who will take warning that before Christmas 1886 the destitution will be yet more widespread. At the end of January, 1886, the number of persons applying for relief at the workhouses of London showed no very great increase. From this it was falsely argued that no exceptional distress could exist. Bu * it is the fact that the severity with which the Poor Law has recently been administered denies any relief to persons under 60 years of age who are free from disease. Such “ able-bodied persons ” are allowed no succour, save on condition of entering the living tomb of the work­ house, which means severance of all family ties, perpetual confinement, �4 diet worse than is allowed to many criminals, and the abandonment of all hope of being anything but a pauper for the rest of life. It is true that Guardians are allowed to give relief to “ able-bodied ” males out­ side the workhouse, on condition of their undergoing the labour test. In actual practice last winter this meant that in three unions skilled artizans, mechanics, clerks, and shop assistants were asked to break from 7 to 9 bushels of stone for a reward varying from 4d. in money, 4d. in groceries, and 2 lbs. of bread to gd. in money and 2 lbs. of bread. Thus it is small wonder that, in spite of their distress, very few beside the ordinary hardened paupers applied to the guardians for the only forms of relief allowed, viz., imprisonment without hard labour in the workhouse or criminal tasks in the stoneyard. In Westminster, where piecework was offered, and men were able to earn from 2S. to 2S. gd. per day, the work was eagerly applied for. Thus the number of applications for relief showed little increase, and this fact was vaunted in the usual way. But when, in February, 1886, Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, as President of the Local Government Board, instituted enquiries as to the extent and nature of distress, he received the replies given below. * They are very significant, for in spite of the horror of “ the house ” entertained by the deserving poor, the number of persons in receipt of relief in London in September, 1886, exceeds by fourteen hundred the number who had been driven to the Unions at the same season last year. If September, 1885, was the precursor of a winter of such appalling destitution, clearly the following statements only faintly foreshadow the probable sufferings of the workers in the Metropolis during the winter of 1886-1887. REPORTS OF GUARDIANS. 4 Ik w St. Mary Abbotts, Kensington.—-Doubtless exceptional distress exists among the class ■who prefer to suffer the severest privation rather than apply for Poor Law Relief. Paddington. Distress thought to prevail amongst the classes just above the pauper ranks. Fulham. The medical officers and relieving officers allege that a great deal of distress does exist. St. Luke, Chelsea. Distress not excessive. St. George, Hanover Sq. No exceptional distress. Westminster. No more than the normal amount of distress. St. Marylebone. Has been an increase of distress. St. John, Hampstead. Believe distress great and quite unusual. St. Pancras. Some increase of distress experienced by the better class of workmen. St. Mary, Islington. More distress prevailing than usual. Hackney. No doubt considerable distress chiefly among people who will not apply for relief unless under very extreme circumstances. Strand. More than ordinary distress prevails amongst classes who do not usually apply for relief. St. Leonard, Shoreditch. Exceptional number of struggling poor in distress and yet do not seek relief until actually obliged by acute suffering. Bethnal Green. Of opinion that there is a large amount of distress not brought under notice of Guardians. Whitechapel, Much distress of a chronic or intermittent character. St. George’s-in-the-East. Increase of the always considerable distress. Stepney. Distress undoubtedly prevailing. Mile End Old Town. Working people experiencing great privation. St. Saviour’s. Large numbers of able bodied men with families out of work. * These extracts are taken from the Blue Book, Return “Pauperism and Distress.” Printed by order of the House of Commons, 8th May, 1886. Price is. 9d., or second­ hand copies, for which Members of Parliament apparently can find no use, can be pro­ cured for a few pence. �St. Olave’s Distress slightly more prevalent, about 1,100 men out of employ. St. Mary, Lambeth, Severe and unusual distress among ordinary selfmaintaining working people. St. Giles, Camberwell. Large amount of distress among people who will not seek parochial relief. Wandsworth and Clapham. Exceptional distress.' Lewisham. 21 i honest and industrious workingmen compelled to seek employment in labour yard. Woolwich. Exceptional distress among families who will not come on the parish. Holborn. A large number of able-bodied men with families applying for relief. In addition to these answers from the Guardians of the Poor, the following replies were sent by VESTRIES & DISTRICT BOARDS OF WORKS. St. Mary Abbotts, Kensington. Unquestionably a large number of the labouring class out of work. Fulham. Special distress is existing. Chelsea. No exceptional distress with which we are unable to cope. Westminster. Persuaded that distress is exceptional. St. Marylebone. Believe there is considerable distress amongst persons who do not or would not apply for relief. St. John, Hampstead. Exceptional amount of distress. Islington. A very great amount of distress. St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields. Painfully recognize the fact that large numbers are |out of employment. Holborn. Distress exceptional. St. Leonard, Shoreditch. Undoubtedly considerable distress owing to lack of em­ ployment. Bethnal Green. Believe there is considerable distress. Whitechapel. Exceptional distress exists. St. George’s-in-the-East. A great deal of distress. Much acute suffering. Signs of still further diminution of labour. Mile End Old Town. Undoubtedly a great number of mechanics out of work. Poplar. Distress exceptional among better class of artizans. In many trades lack of employment, seems no hope in the future. Of 61 lads at Board School, fathers of 22 out of work. Newington. Distress exceptional. Chiefly among artizan and labouring classes. St. Olave’s, Southwark. Distress always throughout the year. Bermondsey. Unemployed labourers somewhat more numerous. Rotherhithe. Widespread distress. Men unable to obtain work for many weeks past. Lambeth. In surburbs many employes out of work. Wandsworth. In Battersea, distress exceptional. In Clapham, very marked. Putney, many more out of work than for ten years past. Streatham, distress not very exceptional. Wandsworth, a great many men out of work. Camberwell. Great and exceptional distress especially among mechanics, clerks, un­ skilled workers, &c., who are not accustomed to apply to guardians. Plumstead. Exceptional distress. Do these dry statements convey to the reader any idea of the suffering they represent ? Can an average member of the classes who control the domestic policy of this wealthy nation, figure to himself accurately what being “out of work” even for a few weeks means to men who have to live by selling their labour ? To these, hard times do not occasion merely a diminution of an income ample to provide all the comforts and luxuries of existence, but a life and death struggle with starvation. To commence full of hope to search for fresh employment: to gradually sell or pawn the few sticks of furniture which convert the single room, whither poverty has driven you, into a home; to blister the feet in walking from factory gate to factory gate only to meet with disap­ pointment and often with hard words, while hope deferred makes the heart sick and want of nourishment enfeebles the frame: to see your �6 wife sinking for lack of food and to send your children to the Board School without a bit of breakfast: to know that as you grow each day more gaunt in the face, more shabby in outward' appearance, more emaciated in physique, there is less and less chance of getting employ­ ment ; to return faint and footsore after a long day’s tramp and hear those you love best on earth crying for food : to have to answer their moans by telling them that because you are not allowed to work for your living, Society has doomed them to yet another twenty-tour hours of starvation ; despairing, to beg from the stranger in the street and be met with a contemptuous dole or pitiless suspicion : to ponder in cold and hunger whether the theft that would save your family from slow starvation is a crime or a duty: to be restrained from suicide only by the certainty that your death must drive your wife and daughters to swell the ghastly army of degraded womanhood that parades the streets of midnight London ; to feel drawing ever nearer the day when you will be driven into the workhouse to lose for ever freedom and inde­ pendence, to part from your wife as surely as if the grave were closing over her and to condemn your children to be brought up as paupers : to feel, through all this, that you have done nothing to deserve it—this was the lot of hundreds of thousands of Englishmen last winter. It is the certain doom of thousands more during the next few months. And terrible as is the state of affairs revealed by these official facts, gloomy as is the prospect they hold out for the coming winter, it is con­ fidently declared by those who made a house to house visitation to collect statistics that they did not adequately depict the destitution which prevailed last year, and which will recur in an aggravated form in the next few months. A Special Commissioner of the Pall Mall Gazette visited a typical East End street, and declared that more than half the male adults were out of work. Two members of the Holborn Board of Guardians, Messrs. A. Hoare and S. Brighty, have testified on oath that when a Committee of that Board, mistrusting the reports of the Reliev­ ing Officers, made a personal inspection, they found in many streets of Holborn and Clerkenwell 30 to 40 per cent, of the population out of work, and the results of the enforced idleness of the bread winners on the health of their families was so terrible that the Board were obliged to strain the Infirmary Relief Regulations, so as to treat sheer starvation as a prevalent disease ! The above undeniable facts show that the first necessity is an inde­ pendent and trustworthy report as to the numbers of men now out of work. The investigation made in a slovenly way by Mr. Chamberlain after the windows of the Carlton Club were smashed should now be made in a careful and deliberate manner. This need not entail much expense, at any rate in comparison with what continued neglect of such suffering, if it really does exist, will cost the country. The Local Govern­ ment Board should at once require the Guardians of all the Unions to appoint a small committee of their members to visit every house in a dozen streets in the poorer quarters of their districts, and render a report showing the number of men out of work, how many weeks1 work each has done in the last 3 months, his trade, the number of children dependent upon his wages for food, and finally whether he would be willing to perform useful labour during eight hours in each day for the equivalent of 20s. -per week. * ______________ ___ * This wage is taken as being 37J per cent, less than the average income of a working class family, according to the estimate of Professor Leone Levi, and, therefore, too little to attract labour from private enterprises. �7 This could be done in a few days, and should the event prove that distress amongst the deserving poor is severe, wide spread, and increas­ ing, there can be no excuse for refusing to take steps for their relief. To begin with, it is intolerable that, under the exceptional circumstances, th sturdy independence which leads the sufferers to dread becoming paupers should be broken down. It is sheer brutality to give the Unem­ ployed no choice but the workhouse, or a useless, and in the long run, costly labour test, if it be made manifest that the distressed are really skilful and hard working men. For the immediate pressure it will be necessary to place a certain amount of discretionary power in the hands of the Committees of the Guardians, to enable them, when they are satisfied that the suffering is genuine, to give out relief to men out of work. This should be strictly limited to relief in kind. Doles of money would inevitably go straight from the hands of men out of work, who are naturally in arrears with their rent, straight into the pockets of their landlords, too many of whom are on these Parochial Boards. The best form which the relief could take, would be the provision of a free dinner to children in the Board Schools. Whatever may have been the crimes or follies of their fathers, these children have done nothing to deserve the tortures that the poverty, whether deserved or not, of their parents inflicts upon them. They cannot be “ pauperised ” by the enjoyment of food from public funds, and the interest of the future of our country demands that thousands of children should not be again forced to starve for a few months, and so contract the physical, and consequent mental and moral infirmities, which will prove so great a burden on the next generation. It is undoubtedly true that the endowments and charities of the City parishes would be ample and sufficient to cover the cost of providing a free meal to all the Board School children in London. These funds * are squandered in a variety of foolish ways, there being now no con­ gregations in the City Churches, and no poor resident in the City parishes. The best interests of England will be better served by secur­ ing the nourishment of starveling infants than by maintaining clerical sinecures, in order that sermons of thanksgiving may be preached to empty aisles on the anniversary of the defeat of the Spanish Armada, or of the detection of Guy Fawkes. Much of this money is already spent in providing free dinners, not in Board Schools for the children of the poor, but at the Star and Garter at Richmond, or the Trafalgar at Green­ wich, for the officials who administer the funds. But if the distress be as wide spread as is supposed, it is impossible to provide for it from local resources, more especially as the demand would be heaviest where the ratepayers are poorest. In the working class districts of London a large proportion of the rates are contributed by persons who are largely dependent, as lodging-house keepers, small tradesmen, &c., on the welfare of the working classes, and the state of affairs which denies the workers a chance of earning wages, means, to the poorer ratepayers, rents in arrears, and trade reduced to the vanish­ ing point. If on the top of this Poor Rates were largely increased, thousands, who are now by the most strenuous exertion keeping out of the pauper class, would be overwhelmed in one common ruin. It is, be­ sides, absurd that able-bodied workmen, who only ask to be allowed to See Reports of the School Board for London on the matter. �8 -earn their living, should be compelled to be idle when there is so much necessary and productive work undone. The Embankment of the poor man’s side of the Thames, and the building by public bodies of whole­ some working class dwellings on vacant sites throughout London, would provide really useful work for hundreds of men. The demolition of the buildings and the preparation of the sites of Clerkenwell Prison and the House of Detention for artizans and labourers’ dwellings would provide employment for a large amount of unskilled labour. The reclamation of * waste lands and foreshores} would entail little expenditure beyond what was actually paid in wages for manual labour. If England can recruit and equip her sons to defend the suspicious interests of bondholders in Egypt, if ^10,000,000 of British gold can be poured into the sands of the Soudan with no other result than the destruction of human life and happiness, surely even a large expenditure of wealth in the effort to save life is justifiable ! But this State or Municipal organisation of labour can be done effectively and economically if the will is not wanting. When similar works were undertaken in Lancashire during the cotton famine by Sir Robert Rawlinson, £1,500,000 of public money were profitably expended, and though the bulk of the workers were factory hands unaccustomed to outdoor labour, thec^ztagHaid out in plant and superintendence amounted to only 6-3 of the total expenditure. The attempts made at the end of last winter in a few London parishes on a smaller scale show that the thing can be successfully done, if it is energetically undertaken.} But so slow are the officials to move that public opinion has * A company is now building artizans dwellings in Central London, and has proved the possibility of clearing 8 per cent, on capital by providing houseroom on highlyrented ground at an average rent of 2s. 6d. per room. Nothing has been done t6 provide the workers with wholesome lodging within their means since the report of the Royal Commission on the Housing of the Working Classes, and the passing of the Act of August, 1885, which allows the issue of loans at 3J per cent, interest for this purpose. The Act has remained a dead letter ; but if its provisions were enforced, the money raised, and the work done without the intervention of a contractor, the saving of his pro­ fits would allow the lower rate of interest to be paid if only half the rent were demanded for accommodation much better than is offered by the above-named commercial under­ taking. But public bodies, many of whose members are pecuniarily concerned in their own vested interests in the extorting of high rents for unwholesome tenements, are not likely to encourage this form of competition save under tremendous pressure. f At a recent meeting of the British Association at Barrow-in-Furness it was stated that 40,000 acres of land round a neighbouring estuary would pay to reclaim. + See the Report of M. Geo. R, Strachan, Surveyor of Chelsea, in the Pall Mall Gazette, October 2,1886, from which the following are extracts. . “In response to the public demand, in the early spring of this year, the Chelsea vestry on the 20th of February last instructed me to pave the macadamized part , of King s Road with wood, and further instructed me to employ and pay the men without the intervention of a contractor. The pay was to be 4d. per hour, and of this two shillings was to be paid each night in order to get the men food. It was questioned whether there would be 100 applicants for the work, but on the day appointed to take the names no less than 300 were at hand. There is much discussion as to a test for distinguishing genuine cases of distress from the loafers and the ne’er-do-weels. I venture to suggest that a man who will hack up a macadam road like King’s Road for 4d. per hour has earned the right to be considered a genuine case. The number of men employed was increased to 230, among whom, to my own knowledge, were carpenters, , plasterers, bricklayers, fitters, shoemakers, watchmakers, printers, hatters, gentlemen s servants, and tailors, as well as general labourers, each of whom commenced work at 4-d. per hour. The severe work tried many of the men at the beginning. When paying the men each night their two shillings, I noticed that many of them had. been punished by their particular job, and where it was possible they were given a lighter job the next �9 to be heated to a dangerous degree before they can be made aware that the punctual drawing of their salaries and pigeon-holing of all com­ munications is not their whole duty. The pressure necessary to stir them entails mass meetings of hungry and wretched men, injudicious inter­ ference by officious policemen, and then, perhaps, riot and bloodshed, for which the whole responsibility rests on those who will not hear any other appeal. But these measures are merely stop-gaps. Extension of out-door relief and provision of employment- by public bodies will prevent deaths from starvation for the time, but they will do nothing to avert the recurrence of a state of affairs which would be an amusing satire on human intelligence if it were not for its tragic side. On all hands over­ production, so it is said ; too great an abundance of all the commodities which labour makes. Yet in every great town threatening crowds of workers complain that this very superfluity of the good things of this world keeps them in want of the merest necessaries of life. The means of producing wealth have been so improved and multiplied that it is impossible for the workers to get enough to keep them and their families in health. The burden of the evidence taken by the Royal Commission on Depression of Trade is, not that the volume of trade is decreasing, but that the intense competition is ruining every industry. In the decade 1874 t° T883 all the great industries of the country showed a great increase of production, with only a trifling increase, or even a decrease, in the number of persons employed. * That is to say, im­ proved methods had enabled each man to produce more, and had con­ sequently denied work to many. Thus it is certain that the distress we are now witnessing is no passing symptom, but destined to increase in intensity with every advance in the modes of production. day. At first they did not earn their money, but as they got food into them they visibly improved. Where a man was found capable of better work than hacking the road up he was put to mixing the concrete, for which he received 5d. per hour. When it came to laying the blocks, the artisans among them were advanced to that work, and were then paid the usual wage of a pavior—9d. per hour...........................One scarcely knew the men again. Nine weeks’ work had enabled them to turn round in the world. They had rescued their clothes, which in many cases had been “ put away,” and there they were, a body of contented men, forming a striking contrast to the hungry men who struggled for work when the names were taken down. Altogether, a sum of £2,000 was circulated to these men as wages, and I have no hesitation whatever in saying that it gave assist­ ance to men who were deserving of consideration, and that it saved many a wife and her little ones from hunger and suffering. But did it pay ? Yes. These roads cost gs. rod. and gs. yd. per square yard respectively, all told, which included superintendence, printing, testing, and a substan­ tial allowance for the depreciation of plant and tools The price could not be bettered for the quality of the work. The work is satisfactory as regards execution. The vestry and the parishoners were so satisfied with the works that they resolved to continue them, and I am now engaged in paving Pont Street with wood under the conditions named. There is an eagerness for work that is equal to that at the beginning of the year, and though the men are not so starved as they were then, yet they are out of work. If 300 men—all Chelsea men—were wanted, they would be forthcoming in two days. This opens out a serious prospect. Should the winter be a severe one it will be necessary to relieve the distress. I submit that there are few better ways than by employing the men in useful public works. Our wood pavement experiment is only one class of work. It would be a desirable precaution for all the local authorities to look up the works they could put in hand if the emergency arises, so as to be ready. The surveyor who has such work entrusted to him has a strange team to drive over a new course, and he cannot have his rem hand or his whip hand pulled at, if he is to get over it successfully. He should be given a free hand while the work is on, and made to render a strict account when it is done.” * See "The Emigration Fraud Exposed,” by H. M. Hyndman. \xxX\\xx\x'^\»^\xxxxxxx'Xxxx\\xxxxxxxxx\x^xxxxxxxxxxKx'Y'Kx'\V^'J»NW'.xx''XXxxxxxxxVxxv,\\x\\xxx'1<xxXxxXxxxxxx\xx\'xx'‘''\X''-''xxxxxxxxx * »\XXX'\XX\XX\xKx>\\X ** »XX^ �IO Mr. Hugh Owen, C.B., the Secretary to the Local Government Board, has pointed out, very wisely from his point of view, the danger of allowing the Unemployed to entertain the idea that it is the duty of Government to provide them with wages. And certainly, relief works, whether undertaken by the National or Municipal authorities, must come to an end sooner or later. If the stress of poverty passes away the industrial regiments that have been enrolled may be disbanded with impunity. But should the permanent causes which have brought about scarcity of employment remain in action, should the distress therefore continue to augment, the State will have on its hands an ever-increasing army of desperate men who have been taught that if they agitate fiercely enough the State will provide for them, It is not a pleasant prospect. Surely it is wiser, while undertaking special measures for the momentary pressure, to at once go boldly to the root of the matter. The question is really the one with with which the ruling classes are now face to face in all countries in the world. “ Why are the workers poor? ” This is the riddle of the modern Sphinx, which our civilization has to answer or perish. Poverty, the material degradation of a large proportion of the population, means that long hours of work for low wages are alternated with these long spells of want of employment and sheer starvation. There is one way and one way only to put a check on this—the establishment of a shorter working day—and this can be best effected by the 1. Reduction of the hours of labour in all Government employments to eight a day. 2. The prohibition by law of more than 48 hours per week being exacted from their employes by any railway, tramway, or omnibus company. 3. The establishment of communications with foreign countries in order that an international agreement may be arrived at for curtailing, in each State, the hours of labour in manufactures and industries which are affected by inter­ national competition. Some objections will be raised to these proposals, but there is not the slightest doubt that any Governmeet which enforced the first of them would be amply supported by public opinion. The public have too often lately supped on horrors provided by the graphic descriptions of the life of the poor not to be willing that any practical steps should be taken for their relief. It only needs to be pointed out that, for instance, plenty of Government work is given out to contractors who over-drive their men, that many of the uniforms of our soldiers, police­ men, postmen, etc., are made on the sweating system,” for men of every class and every shade of political belief to unite in declaring that as citizens they object to what, as individuals, they may themselves be forced by competition to do, and that even if low profits drive the employing class to reduce wages and lengthen hours, this wealthy nation shall not take advantage of the necessities of the poor to grind their lives out of them. This one measure would at once give employ­ ment to many thousands who would be called in to fill the vacancies created. But some difficulties would be experienced in passing an Act �11 of Parliament compulsorily reducing the hours of adult males in the employment of companies of capitalists. Such interference has always been deprecated, by those interested in maintaining long hours and low wages, on the ground that if the men really desire it they would combine and enforce a reduction through a trade union by strikes etc. To this the reply is : that large numbers being out of work, the em­ ployers could readily fill the places of any number of men who struck for a reduction of hours : that the same circumstance drains the funds of all existing trade societies as they are also benefit societies and pay all members out of work, and therefore cripples them for undertaking * strikes ; that strikes are a barbarous method of effecting such a change and to be successful must be backed up by at any rate a certain amount of intimidation, boycotting etc. Much vigorous opposition will be raised by the shareholders in these enterprises and their numerous supporters in Parliament. They undoubtedly wall suffer by being deprived of the right to make profits by overworking their employes, but it is not possible to undo injustice and remedy hardships without appearing to injure someone. Advantages to the community at large must be weighed and a decision taken on that ground. There are some 360,000 men employed, for instance, on the railway system of this country. Their average hours are 12 per dayt and their average wages are under 20s. a week. The compulsory reduction of the hours to 48 per week would therefore mean the taking on of 180,000 workers and the expenditure as wages of nine millions of pounds which now go into the shareholders pockets as dividends. This is less than one per cent, of the capital invested in railways in England. Now admitting that individual cases ofhardship will occur, but also remembering the awful and wide-spread distress which is now devastating the “ lower orders,” the question for the community is whether one per cent, interest is worth more than the devotion of that sum to wages would effect, i.e. increased leisure for 360,000 men, and a chance of earning a living to 180,000. There can be no question as to the opinion of the working class on the point, and even the well-to-do may see it in a different light, when it is borne in upon them that some hundreds of thousands of unemployed men must somehow be provided for, either by charity, private or public, or by legis­ lation, and that it may be cheaper, easier, and safer to meet such a pro­ posal as this half-way than to seek to evade the inevitable. This applies still more strongly to tramway and omnibus companies. They exact longer hours and their victims are consequently still less able to combine, and for unskilled work such as theirs the competition, even at such miserable wages, is terrific. There are many other trades and occupations in which the enforce­ ment of a shorter day of labour is necessary. Where competition has reached a point when its disastrous effects are patent to all, when individuals are powerless to control it, it surely becomes the duty of the * It is on this account that the Amalgamated Society of Engineers had a deficit of over ^43,000 last year. The Union of Operative Bakers cannot prevent many employers exacting 18 hours work a day. The Boiler Makers show 23I per cent, of their members out of work and ^45,000 paid to them; the Brass-founders (Liverpool), 17 per cent, unemployed, the Amalgamated Carpenters, 18 per cent. See Returns “ Pauperism and Distress.” f The average hours of drivers are 10, goods guards n to 12, passenger guards 12 to 15, porters all work 12 and over. For further particulars see a pamphlet by T. Mann, entitled “ What an Eight Hour Working Day Means.” �12 organised community to fix a limit beyond which the excesses of com­ petition must not go. In the cases mentioned above the difficulty is not complicated by the presence of foreign or oriental underpaid labour. There can be no doubt whatever that under what is called Free Trade “ the unrestricted competition to which Parliament in its wisdom has decided that this country shall be subjected ”—the market of the world will confer its custom on those countries where, other things being equal, labour is cheapest, and that our artizans will some day have to accept the wage of Belgians, and Italians, or English manufacturers will be beaten. And there is nothing more certain than that in each of the foreign countries, whose competition we may have to dread, there is a strong feeling in favour of international legislation on these labour questions. To that end communications should at once be made to foreign governments, and should they be unwilling to come to reasonable terms, it will certainly be found in England, as in every country where the workers have any voice in national policy, that the democracy is in favour of a war of tariffs to coerce the recalcitrant countries. There is one objection from the worker’s point of view w'hich remains to be met. Reduction of hours would no doubt provide work for those out of employment, but would it not reduce the average rate of wages ? Especially where men are paid by the hour it seems on the face of it so certain that a week of 48 instead of 60 hours must mean a proportionate reduction of income. But this is not so. The main factor in the pres­ sure which keeps wages down is the eagerness of men who are out of work to accept it on any terms. The employer, perhaps smarting from a diminution of his normal income, feels justified in reducing wages when he sees that thousands would be only too glad to be taken on even at the reduced rate. As long as “ the reserve army of labour ” is there to draw upon, unscrupulous employers are in a position to do exactly what they please, and, by the action of competition, force better men to have recourse to the same villanies in order to escape bankruptcy. If the Unemployed are provided for, and the pressure on the labour market reduced, the same laws of supply and demand which now make the capitalist the absolute arbiter in matters of work and wages will then destroy his present advantage. Every man who is looking for work is an ally of the capitalist and an enemy of his fellows. The reduction of hours, by absorbing the Unemployed, will inevitably raise wages until further developments of machinery and invention increase the produc­ tivity of labour, and bring about a repetition of the miseries of the last few months. Not the least significant fact about the recent agitation on the subject of the Unemployed is that it has been allowed to remain entirely in the hands of a body of men who form the Social-Democratic Federa­ tion, the oldest and best known of the English Socialist organisations. Of these men Mr. Geo. R. Sims, whose knowledge of the poor in Lon­ don is great, says that their influence over the workers is enormous, and Mr; Arnold White, the well-known philanthropist, admits, while attacking them zealously, that “ they are slowly and surely winning the confidence of the masses.” From time to time their doings are chro­ nicled in the papers, but some of the following facts should be more widely known. 1 �13 On Monday, February Sth, 1886, a large meeting of men out of work was held in Trafalgar Square. Speeches were delivered by some Social Democrats, who afterwards headed a portion of the large crowd towards Hyde Park. On the way stones were thrown at the Reform and Carlton CIttbs in Pall Mall. The accidental absence of police showed that this Could be done with impunity, and portions of the crowd broke hundreds Of pounds worth of plate glass, ill-treated the passers-by, and sacked two shops in Piccadilly, and several in May Fair, before they were dispersed. On the following day London was in a panic, but no further riots occurred. Four of the Social Democrats, who were reported to have used very strong language, were indicted for seditious speaking and inciting to violence, and after five days’ trial at the Old Bailey were acquitted on April 10th, Mr. Justice Cave stating in his summing up that they deserved “ some considerable credit ” for their vain efforts to bring the dangerous nature of the distress among the working classes to the notice of the proper authorities. So much is notorious. What is unknown is the real origin aud meaning of occurrences without parallel in modern times. The following summary can be readily verified from reports of the meetings and of the testimony of witnesses at the trial:— In the winter of 1883, when the distress began to be seriously felt, the Social-Democrats made themselves conspicuous by vehement attacks on the supporters of emigration as a panacea for working class poverty. During that and the following winter they repeatedly carried amendments by unanimous votes in the meetings convened by the advocates of emigration. This made them very popular all over the country, especially in East London, and gave them an influence they were not slow to utilise. In February, 1885, the Social Democratic Federation convened a meeting of the Unemployed (even then very numerous) on the Thames Embankment, whence a deputation proceeded to ask the Local Government Board to urge various remedial measures for the distress of the thousands stated to be then out of work. In the absence of Sir Charles Dilke, the Under Secretary, Mr. G. W. E. Russell, stated that nothing could be done by the central authority at Whitehall, and advised the deputation to “ bring salutary pressure to bear on the local authorities.” This advice was not immediately followed, probably owing to the approach of summer and the consequent diminution of the suffering. But early in 1886 proceedings were again commenced, and the methods taken by a branch of the same organization in Clerkenwell were closely followed in Marylebone, Hampstead, Bermondsey, Hackney, Westminster, Limehouse, Battersea, and other parts of London, but the description of the one agitation applies with more or less force to all. Determined to put “ pressure ” on the Guardians of the Holborn Union, the members of this body instituted a house-to-house census of the poorer parts of the district, in order to satisfy themselves as to the distress. They summoned the Local Members of Parliament (one a Conservative, the other a Liberal), who declared themselves willing, but impotent, to effect any remedial legislation. On January 27 a deputation attended the meeting of the Guardians, and pointed out—(a) That their investigations had showed 40 per cent, of the bread-winners to be out of employment ; (&) That the workhouses were overcrowded ; (c) That in accordance with the strict regulations denying outdoor relief to persons under 60 years of age and free from disease, succour was refused to the �x4 sufferers; (d) That the reports of the Relieving Officers showing that comparatively few persons applied for relief were misleading, since artizans out of work did not apply : firstly, because they were not of the “ pauper class,” secondly, because they were well aware that application for relief would be vain, unless they entered the workhouse and broke up their homes. They further demanded that —(i) The Guardians should personally investigate the distress; (2) Should apply to the Local Government Board to relax the rules, and grant discretionary relieving powers during the winter; (3) Should urge the Vestries and Boards of Works in the districts to employ men on any works of real utility, such as artizan’s dwellings, baths and washhouses, or street improvements ; (4) Should insist on the Metropolitan Board of Works carrying out the recommendation of the Royal Commission on the Housing of the Work­ ing Classes by clearing the sites of Clerkenwell Prison and the House of Detention, and erecting on these and other available sites working class dwellings, to be let at the lowest rents which would cover the outlay ; and (5.) Should try to procure the immediate commencement of the new Admiralty and War Office proposed for Whitehall. The Guardians listened very patiently, and there being some thousands of Unemployed men outside their Board Room, decided to adopt all these proposals—with the following results. They appointed a committee who made a houseto-house visitation in their locality, and found the severest privations, and even starvation, being suffered, owing to lack of employment, by hundreds of families of even the better-to-do artizan class. Of all this no hint had been given in the reports of Relieving Officers and Local Government Board Inspectors, who merely record the individuals who apply for relief. The Local Government Board, or rather Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, was not so far carried away by the impulses of the “ political humanity,” on which he spoke so eloquently to working class audiences during the electioneering campaign, as to relax the rules, owing to the stringency of which so much patient misery had remained unnoticed and unrelieved. A ‘‘labour test” was imposed, and the skilled artizans and watchmakers of the district were invited to prove the reality of their distress by breaking stones all day for a remuneration of ninepence and two pounds of bread. Of the few who accepted this test many suffered severely from cut faces and blistered hands. On more than one occasion these men, who lost their right to vote by entering the labour yard, broke into open revolt. But the majority said that it would be just as pleasant to die of starvation outside the stoneyard as inside. Few practical steps of any use whatever were taken by the Vestries or Metropolitan Board of Works. The Members of Parliament for London, irrespective of party, were summoned to an informal conference, which appointed a Committee. After a delay of some two months the Committee reported that the dis­ tress was exceptional, and that it was quite beyond their province and powers as only a section of the Legislature to deal with it. With this ended the interest displayed in the matter by members of Parliament, for the proposal made by two Republican “ working class representa­ tives/’ Mr. George Howell and Mr. Joseph Arch, that the Queen’s Jubilee should be antedated by a year, in order that public festivities and wasteful expenditure might improve trade, can only be regarded as a piece of shameless sycophancy or ill-judged pleasantry. �The Social Democrats, however, convened a meeting in Holborn Town Hall on 3rd January, 1886, to which all Members of Parliament for London were invited. With one consent they made excuse, and not a single Member put in an appearance. The hall was crowded with men out of work, who unanimously passed resolutions demanding remedial measures. No notice whatever was taken of this. On February 8th, 1886, Patrick Kenny, a well-known promoter of public meetings on all sorts of subjects, who had previously persuaded the Lord Mayor to open a Mansion House Fund for the Unemployed, convened a mass meeting of men out of work in Trafalgar Square for the purpose of denouncing Free Trade and demanding Protection. The Social Democrats attended, as did thousands of hungry and desperate men. Being recognised by the crowd and called on to speak, the Socialists harangued the assembly, who deserted the conveners of the meeting to hear John Burns, H. H. Champion, H. M. Hyndman, John Williams, and others. At the close of the meeting, Burns, who had in his hand a red flag, led the way into Hyde Park. It was proved at the trial of the four chief speakers that no disorder occurred until some real or fancied insult by the gentlemen at the windows of the Reform Club enraged the crowd. Stones were thrown at the windows, and no police were present. En­ couraged by this circumstance, the rougher and more desperate portions of the crowd broke hundreds of windows, and even rifled some shops, until, on reaching Hyde Park, the majority, on the advice of the speakers of the Social Democratic Federation, dispersed to their homes, while a small band went through May Fair, damaging a good deal of property, until stopped by a small band of police. On the following day crowds again collected in Trafalgar Square, but the Social Democrats went to Mr. Chamberlain at the Local Government Board, who, on their representations, issued the circular to the local authorities, whose replies are summarised above. After some delay, Mr. Childers, the Home Secretary, summoned up courage to proceed against Burns, Champion, Hyndman, and Williams for seditious speak­ ing. They were committed for trial, and on April 10th acquitted at the Old Bailey before Mr. Justice Cave. It was proved, to the satisfaction of the jury, that their advice had not been that of Timon of Athens, Break open shops, nothing can you steal But thieves do lose it........................... Large handed robbers your grave masters are— And pill by law. but not more seditious, if more sincere, than many speeches delivered by Privy Councillors. Since that time various attempts have been made by the Social Democrats to induce the local as well as the central authorities to pre­ pare for the inevitable distress of this winter, but absolutely without effect. If the rulers of England do not want to have another Ireland at their own doors they will do well to show that redress for grievance, in Lon­ don at any rate, can be obtained without recourse to violent methods of agitation. No one can doubt that if the Unemployed had pursued the tactics which have hitherto been so successful on the other side of St. George’s Channel, their condition would now be occupying the serious attention of our statesmen. The poor are learning this lesson. When they have mastered it, what will be its application in London ? �Lord Rosebery has pointed out that you cannot go on for ever sucking the social wreckage of all other towns into the vast maelstrom of misery that lies east of the Bank of England. City missionaries and bishops are for ever dinning their warning into the ears of all who will hear. No one now attempts to deny the danger to society caused by the con­ trast between undeserved poverty and riches too often equally unde­ served. But while the danger comes ever nearer, no attempt is made to grapple with the causes of it. It is not too much to say that the winter of 1885—1886 may be a turning point in the national history. If in­ stead of dry reports of Commissioners, who sit to collect evidence which is never utilised, something is done to remove these evils at their root, all may yet be well. If this winter passes leaving the permanent causes of social misery just where they were, and the poor still more hopeless of peaceable changes, and chafing still more bitterly under a sense of injustice, we have before us a prospect of bread riots put down by arbitrary force, and martial law opposed by secret conspiracy. And, if this be the result, who is to blame? YOU, if you agree with the above proposals, and yet do nothing to support them. YOU, if not agreeing with them, you fail to put forward better proposals of your own. H.H.C. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; 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> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The facts about the unemployed: an appeal and a warning by one of the middle-class Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Champion, H.H. Description An account of the resource Place of publication: London; New York City Collation: 16 p. ; 23 cm. Notes: Text signed 'H.H.C'. Author believed to be H.H. Champion. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Modern Press; W.L. Rosenberg Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1886 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context G4982 Subject The topic of the resource Working conditions Socialism Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <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 (The facts about the unemployed: an appeal and a warning by one of the middle-class), 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> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Poverty Socialism Unemployment Working Class-Great Britain https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/a47983de9b4aadee5d28c21cf85bf4f7.pdf?Expires=1777507200&Signature=IGMSTvL-p7eXCveDLSm%7EOyEdoUOFmjV3bA6zQNXr3U2fa6Oup5RtwG5SsMUechVN9Z5ulDXypO9rEoYby2zR2IZY2MC8ddZTtJm6LIld9KWhbUc7%7EkW5D7w5ebd-TudrdYFq6V6jsdzmYLTCBbUk0vfopvR2ElbAgGqc%7EHk8WOsPYYdTeg0yEukux9Y81fpm3vQpuGmJtoL8iCUL6jVBmj3lObuS4hlTQUZtti-w4eTFpkfGiDeJcICQ1JvSWInqwmNQdzvxCiUDx9enTsWw7MKaEPTljNA3QTrzk9EnSKGbiPT%7EXFMAaIj7tGu9L8H-FGieAdw1-6OiaeVLgH3bLQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 9ea70a55215aacf463295e5c7b16add3 PDF Text Text Az CAPITAL AND LABOUR; THEIR RIGHTS AND DUTIES: A ^RETROSPECT OF THE TAILORS’ LABOUR AGENCY ^jonUnir: WILLIAM FREEMAN, 102, FLEET STREET. 1861. �T. e* vr? »VP CO., Iirst-XTSK ASB GSSEXKL PSSTSSSj, �[CAPITAL AND LABOUR; THEIli RIGHTS AND DUTIES. Ten years’ experience, and the signal success of the “Tailors’ Labour Agency,” may j ustify a few words of self-gratulation, and warrant a simple statement of past achievement and future expectancy. To look back upon the hindrances which have obstructed us, the encouragements which have cheered us, and the accomplishment of many of our purposes, will be a retrospect not unpleasing to ourselves, and may have something of profit in it for others. We would like to speak with diffidence on a subject on which there is not entire unanimity of opinion, and while we admit that in carrying out our views we may not always have done the fitting thing at the fittest time, yet we are confident that our purpose has been a good and a righteous one, and we still cling to it hopefully and unflinchingly, thankful for the (measure of success which has attended our efforts, and in no degree dismayed by thajloubts and scepticism of well-tried friends, or the ill-disguised hostility of mistaken opponents. It were well, perhaps, that working men generally were better acquainted with the science of political economy, a science which has, in the main, established itself on principles of commercial and social soundness; though some of its expounders have driven their dogmas so hard and heartlessly, that many have been justi­ fied in their aversion to the investigating those principles upon which much of their welfare depends. Money, and how to get it, has become of far greater importance than labour and how to live by it; and while the working classes deem themselves excluded from the sentiments and sympathies which make life �4 cheerful and useful, the opinion is entertained by many that it is the interest and desire of the high and the wealthy to oppress the poor and the lowly; that position, power, and influence are ^associated only with the possession of money—that it is the ■destiny of the worker to work on for the enrichment of those that employ him—and that while capital is increasing in the hands of a few, and one class advancing in opulence and living in luxury, there is another and far larger class whose labour •can barely find them subsistencej who are living continually •on the verge of pauperism, into which they drift at last, leaving the like hopeless toil and cheerless prospects as the “heritage of woe” which the working man bequeaths to his 'children. This view of the matter is rather gloomy, and is certainly to some extent erroneous, but any one who has mixed considerably with our working population, our average working men, neither those who are leading vicious lives, nor those whose vocation is dubious and uncertain, must be aware of much in their condition that is unsatisfactory, and even perilous. With all our national greatness, our freedom of commerce, our vast achievements in science, and the growing intelligence among all classes, it surely ■cannot be that the claims of society, the progress of business, or •even the spirit of competition itself requires that our millions of workers, who are the right arm of our strength, and our bulwark -of defence, should be crushed in their struggle for bread; that the body should be exhausted by daily toil till the mind become paralysed, and the moral nature be overborne by physical wants and necessities, rendering the higher aims, enjoyments, and even duties of life a bitter mockery, and a stern impossibility. If this be the fate of labour—if there are laws inexorable in their ■demand, and unyielding in their requirements, which assert this •condition to be inevitable—then is the fate a hard one indeed. But we do not believe it There are some men whom much political economy has made ’unreasonable and unfeeling, who would not deny that in many •trades the workmen may be inadequately remunerated, and in ■some scarcely remunerated at all, but they would leave all that �5 alone. ’’These things, they think, will ultimately adjust themselves by some laws of their own, and any meddlesome inter­ ference with their operation they earnestly deprecate. Such mem opposed any interference with the employment of children of' tender years in factories, and of women in coal mines, and they would rather support the working man from the poor-rates, as a. pauper, than countenance any effort by which the wages of' labour might bejkept above starvation point. They cannot deny the right of the working class to combine to fix the price of their labour, but according to them this is never done at the right time, nor in the right way; and if hostilities are provoked between Lcapital and labour, capital generally contrives, by calling to its aid some extreme maxims in political economy, to get the best in the conflict. This has come to be considered by a large class of operatives as more owing to the power of the moneyed interest than to any inherent justness of the cause in the question at issue,, and antagonisms have thereby been provoked and embittered to the manifest detriment of both parties in the conflict. But, after all that can be said, money has a power—will always, have a power—as the representative of accumulated savings, and the engine by which commercial enterprise is set in motion, and labour made productive; and working men would have long er© now seen their true interests in relation to capital, but for the selfishness of a certain class of employers who look upon their workmen only as the means of money-getting for them­ selves, who think that to be rich is the best thing, and Ke next, best thing to appear to be rich; whose political faith is that “ Poverty is disgraceful, and hard cash covers a multitude of sins,”—whose regard for the workers is dictated by the same­ consideration which makes them oil then machinery—who view them only physically and socially, and overlook those moral relations which are the bond of a common humanity, and the only means by which a people may become happy and virtuous. We are no unqualified adinirers of Trades’ Unions, on the principles by which they have hitherto been conducted; and speaking as working men ourselves—whom, perhaps, fortunate circumstances* �6 and somewhat of an aptitude for business have raised a shade above the merest operative—we deplore the errors into which they have led those connected with them, and the deep suffer­ ing which their unwise counsels have often produced; but we do say that it will be a happy day for this country when the millions of those who sweat and toil, shall have intelligence and union enough among themselves, to combine for securing the same con­ sideration for their labour, as the capitalist can secure for his money; and by prudent, well-regulated lives, promote those measures of social progress, which shall give them a power in the ■commonwealth to which they have never yet attained. These views are not mere sentimentalities. Some of the sternest of political economists have put forth opinions to the same effect. Adam Smith, in his Wealth of Nations, asks :— “ Is an improvement in the circumstances of the lower ranks of the people to be regarded as an advantage, or as an inconveniency to society?” “The answer,” he continues, “seems at first abundantly plain. Servants, labourers, and workmen of different kinds, make up by far the greater part of every great political society. But what improves the circumstances of the greater part can never be regarded as any inconveniency to the whole. No society can surely be flourishing and happy of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable. It is but equity, besides, that they who feed, clothe, and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labour as to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed, and lodged.” Mr. M’Culloch, in his Principles of Political Economy, says:— “ The best interests of society require that the rate of wages should be elevated as high as possible; that a taste for the comforts, luxuries, and enjoyments of human life should be widely diffused, and, if possible, interwoven with national habits and prejudices. Very low wages, by rendering it im­ possible for any increased exertions to obtain any consider­ able increase of comforts and enjoyments, effectually hinders them from being made, and is, of all others, the most powerful cause of that idleness and apathy that contents itself with what �7 •can barely continue animal existence.” Again, in his Principles of Population he has this remark :—“ I really cannot conceive •anything much more detestable than the idea of knowingly con­ demning the labourers of Great Britain to rags and wretched­ ness, for the purpose of selling a few more broadcloths and ■calicos.” Dr. Wade, too, in Iris History of the Middle and Working Classes, says:—I am .a great admirer of political economy, but do not implicitly adopt all its dogmas. National happi­ ness is more important than national wTealth very unequally ■apportioned. Repudiating witlheontempt the idea that the rich are in a conspiracy against the poor, and that they do not ■wish to improve their condition; still, I think, that in all fiscal and •domestic measures the maxim should be acted upon, that it is 'better a hundred persons live comfortably than one luxuriantly. High wages are, therefore, more important than high profits •, it is better—should they ever be at issue—the people •should be happy than foreign trade prosperous. It is less an evil that the minority should undergo a privation of the luxuries, <than the majority of the necessaries of life.” With respect to the feeling which ought to obtain between employers and the employed, a writer in a late number of the Quarterly Review has the following :—il Employers ought not to stand too strongly upon their rights, nor entrench themselves too exclusively within the circle of their own. order. Frankness and cordiality will win working men’s hearts, and a ready explanation will often remove misgivings and dissatisfaction. Were there more trust, and greater sympathy between classes, there would be less disposition to turn out on the part of men, and a more accommodating spirit on the part of masters.” And so, in organising and conducting the “ Tailors’ Labour Agency,” it has not been our aim to propound any new scheme of a societary or communistic kind, or any involved or abstruse doctrines; but, believing that practice was more at fault than principle, we have sought to deal with old facts and sub­ sisting relations, and taking the ordinary intercourse and arrange­ ments between the employer and the employed, endeavouring �8 to rear o-ut of that, a scheme of co-operation which should enhance the interests of the workmen, while it promoted the success of the business which gave them employment. For it is certain, that even in tailoring, depreciated and maligned though it be, there is as much scope for excellence in taste and skill, as in occupations of a more artistic kind; and were a body of workmen got together, stimulated and encouraged by an em­ ployer, bound to him by some tie more enduring than the precarious one of here to-day and away to-morrow, were they sufficiently educated in mind and eye, and fully alive to the. importance of earning and sustaining a reputation for superior workmanship, why, a business, steady, certain, and amply remu­ nerative, would reward their application and industry, realise for them what the life of a competent honest artisan ought to be, and surround them with manifold comforts and enjoy-J ments to which a large number of working men are too often strangers. Fair wages for the worker we therefore hold to be of the first importance, necessary as a matter of policy and justice, demanded by the rights of labour, and enforced by the duties of capital. There may be some law of supply and demand which-, would appear to take it out of the category of ordinary obliga­ tions, but justice and fair dealing are amenable to a higher law,, and will not be set aside by arithmetical figures, or mathematical, definitions. The supposed existence of a law in our social economics, by which every relation in life is defined with mathematical precision, has a tendency to destroy that sympathy and kindliness of feeling, which should be for the interest of all classes, and produce a cold and hard exaction on the part of those, who, making haste to be rich, seek to increase their profits out of the wages which labour ought to receive. The man of contracted and ungenerous nature, who is dead to the sympathies of his kind, and has never been raised above himself' by one wave of impassioned feeling, seizes with avidity upon an argument, or seeming argument, by which his selfishness may be dignified with the name of prudence, shrewdness, or common sense ; in this mood of self-complacency he is regardless and �9 Indifferent about the misery, the want, and wretchedness, the debasement which under-paid labour produces among the numerous class of workers whose interests and well-being are vitally important to the community. It is reported that a member of a tailoring firm in this metro­ polis has lately purchased, a landed estate at a cost of nearly ■£30,000. For making a coat, known by the name of “ Oxonian,” that firm pays its workmen six shillings. The time required for making such a garment, is about two days, and the price paid for making it by most other houses in the trade is ten shillings. Now, would not a portion of that £30,000 distributed among the workmen in increased wages, and expended by them on bread and meat, On better clothing, better house accommodation, and more suitable furniture, on the education of their children, and surrounding them with happier, healthier influences, have been a greater social benefit than one man rising to speedy affluence, and becoming the ancestor of a landed proprietary ? It is, no doubt, necessary that wealth should be accumulated, and very necessary that there should be security for retaining it when it has been Btauired; but surely it is more worthy, more noble, more honest to be content with small gains, that labour may have its Equivalent, that the working man may stand erect with a sense of manhood and self-respect about him, than by taking advantage of a supposed redundancy in the population, and pitting the labour of one man against another, seek to extract from that labour the means of sudden wealth, while those who produce it are compelled to feel that increasing labour and decreasing pay are a condition of slavery, most real and degrading. It is a question for politicians how far the franchise may be ex­ tended to the working classes ; but it is miserable trifling, and Something more, for those to whom capital has given a power over labour, and who use that power solely for tffigir own aggrandisement, to contend that working men cannot be the safe custodians of power, and ought not to be entrusted with it. The working­ classes, no doubt, have their vices, many of them arising from want of sympathy and encouragement in the numerous ■difficulties that beset them, but we question if they are worse �10 than the extreme selfishness manifested by many of their employers, which has separated interests which ought to have been in harmony with each other, creating and fostering asper­ ities which have occasionally threatened to disturb the peace of society, and have been at all times the source of much angry feeling. There is nothing in the relation which ought to. subsist between the employer and the employed that implies a right on the one side to domineer, or a duty on the other to be over-obsequious, and it is certain that a kindly consideration and regard on the part of the one would produce a respectful attach­ ment on the part of the other, and make the situation of both much more agreeable. At all events, it would appear that some such principles^ sincerely entertained, and honestly avowed, are in unison with the feelings and sympathies of many thoughtful and reflecting men, as evinced by the magnitude of our business, (Appendix A,) and the increasing power and influence, which, in various ways, it has been able to put forth; and this second report of our proceed­ ings is issued in answer to inquiries which reach us from many­ quarters, and which we hope will remove some misapprehension,, and impart some information as to the exact position we have taken up. The origin and conduct of “ The Tailors’ Labour Agency ” does not rest upon the purely benevolent or philanthropic idea; we might rather describe it as the result of a mind speculative and theoretical, flitting about somewhat vagrantlyand restlessly in quest of a social system free from the extremes of affluence and indigence, which make such a wide gulph in the present aspect of society, and then in utter disappoint­ ment settling down upon the old system, and in the sphere which seemed to open itself up to us, resolved that the men whose labour we had to purchase, should, by a commingling of interests, a gentle compulsion, and a genial intercourse, be helped to wipe away the reproach that their order is more indifferent to the duties of life, and less capable of discharging them, than those in other classes of society. “ The Tailors’ Labour Agency,” then, is simply a proprietary establishment, conducted like any other- �11 "business for the benefit of its promoter, but recognising in various ways the duties which capital owes to labour, and com­ bining several projects, which, while seeking our own interest, may conduce also to the interests of those with whom we are associated. Let us state these a little in detail:— 1st—The system of employment, and its remuneration. 2nd.—Means for the intellectual improvement of the workmen. • 3rd.—Provision for the education of their children. THE SYSTEM OF EMPLOYMENT, AND ITS REMUNERATION. The condition of the working tailor has been for some years greatly deteriorating. Various reasons have been assigned for this decadence. Some have traced it to the strike of 1834, which disorganised the trade societies, and introduced a number of women into the employment; others have attributed it to the excessive competition in the show shops, the “sweating” system, or the employment of middlemen, and the consequent giving out of the work to be done upon the premises of the workmen. These have undoubtedly been great evils. With the sweater, and those who work under him, one cannot associate the idea of respectability, comfort, decency, or any of the homely virtues which are the stamina of domestic felicity. This home-working, in its worst iorm, has got the name of “sweating,” because a scheming and unscrupulous middleman interposes between the employer and his workmen, and, by means, more iniquitous than any truck system, contrives to get the most of their earnings into his own pocket. He feeds and lodges them, after a sort, and the miserable abode in which they work, and sleep, and eat, is redolent of odours neither pleasant nor wholesome ; it is in truth, a cheerless, hopeless, miserable life, alternating between excessive working and excessive drinking, a life physically debilitating, and morally debasing, and folk which, what­ ever he may think of it, the employer who perpetuates it is morally responsible. Several years ago, the iniquities of the practice were ex­ posed in the columns of the Morning Chronicle; and sub­ sequently Mr. Kingsley, in his “Alton Locke” drew a fearful �12 picture of a “sweaters’ den,” somewhat over coloured, per­ haps, but in the main, painfully true; and yet the evil will continue while it saves money to the employers, and while gentlemen, inconsiderate and unthinking about the matter, are content to have their garments made up under circumstances which, could they but sec them in the process of manufacture, they'would recoil from wearing. We determined, as far as we were concerned, to lay the axe* to the root of this great evil, and to restore the workman’s home to that comfort which the undivided attention of a tidy house­ wife seldom fails to give it. We have, therefore, our workshops on our own premises, built with all the requisites for convenience, cleanliness and healthfulness, which the most eminent skill could suggest, and our men come to work and return to their homes with the same regularity that artisans in other trades do, or that is done by men holding situations in mercantile or trading houses ; nor can we refrain from saying that, as a body, -whether as regards character, conduct, or respectability of appearance, they are a sample of the honest, intelligent working-class of this country, of which any employer might feel proud (Appendix B). Why, then, is the pernicious system of home working continued ? Well, you see a workshop is rather an expensive affair. Besides the cost of erection, the implements of trade, and the usual wear and tear, there is a considerable item for certain sewing trimmings, which the employer who gives his work out, generally makes the men find for themselves ; and besides, if a man is at work on your premises, it is necessary that at the end of the week, when you put his wages in his hand, they should be in some measure adequate to the support of himself and family; and hence, in the case of home working, in its least objectionable form, where a man takes out only as much work as he can execute himself, the scanty earnings of the man have to be supplemented by the aid of wife and children, to the manifest neglect of other duties, which are not so claimant perhaps as the bread and butter question, but which are very important nevertheless. In fact, it does seem socially to be of great importance, that a working man’s employment should take him out into the world, to undergo �13 a discipline by conflict and contact with others, which very discipline makes all the more a man of him, and to find the home a retreat and relaxation from the turmoil and cares of a working life, rather than making that home the arena of every conflicting element, the scene of jarring and discord, a place rather to be dreaded and escaped from than longed for and enjoyed. And we find respectable Workmen to hold pretty ' much the same opinion; for, although nearly all the men in our employ had previously worked at home, we can recollect only one or two cases where men have left us to return to their former practice. But then, of course, the 'wages must be fair honest wages, as between master and man, fair too as compared with those of workmen in other trades, and fair in relation to the ordinary necessities of a working man and his family. We do not enter upon any crotchets on the wages question; we disclaim any idea of fixing a standard of wages, or of influencing the labour market; we simply avow our design to carry on our business upon certain principles, and that of helping to sustain the value ©f our workmen’s labour is one of them. It is true, that indirectly we should like to see this influencing' others ; indeed, it has already done so, for we have maife-it necessary for men who never dreamt of such a thing before, in seeking the suffrages of the public, to profess that they pay good wages to their work­ men ; we can only say that we hope their workmen will see to it, that they practice what they profess. The wages in the tailoring trade has now been for many years paid by the piece. What is technically called a “log ” is agreed upon, that is a certain number of hours for every description of garment, and the wages fixed at so much per hour ; the higher priced houses pay at the rate of sixpence per hour, we pay fivepence ; the lower priced houses adopt the more convenient plan of saying, “ Here is a certain garment, the price for making it is so much, and you find your own trimmings.” According to our k “log” the calculation is that a man of average ability shall earn 306'. per week, or 5s. per day of 12 hours, which is a journeyman tailor’s day ; and we have found that calculation a very fair one �14 for the workmen, clever men will considerably exceed it, and slow men will hardly get up to it, but it is such that ordinary men arenot overtasked to accomplish. And then, having a large demand’ for made up goods, we are enabled during the periodical depres­ sion in the trade, by replacing the stock sold in the busy season,, to keep up pretty fairly the earnings of our workmen, so that wehave no need to discharge any of our people in the slack season, but would rather have them attached to our establishment, as much as the workman of any factory in a provincial town ; indeed we would wish to displace the migratory habits of the journeyman tailor, by a desire to fix himself down in a locality, and acquire those influences and opportunities which are necessary to the proper up-bringing of a family, and attaining a social position which may give life a purpose, and enjoyment a reality. In this matter of wages too, we are anxious that the public should be satisfied as well as the workmen. There are many per­ sons keenly alive to the principle of buying in the cheapest market, who don’t desire their articles lessened in price at the expenseof the workman who manufactures them. We know that at the time that public attention was directed to the distressed condition of the needle women, there were many gentlemen who said, that they bought their shirts at respectable shops, and gave a fair price for them, and then were not sure after all that they were not produced at the cost of the poor suffering sempstress. The price for making every article that leaves our premises is vouched by the signature and address of the workman who made it, (Appendix C,) so that should any doubt exist about our pro­ fessions, it is open to an easy solution. We are anxious to say, too, that in being thus explicit upon this subject, we are taking no credit for excessive generosity ; we are quite satisfied that the course we have adopted has been conducive to our own interests,, and moreover, the several schemes which we have in operation for the benefit of our workmen, rest for their success on thebasis of fair remuneration to the worker. �15 Means for the Intellectual Improvement of the Workmen. f The question of the day is said to be social progress, and a very perplexing and undefinable sort of question it is. In its general acceptation it is held to have reference to the respectable work­ ing class, and to the indescribable working class, which is not so respectable. As a theory, it involves a problem which it is difficult to solve, while it has the merit of instituting agencies, and enlisting sympathies, which have had a genial influence on a class which is not “ working.” The well-to-do people, and the scantily-supplied people, have become better acquainted with each other, and there is no doubt that the advantages of their intercourse have been reciprocal. It is avowed on all hands that the working class has made great progress during the last thirty years. Their intelligence, thoughtfulness, and provident habits,. have well nigh extinguished the occupation of the agitator and the stump orator; they are more disposed and better qualified to investigate those subjects which have a bearing upon their own interests, and less inclined to take their opinions on trust from any man or set of men. The Press has undoubtedly exerted a great influence to this end. Mr. Charles Knight, the Messrs. Chambers, of Edinburgh, and John Cassell, have been the knirveyors of a literature which was not poprdar, but which has held on its way, and done its work, to the almost extinction of' the diluted trash which used to be the current literature at the poor man’s table. Literary institutions, too, have not been all the failures they are sometimes said to be. In provincial towns especially they have been the centre of attraction for youthful, sardent, and inquiring minds, and stimulated now by the Society of Arts and its annual examinations, they promise to be of’ increasing interest and usefulness. And yet the subject of adult instruction for working men is very difficult, if not discouraging. With but few opportunities for the acquisition of knowledge systematically, with habits formed, and tastes acquired, which make it necessary to unlearn much, before much can be learned ; the utmost one can hope to- �16 do, is to impart something of a relish for intellectual enjoyment, and, by a little training, accustom, the mind to reflecting and reasoning, so as to direct the judgment to right conclusions on those important subjects with which it is necessary to be well acquainted; an education, too,which can cast an en lightenment upon the conscience, and quicken the moral as well as the intellectual faculties ; in fact, such an education for the working classes as will make them better as working men, rather than induce a desire to be something better than working men. When we erected our Hall, eight years ago, it was intended chiefly as a day school for our workmen’s children, with a kind of vague design, that it should be sometimes used by the men for discussing topics in which they took an interest, or for hearing lectures on both sides of a debatable subject, that they might form their opinions for themselves. A little after­ reflection convinced us that something more than this would be necessary, and therefore we took means to organise for ourselves a regular Literary Institute, with its Lectures, Classes, Readingroom, and Library, and such other adjuncts as experience might, show to be needful. The premises which are occupied by our Institution havebeenfound to be well adapted for our purpose, and we are now recognised as the “ Tailors’ Labour Agency Literary Institute,” in union with the Society of Arts. Although as yet we can point rather to means than to results, still, our Institution has in various ways exercised a wholesome influence, and in some cases has effected a decidedly educational improvement. Our classes have been Arithmetic and English Grammar, English History, Literature and Biography, Music and Erench. The number of persons in our employ is about 110, who are members of the Institution, and the attendance at the •classes has fluctuated from 10 to 40, those for English History, and Literature and Biography, being the most popular. Our Lectures have necessarily been of a miscellaneous sort, but the Lecturers have been men of high attainments, who have attracted large audiences, and done some measure of good. In our Library and Reading-room we are amply provided with the means of passing our evenings in an interesting and profitable way; �17 and experience has deepened our conviction, that could we get our people more disposed to avail themselves of such advantages, much good in every way would come out of it. Working men have many arguments, which cannot easily be set aside, for seeking enjoyment of a different kind; it is only, after all, a small per centage of their number who have the taste or desire for the acquisition of knowledge for its own sake, or who would make any sacrifice for a course of mental training, which does not promise them a present good pow and then a man will start out from among the rest in pursuit of some subject which has arrested his attention, and if he has the courage to apply himself to it, and the resolution to persevere in the application, his intellectual faculties get quickened, and by intercourse with others who are like-minded, he gets “ a little knowledge,” which opens up to him a new life and prospects, affording him sources of pleasure which the illiterate can neither understand nor enjoy. Such a man be­ comes a power among other men : the salt which in a great measure has preserved the working classes, has been the intelli-gent, self-taught men who have sprung up among themselves— the “ little leaven ” which may yet help to leaven the whole mass. We have often said that we would stand by our Institution while there were six men interested in it and likely to be pro­ fited by it. We have been frequently disappointed of large re­ sults, but we know that it has been to some a haven where they have found solace and shelter, and we would rather go on hoping ever, than abandon the principles which have sustained us hitherto, or lose faith in the efficacy of working and waiting for an outcome of our labours. PROVISION FOR THE EDUCATION OF THEIR CHILDREN. It was not because we supposed that there was any deficiency in the means of education in our neighbourhood that we opened a day-school in connection with our Institution—we have seve­ ral excellent public schools and many private ones; but we thought that a school, supported by our own people conjointly, �18 attached to their own Institution, and to some extent under their own management, would have for them a greater interest than any school of which they had a knowledge only hy common report. We thought, too, that from various causes the attendance of the children would be more regular, and longer continued than at an ordinary school; and, that as our members were all acquainted with the schoolmaster, whose interests and sympathies were with them, who conducts an adult class among themselves, and is editor of a manuscript journal, to which they are contributors, he would be more accessible, if they needed to consult him on matters affecting the education and habits of their children, than an entire stranger would be. In all these respects we thought rightly. Whatever difficulties we may have had about adult instruction, we have had few, if any, with the children—our school has been the most encouraging feature in our enterprise, •and we would respectfully ask those interested in the cause of •education to pay it a visit, assured that half-an-hour would con' vince them that this experiment, so interesting to ourselves, has not been altogether fruitless. The number of scholars vary from 70 to 80, boys and girls, some of them being the children of neighbours who have sought admission to the school, and been received at a fee of 6<7. per week. The instruction given includes the ordinary branches, with history, geography, and social eco­ nomy. In addition, the girls are taught plain, useful needlework, with some little fancy affairs included. Some of the lads whom we have trained have now entered upon the business of life with every promise of success, and others, ■who have been with us five or six years, are preparing to follow them. For the especial use of those we intend to have evening classes twice a week, for the study of such subjects as may be most useful to them, and to keep up that pleasant intercourse to which we have looked for­ ward as one of the results of the educational efforts w’e have been making at our Institution. May we here add, deferentially, a kind of practical solution of the much vexed question of voluntary education and state paid education ? If every trading firm, employing a large number of workmen, were to build a school-room as a matter of �19 course, as they build their workshops, and encourage their men to provide duly for the education of their children, it would do the “ State some service,” and might save somewhat in the expense of the machinery by which enthusiastic educationists seek to establish their theory of voluntary education. We have now a few words to say respecting the pecuniary resources by which these various schemes are sustained. Apart altogether from the business premises, and on the1 other side of the way, we have two houses, in one of which is the hall and committee room, library, class and chess rooms, with warm baths on the basement beneath^ ThA enlargement and altera­ tions necessary in this part of thfe j/r'einfises cost'krver £1,000. In the other house running parallel with the hall, and of the same extent, is the workshop, large enough for 80 men, and which with its conveniences, cost £800. The burrent expenses of the Institution are defrayed by a charge upoit 'Ofc member of 6tZ. on every twenty shillings of wages he barns. Thus, a man earning thirty shillings a week, would have to pay 9d., and for this he would be entitled to all the benefits of the Institution, and to school instruction for all his children, what­ ever their number may be. Then, again, we 'hive a weekly penny paid to the library fund, which is expended on books, and in supplying the reading room with newspapers, magazines, &c.; these pennies usually amount to about £20 yearly. We will put this matter in a form which will be readily understood, and we are the more anxious to do so because it will appear that while an Institution like ours may need to be helped a little during its infancy, it is sure to become self­ -supporting, and able to walk alone. Income. Per Centage on Wages ... Letting Hall ... ... ... Extra Scholars ... ... Library Pennies ... ... Rooms let at top of House ...£150 45 ... ... 35 ... 20 ... ... 18 ... ... £268 �20 Expenditure. Bent and Taxes School Master and Mistress Books and Newspapers Lighting and Warming Lectures, &c. Cleaning and Attendance Bepairs and Sundries ... ... £70 102 ... 20 25 10 20 ... 10 £257 We ought to remark that the sum set down for Lectures is only the incidental expenses connected therewith, the Lecturers sympathising with our objects, having given their services gra­ tuitously. This was a necessity which cannot continue. The source of our income is an expansive one, and will grow with the growth of our business, and the small surplus we have now, will soon become a fund out of which we can pay for the services of eminent Lecturers, and enable us to make Lectures a feature of our Institution, and a boon to the neighbourhood. We feel bound in this place to record our obligations for very valuable services, to the Bev. F. D. Maurice, the Bev. Sydney Turner, the Bev. Paxton Hood, the Bev. G. Bogers, the Bev. D. Thomas, Messrs. Henry Vincent, Appleby, Liggins, J. C. Plumptre, Gearey, Edevain, &c., and for wise counsel and generous encouragement we have been indebted to many whose names and labours have long been associated with the progress of education and the social, well-being of the people. We hope that we have set forth what will sufficiently indicatethe theory and practice of the “ Tailors’ Labour Agency,” and that the one will not be considered altogether visionary, nor the other quite unfruitful of results. It has certainly been our aim to make the worker more satisfied with his condition, by making' that condition more worthy of his satisfaction. It is true that our sphere is but limited, but within that sphere, we would like to become an influence for good to those around us, convinced, that wherever such an influence has been put forth zealously and disinterestedly, benefit has never failed to ensue. It is a trite �21 remark, but we believe it to be true, that the present times are -auspicious for working men putting forth their strength, and rising to the true dignity of that position which they are destined yet to occupy. “ On all hands we see a stir and movement in the public mind which is becoming more alive to the necessity of social ameliorations. Evils which forty years ago would never have been the subject of remark, are now examined with a care that betokens a wide spread intelligence and philanthropy. Every well considered measure, brought forward in a right spirit, not only does good in itself, but makes it easier to do more good. Difficulties which appear insuperable, doubts which cannot now be solved, vanish of themselves when we grapple boldly with the -duty which lies nearest at hand. The evils of society, as of the individual, are of our own creation, and are already half con-quered when we look them in the face. No society ever yet perished which had the will to save itself. It is only where the will is so enervated, that a, community had rather shut its -eyes to the dangers which menace it, than make the necessary ■•sacrifices to avert them, that its situation is desperate. Let every one who in his public or private capacity can do anything to relieve misery, to combat evil, to assert right, to redress wrong, -do it with his whole heart and soul, and trust to God for the result.” Newington Causeway, May, 1861. �22 APPENDIX. (A) The amount paid in wages, in each of the last will show the progress of the business :— 1854 ............... ... ... £3952 1855 ... ... 4035 ... 1856 ............... ... 4086 ... 1857 ...3494 ... 1858 . ... 4171 1859 .. ... ...4976 1860 ............... 4 d if’ ... 6709 seven years-* 19 2 0 51 2 2 9j 11 3 11 6. 10 a (B) The following extract, from the “ Conditions on which theWorkmen are employed at the Agency,” will illustrate the kind of connection we seek to establish between them and our­ selves :— “ 5. The first three months’ employment on the establishment will he probationary. After that time, no Workman will be liable to immediate discharge ; but, in case of negligence, imperfect work, or any impropriety of conduct, the Foreman may suspend till the charge be investigated by the Manager, the Foreman, and any one of his fellow-workmen whom the offending party may nominate : and, if dismissal should be the result of such investigation, that Workman shall not, under any circumstances, be again employed on the Establishment. “ 6. A decided preference will always be given to those who are careful and industrious in their habits, and clean and orderly in their appearance. It is, therefore, earnestly desired that the Workmen cultivate habits of per­ sonal and domestic cleanliness ; as it is the avowed design of the Agency, through its entire proceedings, to make connection with it uncomfortableand uncongenial to men of irregular habits and confirmed intemperance.” �23 We may mention, also, that for several years we have had an Annual Holiday ; on which occasion our premises are entirely closed; and the Workmen, with their Wives, are conveyed, by railway, some twenty or thirty miles in the country, where an, ample Dinner and abundant rational enjoyments are provided for them. We have, also, a Christmas Soiree, at our own Hall, when Tea, Coffee, and a Vocal and Instrumental Concert are the entertainments for the evening, These re-unions have had the happiest effects amongst us, and are always anticipated with pleasure and enjoyed with propriety. (C) DUNN’S TAILORS’ LABOUR AGENCY, 12, 13 and 14, NEWINGTON CAUSEWAY. WORKSHOPS—39 and 40, Bridge House Place, Opposite. For Mr_______ ____________________________ No________ Price of Garments_____________________________________ Wages-----------------hours, at five pence per hour. This form of Ticket is intended to verify the amount of Wages paid to the workman, and will accompany every garment, with the maker’s signa­ ture and private address for inquiry. A®" The Wages are calculated at 5s. a Day of Twelve Hours. Printed by P. Grant & C'O., Red Lion Square, HoILorn. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; 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> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Capital and labour; their rights and duties: a retrospect of the Tailors' Labour Agency Description An account of the resource Place of publication: London Collation: 23 p. ; 20 cm. Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Printed by F. Grant & Co., Red Lion Square, Holborn. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available William Freeman Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1861 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context G5212 Subject The topic of the resource Labour Movement Working conditions Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource [Unknown] Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <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 (Capital and labour; their rights and duties: a retrospect of the Tailors' Labour Agency), 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> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Capitalism Conway Tracts Labour Movement Socialism Wages Working Classes