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https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/425147319123b75e45aacea1cab04313.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=dQ2xQZJJ-MslVCjyCUubnox2TGdOwGj7hoiwOFIgFi1LLwqVrsm2DrWPxL2bYXYdW76AMD59MgIzx-T7fdbp%7EWvhHd15makTHHBE7oATJf6QaoY-wlXzlF0VxRThbLBlAeLDJoRmiyJzesjZ8OVXslZg6EEZRoyJd9dE%7E6k-An521BnQwUTLCCez5tFd7XCKw7MiSXR8sKvrpNmAYm4jRK-wX6RE7en6E4k9M1SLs%7EFNgjQiE8y8%7E5ExXa3T9QMBOiUgCEPKM-zoyr9LTWaBjf%7EhMjPAkEDF5OyA9%7EDkxKHVs88PseROi%7EEe%7EdpRYk3V52mW6h8BZ9VLisPIVE4Xzg__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
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Text
LABOURS PRAYER.
BY C. BBADLAUGH.
“ Give us thisday our daily bread ” is the entreaty addressed
by the tiller of the soil to the “ Otr Father,” who has pro
mised to answer prayer. And what answer cometh from
heaven to this the bread winner’s petition? Walk amongst
the cotton workers of Lancashire, the clothweavers of
Yorkshire, the Durham pit men, the Staffordshire puddlers,
the Cornish miners, the London dock labourers, go any
where where hands are roughened with toil, where foreheads
are bedewed with sweat of work, and see the Lord’s res
ponse to the prayer, the fatlrer’s answer to his children!
The only bread they get is the bread they take; in their
hard struggle for life-sustenance, the loaves come but
slowly, and heaven adds not a crust, even though the
worker be hungry, when he rises from his toil-won meal.
Not even the sight of pale faced wife, and thin forms of
half starved infants can move to generosity the Ruler of
the world. The labourer may pray, but, if work be scant
and wages low, he pines to death while praying. His
prayer gives no relief, and misery’s answer is the mocking
echo to his demand.
It is said by many a pious tongue that God helps the
poor; the wretchedness of some of their hovel houses, found,
alas ! too often in the suburbs of our wealthiest cities, grimy,
black, squalid, and miserable; the threadbare raggedness of
their garments ; the unwholesomeness of the food they eat;
the poisoned air they breathe in their narrow wynds and
filthy alleys; all these tell how much God helps the poor.
Do you want to see how God helps the poor ? go into any
police court when some little child-thief is brought up for
�2
labour’s prayer.
hearing; see him shoeless, with ragged trousers, thread»
bare, grimy, vest, hardly hanging to his poor body, shirt
that seems as though it never could have been white, skin
dull brown with dirt, hair innocent of comb or brush, eye
ignorantly, sullenly-defiant, yet downcast; born poor, born
wretched, born in ignorance, educated amongst criminals,
crime the atmosphere in which he moved ; and society, his
nurse and creator, is now virtuously aghast at the depra
vity of this its own neglected nursling, and a poor creature
whom God alone hath helped. Go where the weakly wife
in a narrow room huddles herself and little children day after
day : and where the husband crowds in to lie down at night:
they are poor and honest, but their honesty bars not the
approach of disease, fever, sorrow, death—God helps not
the line of health to their poor wan cheeks. Go to the
country workhouse in which is temporarily housed the
worn out farm labourer, who, while strength enough re
mained, starved through weary years with wife and several
children on eight shillings per week—it is thus God helps
the poor. And the poor are taught to pray for a continu
ance of this help, and to be thankful and content to pray
that to-morrow may be like to-day, thankful that yester
day was no worse than it was, and content to-day is as
good as it is. Are there many repining at their miseries,
the preacher, with gracious intonation, answers rebukingly
that God, in his wisdom, has sent these troubles upon them
as chastisement for their sins. So, says the church, all are
sinners, rich as well as poor, but rich sinners feel the
chastising rod is laid more lightly on their backs than it
is upon those of their meaner brethren. Week-day and
Sunday it is the same contrast; one wears fustian, the
other broadcloth, one prepares for heaven in the velvet
cushioned pew, the other on the wooden benches of the
free seats. In heaven it will be different—all there above
are to wear crowns of gold and fine linen, and, therefore,
here below the poor man is to be satisfied with the state of
life into which it has pleased God to call him. The pastor
who tells him this, looks upon the labourer as an inferior
�LABOUR. S PRAYER.
S
animal, and the labourer by force of habit regards the great
landowner and peer, who patronises his endeavours, as a
being of a superior order. Is there no new form of prayer
that labour might be taught to utter, no other power to
■which his petition might be addressed ? Prayer to the un
known for aid gives no strength to the prayer. In each
beseeching, he loses dignity and self-reliance, he trusts to
he knows not what, for an answer which cometh, he knows
■not when, and mayhap may never come at all. Let labour
pray in the future in another fashion and at another altar.
Let labourer pray to labourer that each may know labour’s
rights, and be able to fulfil labour’s duties. The size of
the loaf of daily bread must depend on the amount of the
daily wages, and the labourer must pray for better wages.
But his prayer must take the form of earnest, educated en
deavour to obtain the result desired. Let workmen, in
stead of praying to God in their distress, ask one another
why are wages low? how can wages be raised? can we
raise our own wages? having raised them, can we keep
them fixed at the sum desired ? what causes produce a rise
and fall in wages ? are high wages beneficial to the labourer ?
These are questions the pulpit has no concern with. The
reverend pastor will tell you that the “ wages of sin is death,”
and will rail against “filthy lucrebut he has no incli
nation for answering the queries here propounded. Why
are wages low? Wages are low because the wage-winners
crowd too closely. W ages are low because too many seek
to share one fund. Wages are lower still because the
. ’abourer fights against unfair odds; the laws of the country
overriding the laws of humanity, have been enacted with
out the labourer’s consent, although his obedience to them
is enforced. The fund is unfairly distributed as well as
too widely divided. Statutes are gradually being modified,
and the working man may hope for ampler justice from the
employer in the immediate future than was possible in
the past, but high and healthy wages depend on the work
ing man himself. Wages can be raised by the working
classes exereising a moderate degree of caution in increase
�4
LABOUR’S PRAYER.
ing their numbers. Wages must increase when capital in
creases more rapidly than population, and it is the duty of
the working man, therefore, to take every reasonable pre
caution to check the increase of population, and to accelerate
the augmentation of capital.
Can working-men, by combination, permanently raise the
rate of wages ? One gentleman presiding at a meeting of
the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science
for the discussion of the labour question, very fairly said,
“ It is not in the power of the men alone, or of the masters
alone, or of both combined, to say what shall be the amount
of wages at any particular time in any trade or country.
The men and the masters are, at most, competitors for the
division at a certain rate, of a certain fund, provided by
[themselves and] others—that is, by the consumers. If that
fund is small, no device can make the rate of profit or rate
of wages higher.” This is in theory quite correct, if it
means that no device can make the total divisible greater
than it is, but not if it refers to the increase of profit or
wages by partial distribution. In practice, although it is
true that if the fund be small and the seekers to share it
be many, the quotient to each must be necessarily very
small, yet it is also true that a few of the competitors—i.e.t
the capitalists, may and do absorb for their portions of
profits an improper and unfairly large amount, thus still
further reducing the wretchedly small pittance in any case
receivable by the mass of labourers. It is warmly con
tended that the capitalist and labourer contend for division
of the fund appropriable in fair and open field; that the
capitalist has his money to employ, the man his labour to
sell ; that if workmen are in excess of the capitalist’s
requirements, so that the labourer has to supplicate for
employment, wages cannot rise, and will probably fall; but
that if, on the contrary, capital has need to invite additional
labourers, then wages must rise. That is the law of supply
and demand brought prominently forward. In great part
this is true, but it is not true that capital and labour com
pete in fair and open field, any more than it is true that a<
�labour’s prayer.
yron-elad war vessel, with heavy ordnance, would compete
in fair field with a wooden frigate, equipped with the
materiel in use thirty years ago. Capital is gold-plated,
and carries too many guns for unprotected labour. The
intelligent capitalist makes the laws affecting master and
servant, which the uneducated labourer must obey, but has
no effective voice to alter. The capitalist forms the govern
ment of the country, which in turn protects capital against
labour; this government the labourer must sustain, and
dares not modify. The capitalist does combine, and has
combined, and the result of this combination has been an
unfair appropriation of the divisible fund. Why should
not the labourer combine also ? The answer is truly that
no combination of workmen can increase the rate of wages,
if at the same time the number of labourers increases more
rapidly than the capital out of which their wages must be
paid. But the men may combine to instruct one another
in the laws of political economy; they may combine to
apply their knowledge of those laws to the contracts be
tween employer and employed. They may combine to
compel the repeal of unjust enactments under which an un
fair distribution of the labour fund is not only possible,
but certain. Organisations of labourers are, therefore, wise
and necessary: the object of such organisations should be
the permanent elevation and enfranchisement of the mem
bers. No combination of workmen, which merely dictates
a temporary cessation from labour, can ultimately and per
manently benefit the labourer; while it certainly imme
diately injures him and deteriorates his condition, making
his home wretched, his family paupers. Nor can even co
operative combination, praiseworthy as it certainly is, to
procure for the labourer a larger share of the profits of his
labour, permanently benefit him, except in so far that
temporarily alleviating his condition, and giving him lei
sure for study, it enables him to educate himself: unless,
at the same time, the co-operator is conscious that the in
crease or reduction in the amount of wages depends entirely
on the ratio of relation preserved between population and
�labour’s prayer.
its means of subsistence, the former always having a tendency to increase more rapidly than the latter. It is with
the problem of too many mouths for too little bread that
the labourer has really to deal: if he must pray, it should
be for more bread and for fewer mouths. The answer often
given by the workman himself to the advocate of Malthusian
views is, that the world is wide enough for all, that there
are fields yet tfnploughed broad enough to bear more corn
than man at present could eat, and that there is neither too
little food, nor are there too many mouths ; that there is, in
fact, none of that over-population with which it is sought
to affright the working-man. Over-population in the sense
that the whole world is too full to contain its habitants, or
that it will ever become too full to contain them, is certainly
a fallacy, but over-population is a lamentable truth in its
relative sense. We find evidences of over-population in
every old country of the world. The test of over-population
is the existence of povei’ty, squalor, wretchedness, disease,
ignorance, misery, and crime. Low rate of wages, and food
dear, here you have two certain indices of relative over
population. Wages depending on the demand for and
supply of labourers, wherever wages are low it is a certain
sign that there are too many candidates for employment in
that phase of the labour market. The increased cost of
pioduction of food, and its consequent higher price, also
mark that the cultivation has been forced by the numbers
of the people to descend to less productive soils. Poverty
is the test and result of over-population.
It is not against some possible increase of their numbers,
which may produce possibly greater affliction, that the
working men are entreated to agitate. It is against the
_ existing evils which afflict their ranks, evils alleged by
sound students of political economy to have already resulted
from inattention to the population question, that the ener
gies of the people are sought to be directed. The operation
. the law of population has been for centuries entirely
agnoie by those who have felt its adverse influence most
severely. It is only during the last thirty years that any
�labour’s prayer.
pf the working classes have turned their attention to the
question; and only during the last few years that it has
been to any extent discussed amongst them. Yet all the
prayers that labour ever uttered since the first breath of
human life, have not availed so much for human happiness
as will the earnest examination by one generation of this,;
the greatest of all social questions, the root of all political
problems, the foundation of all civil progress. Poor—man
must be wretched. Poor—he must be ignorant. Poor—
he must be criminal: and poor he must be till the cause
of poverty has been ascertained by the poor man himself,
and its cure planned by .the poor man’s brain, and effected
by the poor man’s hand
Outside his own rank none can save the poor. Others
may show him the abyss, b ut he must avoid its dangerous
brink himself. Others may point out to him the chasm,
but he must build his own bridge over. Labour’s prayer
must be to labour’s head for help from labour’s hand to
strike the blow that severs labour’s chain, and terminates
the too long era of labour’s suffering.
During the last few years our daily papers, and various
periodicals, magazines, and reviews have been more fre
quently, and much less partially, devoted than of old to the
discussion of questions relating to the labourer’s condition,
and the means of ameliorating it. In the Legislative As
sembly debates have taken place which would have been
impossible fifty years since. Works on political economy
are now more easily within the reach of the working man
than they were some few years ago. People’s editions are
now published of treatises on political economy which half
a century back the people were unable to read. It is now
possible for the labourer, and it is the labourer’s duty, to
make himself master of the laws which govern the produc
tion and distribution of wealth. Undoubtedly there is
much grievous wrong in the mode of distribution of wealth,
by which the evils that afflict the poorest strugglers are
often specially and tenfold aggravated. The monopoly of
land, the serf state of th$ labourer, are points requiring
�iiABOtritsr PAAYEte.
energetic agitation. The grave and real question is, ho^S
ever, that which lies at the root of all, the increase of
wealth as against the increase of those whom it subsists.
The leaders of the great trades’ unions of the country, if
hey really desire to permanently increase the happiness of
the classes amongst whom they exercise influence, can
speedily promote this object by encouraging their members
to discuss freely the relations of labour to capital; not
moving in one groove, as if labour and capital were neces
sarily antagonistic, and that therefore labour must always
have rough-armed hand to protect itself from the attacks
of capital; but, taking new ground, to inquire if labour and
capital are bound to each other by any and what ties, ascer
taining if the share of the labourer in the capital fund
depends, except so far as affected by inequality in distribu
tion, on the proportion between the number of labourers and
the amount of the fund. The discussing, examining, and
dealing generally with these topics, would necessarily
compel the working man to a more correct appreciation of
his position.
Any such doctrine as that ‘ ‘ the poor shall never cease
out of the landor that we are to be content with the
station in life into which it has pleased God to call us ; or
that we are to ask and we shall receive, must no longer
avail. Schiller most effectively answers the advocates of
prayer—
“ Help, Lord, help ! Look with pity down!
A paternoster pray;
What God does, that is justly done,
His grace endures for aye.”
u Oh, mother! empty mockery,
God hath not justly dealt by me:
Have I not begged and prayed in vain;
What boots it now to pray again ?”
Labour’s only and effective prayer must be in life action
for its own redemption ; action founded on thought, crude
thought, and sometimes erring at first, but ultimately
developed into useful thinking, by much patient experi
menting for the right and true*
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Title
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Labour's prayer
Creator
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Bradlaugh, Charles [1833-1891]
Description
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 8 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Date of publication from the Selection of Bradlaugh's political pamphlets / John Saville (New York: 1970).
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Charles Bradlaugh and Annie Besant
Date
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[1865]
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N097
G5678
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Labour
Social problems
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Labour's prayer), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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Text
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English
Labour Movement-England-History-19th Century
Wages
Working Classes