1
10
52
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/a48a8dd3e169f3da1d36a4aa0deed419.pdf?Expires=1779926400&Signature=cWyab6JdBmKQKuhvAbkufPXKUyQII3Ypxgrr3hb8X05EUD0Xrko-oaHt5Q1fD%7EVAjNrtnneOvEEwZzXSIWFQyzBB%7EpvRJY329U4kTtqjrK2VlL-y8mfO5lCZ5fxC2RGzC37nLpIGBFlknMI32iAtismQQz87JZTCa-sIu5YJ8rmz0n4Z3e6QhLrK9h5jeVEHd4AfawrlpRtHFCEhldpr8tQQA9S7VF7qclswVbXfLChydROkcQvBFbeod06gjI89K3pDIPZBcGmfAsl6-PXUATY0I0g7gmjMp%7ENmsXX8imWds0Q9ux%7EuI09ahFjyUSvFLtlaDBv1-HBnnF12vzGb%7Ew__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
3cd76236231ef58d6cf65c7c1e402695
PDF Text
Text
ONE PENNY.
JOHN E. WILLIAMS,
AND THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE
Social - Democratic Federation ;
With his own Account of the Month's Imprisonment he
SUFFERED FOR SPEAKING IN
DoD STREET, LlMEHOUSE.
1886.
Published at the Modern Press, 13, Paternoster Row, London.
ORN 27 years ago within a short distance of the spot where he
has been so
imprisoned and
John
BWilliams has unjustlyhis earliest years shamefully maltreated,the world
from
had to battle with
as an unskilled labourer. Left as an orphan when a mere child,
the education he possesses he owes almost entirely to his own
industry and self-denial. Out of his slender wages, earned by
work which has often lasted for sixteen and seventeen hours a
day, he has always spent far more than he could really spare
on books and journals.
Returning to his ill-furnished single room
�2
on Saturday night, weary and worn, he has devoted his leisure
time either to earnestly putting forward his opinions in working
men’s clubs, or to getting up the facts for his next day’s open-air
addresses. This has gone on for nearly twelve years; and neither
poverty nor sickness nor persecution has ever checked him in his
persistent endeavours to improve the lot of his fellow men, to stir them
from the apathy into which they have been sunk, and to lay before them
those truths of Socialism which now, in great part owing to his courage
and tenacity, are making way in every quarter of England.
It is true that John Williams does not speak with mincing accent and
delicate pronunciation ; true also that he does not always use his words
in their right meaning, or stop to weigh the full force of his phrases.
But his rough and homely diction, his vigorous illustrations drawn
from facts which have been only too real for him, go right home to the
hearts of his audience, and have roused feelings among the workers
which may yet have their outcome in deeds. A man who has been
driven to fight at the dock-gates for a job at starvation wages, who has
known what it is to be homeless and workless for weeks together, and
yet has never lost his independence or self-respect, is surely worthy of all
the honour that can be paid to him, not only by his fellow-Socialists,
but by every man and woman who can appreciate honesty and un
swerving fidelity to the cause of the people.
Since he became one of the founders of the Social-Democratic
Federation in January, 1881, John Williams has seen an advance in
the cause of Social Democracy, such as he could barely have hoped to
witness in his life-time. As an active worker in the Anti-Coercion and
Anti-Crimes Act movement, as a persistent organiser and agitator with
every association that strove for the nationalisation of land and capital,
as well as for the most advanced political measures, John Williams is
known to every working-men’s club in London, and in many provincial
towns. Even during the four weeks during which he has been in gaol,
he has the satisfaction of knowing that he has done more than all his
comrades to bring our great cause before the workers of England and
Europe.
Though for many years John Williams had been working both
independently and with the most thorough-going political bodies then in
existence, his first connection with an avowedly Socialist organisation
was in 1879, when a few London working men, with the aid of some of
those who had been forced to take refuge in England from the tyranny
of their own governments, had established the International Club in Rose
Street, Soho.
In 1880 the outlook was dark and dreary for all who had the welfare
of the workers at heart. A Liberal Government had been returned
to power with an overwhelming majority, which was to be the
“great instrument” for fulfilling the high-sounding promises of the
Midlothian speeches. Those who took the name while abandoning the
ideas of Cobbett and Lovatt, so far forgot the old meaning of the word
Radical as to pledge themselves to the infallibility of a party leader who
had only a few months before himself denounced the claim of any human
being to infallibility. In London there were a small body of working
men who were not tied to party but devoted to principle, not blinded by
the adoration of any man, but earnest in forcing on their fellows the
discussion of genuine measures for the real of material and moral
improvement of the people. Few in numbers, and scantily provided
with money, they were unable to effect much by themselves, and appealed
in vain to the Radical Workmen’s Clubs, who had completely forgotten
�3
|he teachings of the noble men of the last generation who had gone down
to unremembered graves, broken and disheartened by the failure of the
great revolutionary movement of 1848. The few who were mindful of
the lessons of the past, and determined to be no longer the tools of the
tricksters of the two political factions of the great party of Privilege,
which was still the only one represented even in the new House of
Commons—these few hailed with surprise and joy the offer of aid from a
few middle-class men for the formation of a new organisation and the
commencement of a vigorous campaign in favour of genuine Demo
cratic principles. A memorable meeting indeed was the first at which
were met men who had battled with enthusiasm for the victory of the
Liberal party in the delusive hope that thus would the workers come by
their own again; others who with truer instinct had seen the wolf
through his sheep’s clothing, amongst them some older men who had
worked and fought side by side with Ernest Jones and Frost, William
Lovett and Bronterre O’Brien and once again dared to hope that the
workers might achieve their own emancipation. At the first meeting at
the Westminster Palace Hotel, Joseph Cowen was in the chair and there
Professor E. S. Beesly in vain poured cold water on the movement, by
urging that the time had not come for starting a working class move
ment independent of the Liberal Party. In spite of this the Democratic
Federation was founded on the most advanced grounds on which
common agreement could be obtained. Work began in earnest, and
the whole world soon knew that after a generation of apathy the workers
of Great Britain were earnest in the determination to obtain control of
their country, in the interest of the labouring classes alone. That the
ruling classes appreciated the full significance of the fact was shown by
the persistent vilification heaped on the movement, and its originators,
by the Liberal press. The kindest word said for it was that a knot of
mad men had joined together to be scattered again in a week. If the
wishes of the prophets could have secured the fulfilment of their pro
phecies the Democratic Federation would not have flurished as it has
done. In spite of the detraction of the press of all shades of opinion the,
work continued, and a representative conference was called to discuss
the programme, H. M Hyndman being in the chair. The more ad
vanced clauses were enthusiastically greeted by the many working men
present but proved too much for some of the middle-class men. No
sooner had a majority of the delegates present voted in favour of in
cluding “ Legislative Independence for Ireland ” than Professor Beesly,
the ardent supporter of the workers in the evil days of Trade Unions,
moved a resolution declaring the time not ripe for an independent
working-class party. He failed, and the meeting carried the programme
which was unanimously adopted at crowded meetings in nearly every
large town in England, and, dissolved, pledged to earnest endeavour to
overthrow middle-class rule in these islands.
There was hard work before them. When Mr. Gladstone came into
power in May, 1880, famine was abroad in Ireland and had it not been
for the relief afforded by the Mansion House Committee supplemented
by the Land League of which Michael Davitt was the founder, the trap
coffin of 1847 would have been at work again. Mr. Gladstone’s govern
ment made provision for famine according to the well established pre
cedent of English political parties. The leaders of the Irish people
were to be prosecuted for daring to assert that the Land was the
People’s; Mr. Parnell and others to be tried for sedition, and a Govern
ment prosecution to fail for the first time in Irish history.1 On January
6th, 1881, Parliament opened an Irish session—Coercion first and Land
�4
Reform afterwards. The Democratic Federation strove hard against
the suppression of constitutional government in the sister isle. Night
after night meetings were held and John Williams with the rest returned
to his work in the morning, only to come out again in the evening at the
street corner or in a public hall to protest against Coercion for the
unhappy country that had struggled in vain against tyranny for centuries.
The London Workmen’s Club (with the exception of the Patriotic
Club) were silent, and the Coercion Bill of 1881 was passed after such a
dogged struggle as Parliament had never before witnessed without a
word of protest from the English Radicals, the very men who are
still posturing as the friends of freedom.
Besides their struggle against Whig tyranny in Ireland, the members
of the Democratic Federation were not behind in advocating the
interests of the working classes of England and all other countries. A
large and enthusiastic meeting was held in London in favour of the
Abolition of the House of Lords soon after the formation of the organisa
tion. In 1882 H. M. Hyndman reprinted the lecture delivered in 1797
by Thomas Spence, of Newcastle, entitled “ A plea for the Nationalisa
tion of the Land,” and in 1882, after the meeting of the Trade Union
Congress in London, a large audience thronged St. Andrew’s Hall in
Newman-street to hear (for the first time since the days ofthe Chartists)
the right of the people to collective ownership of the soil of their country,
championed by the same men who were constantly being held up to
execration as Tories in disguise by the Liberal and Radical press.
When the Russian despot met a richly merited fate at the hands of
the noble band of men and women who only asked for freedom of speech
and press, the Liberal Government, conscious that Alexander’s crimes
against his subjects were not blacker than their own against the liberties
of the Irish nation, seized the German revolutionary paper Freiheit, and
arrested its editor, Johann Most, on account of the publication of an
article applauding the Nihilists for the execution of the Czar. Some of
the Englishmen at the Rose-street Club, headed by Frank Kitz, brought
out several issues of an English Freiheit. The first contained a transla
tion of the article which was made the pretext of Most’s imprisonment.
It was, of course, “boycotted” by the newsagents, but John Williams
stood outside the Old Bailey and sold large numbers of the paper while
Most was being tried within the Court for the same offence. No notice
was taken of this daring challenge to the Liberal Government, which
was evidently afraid to deal out the same injustice to an Englishman as
to a foreign refugee. Public meetings in defence of Most were also
organised by the same men. At one of these, on Peckham Rye, the
Radicals combined with Tories, opposed the speakers, and were only
prevented by force from seizing the platform and thus aiding thenmasters to suppress freedom of speech.
In the autumn of 1881 a bye election took place at Tyrone, and the
Rev. Harold Rylett, a Nonconformist minister, who strongly sympathised
with the Irish people, was put forward as a candidate against a
Liberal hack. The handbill issued by the Democratic Federation or
this occasion denounced the tyranny and treachery of the Liberal
Government in so uncomprosing a fashion that many of the so-called
Radicals who had hitherto accorded the Federation a half-hearted sup
port now withdrew, and have never since ceased to protest that a body
of men who could speak so plainly of despotism when adopted by Mr.
Gladstone must be working in the Conservative interest.
In 1881, also a deputation from the Democratic Federation crossed
St. George's‘Channel with the object of letting their countrymen at
�5
home know the true state of affairs in Ireland—among them H. M.
Hyndman and many others. After three weeks’ stay they returned
and addressed enormous audiences throughout London and the
provinces, besides issuing thousands of pamphlets descriptive of their
experiences and horrible sufferings of the Irish peasantry. Lectures
were being given throughout these months at the workingmen’s clubs
in the Metropolis by H. M. Hyndman, Herbert Burrows, John Williams,
James F. Murray, and many others, and the truths of Socialism being
expounded, and the frauds and fallacies of the different political reformers
vigorously exposed. Indeed, the meat offered was too strong for the
weak stomach of certain Radical clubs from which the lecturers were
religiously excluded. Newcastle, Liverpool, and other provincial towns
were visited and branches formed.
The energies of the Federation were, however, destined to be turned
for a time into another channel. The failure of the Liberal policy in
Ireland was too obvious for concealment. The Land League had
become all-powerful. No rent could be obtained by the landlords, and
the land which was cleared by wholesale evictions was left on their
hands owing to the strength of the popular organisation. Mr. Forster’s
“ village ruffians and midnight marauders ” increased in numbersand
determination in spite of the fact that in every week of his administra
tion scores of men of upright character and stainless lives were thrown
into gaol on mere suspicion, without accusation, investigation, evidence
or proof. The unheeded warnings of the men and women
of the Federation were amply fulfilled. The Coercion policy was
an absolute failure. Suddenly a change was announced. The prison
doors were to be unbarred, the Land Act was to be completed, and
“ Buckshot ” Forster recalled in disgrace. But one Sunday morning
London awoke to learn that on the previous evening (6th May, 1882) the
new Chief Secretary for Ireland, Lord Frederick Cavendish, with Mr.
F. H. Burke, had been stabbed on the high road through Phoenix Park.
The horror of the public knew no bounds. Everywhere employers of
labour began to discharge their Irish hands. Almost every Englishman
denounced the whole Irish nation, forgetting that the responsibility for
this, as for every one of the grossly exaggerated outrages which were
reported in the English press, lay with the Government, which had
wrested from Ireland all hope of redress for the wrongs of her people by
peaceful means. The popular revulsion against the Irish enabled the
Government to introduce into Parliament a measure of Coercion frankly
declared to be unparallelled even in the long and bloody annals of the
despotic repression exercised for generations by the English garrison in
Ireland. Nor were the liberties of the Irish alone suppressed, but the
extension of the Alien Act for England and Scotland placed the freedom
of Britons as well as foreigners at the mercy of policemen and magis
trates, and abolished the right of asylum, which had placed our country
in the proud position of being the refuge sought by Mazzini, Kossuth,
and the hosts of indomitable rebels who had sought on our shores
security from the brutal tyranny of continental despotisms. Such was
the rancour expressed against the Irish by all sections of English opinion
that it required immense courage and devotion for a handtul of enthu
siasts to stand by the principles of freedom after the Phoenix Park
tragedy. But the men of the Democratic Federation had not lightly
pledged themselves to work for the emancipation of the workers of the
world. Nothing daunted, they threw themselves with determination
into the tremendous task of rousing London to a sense of the enormities
about to be perpetrated by the Liberal Government, which had already
I
’■■
■
% 'A-.,.-
-• -TAkC*
�6
shown that it was ready, when in office, to betray every principle on
which they had traded for popularity two short years before. It was
determined to call a monster meeting in Hyde Park on Sunday, nth
J une, 1882. The offices of the Federation were thronged from morning
till night with the members, preparing banners, making up rosettes
drawing up handbills. The following was issued in thousands :_ Fellow. Citizens,
Once more the Liberal Government, backed up by Tory reactionists has been tike
to every principle of freedom. Another Coercion Bill is being forced through Parliament
SLX7inytoenpChmn anihevT
T Uttedy failed- The Public horror at the
£ tn
h £h rXi P^rk haS been used to establish a despotism worse than any
thing known m these Islands since the days of the infamous Star Chamber.
*
Freedom
Every
Freedom of the Press is at an End
of the Person is at the Mercy of the Paid
Informer
The Right of Public Meeting is Suppressed,
Trial by Jury is Replaced ‘by a Nominee Court,
Honest Man who is Out after Dusk may be Thrown into
Prison by the Police.
These powers, given for three whole years, may, within that period be in the hands of
the present Opposition. As it is, they are to be used by a nobleman, best known to Ito
own countrymen by his crafty seizure of the common land of the people. All this is
done, we are told, to put down secret societies and to check outrage.
> Fellow Citizens, tyranny as surely breeds secret societies as unjust evictions and class
greed engender outrage. Suppress open agitation, and desperate secret conspiracies
always follow. Not one of the great military powers of Europe, Germany, Russia,
Austria, trance, but has tried stringent measures without success. The cordial aid of
the mass of the people can alone help to restore peace and prosperity in Ireland. Do
you think the suppression of all freedom will bind the two peoples together now or will
stren then your own liberties in the future ? In view, therefore, of the shameful con
tinued action of the governing classes, we call upon the workers of London to show bv
meeting in thousands in Hyde Park, on Sunday, the nth June, that they have neither
part nor lot in this tyranny, and that they are now, as in the past, opposed to the
injustice which is being done in their name,
In addition to this it now also became necessary to reach
the people by open-air meetings at the corners of the street, a method
of propaganda which has since been utilised by the Federation with a
persistence and success that has extorted the admiration of its bitterest
opponents. It was arranged that the procession should assemble at
Trafalgar Square, at 3.30 p.m. Long before that hour crowds had
assembled, in spite of the heavy rain, and it was estimated by the hostile
papers that not less than 80,000 persons were present when the pro
cession moved off, headed by bands and interspersed with banners
inscribed with such mottoes as “ Force is no Remedy,” “Labour makes
Capital, Capital robs it, and others showing the number of evictions
that had taken place during the year. The fact that comparatively few
Irishmen were present showed that the Federation had roused the mass
of the working men of London in spite of the apathy of the Liberal
clubs. The vast concourse streamed into Hyde Park where it was
addressed from six platforms, every speaker being greeted with enthusi
astic applause. Before the resolution, denouncing the action of the
Government, was put, amendments were asked for but in no instance
wrete the supporters of Coercion daring enough to proclaim themselves,
and the resolutions were carried by acclamation. Thus ended one of
the largest demonstrations held in our generation m London and one
that was thoroughly genuine in its character, very little money being
expended.
Shortly after another meeting was held in Trafalgar-square to protest
against the abolition of the Right of Asylum. Both these protests were
unheeded by a Cabinet which trusted to the forgetfulness of the nation
to save it from the obloquy with which it will be regarded by future
generations.
�Comparatively few of the original founders of the Democratic Federa
tion had' remained faithful to the only organisation in Great Britain
which had through good and evil repute steadfastly held by the principles
which alone can destroy the system of wage-labour and class robbery
which causes our social ills. But if their numbers were reduced, the
faithful few now knew each other and started the work of education and
organisation with a will* Their rapid success fairly frightened the up
holders of class domination who have constantly striven to distract the
attention of the toiling millions from Socialist theories by advertising
various nostrums as a panacea for poverty. It has been the proud boast
of the Democratic Federation that they have met and defeated every
such attempt.
The first was made by Samuel Morley, M.P., who fathered a scheme
invented by the Rev. W. L. Blackley, for preventing pauperism by
fining the workers in early youth. In anticipation of one of their meet
ings the following handbill was issued by the Federation :—
Fellow Citizens,
A PUBLIC MEETING will be held in the HOLBORN TOWN HALL, on Tues
Next, December 19th, at Eight p.m., in favour of the Prevention of Pauperism by
Compulsory Insurance out of the insufficient wages of the Working Classes. We ask
you to be present on that occasion, and show the wealthy gentlemen who want to shift
on to your shoulders the cost of your maintenance when you have worked yourselves
into sickness and disease for their profit, what you think of this new scheme of parsons
and employers for the benefit of the rich.
“ The Prevention of Pauperism,” Fellow Citizens, which they now urge you to under
take, means the protection of their own pockets. If they really want to prevent
Pauperism, let these self-seekers give up trading upon your bitter competition for star
vation wages. There are hundreds of thousands in this rich England of ours living in
Squalor and misery to-day in order that landowners and capitalists may flourish in
In luxury and ease. All men and women who work for a master give back to their em
ployers the value of their wages in the first two or three hours of the day’s work. All
the rest of the production is taken for nothing by the classes who live in idleness on the
fruits of your toil. These classes now call upon you who labour to nullify the ancient
laws of this kingdom, which force the rich to provide a scanty pittance for the poor,
and to save their vast riches untouched while forcing from the poor a bit of their daily
bread.
Look, Fellow Citizens, how the produce of your toil is divided :—
Total annual production of United Kingdom .
.
. ^1,200,000,000
Taken by Landlords, Capitalists, and Middle Class
.
900,000,000
Left for the Producers
.......
300,000,000
Study these figures, and then adopt, if you can, proposals for further robbery.
Prevention of Pauperism ! Tell these wealthy hypocrites to give up their profitable
monopolies; tell those who spend on cigars more than you get in wages—tell them that
Compulsory Insurance must be carried out at their expense.
Fellow Citizens, there would be no pauperism, there would be no unemployed, if the
means of production were used for the benefit of all instead of being handled for the
the enrichment of a class.
day
Speakers from the Federation attended, and urged on a crowded
meeting an amendment declaring that the resumption by the workers of
the control of the means of production was the only preventive of
pauperism. This was carried by a large majority, and so hostile was
the temper of the meeting to the conveners, that these reverend and
worthy gentlemen have never since dared to call a public meeting in
London.
Early in the year 1883 a series of conferences were arranged at the
offices of the Federation, in which the various points of a thorough
Socialist programme were discussed and agreed on. After the annual
conference and the strengthening of the Executive by the election of
IT. H. Champion, J. L. Joynes, James Macdonald and William Morris,
a manifesto entitled “ Socialism made plain ” was issued, and over
50,000 copies circulated in a very short time. A recent re-issue of this
�8'
trenchant pamphlet shows that it has lost none of its power, and it will
become a historical document as the first declaration by a body of
working men in England—the very lair of capitalism—of their determina
tion to form an international combination for the overthrow of the system
•of class robbery. It called forth the invectives of the press as usual,
and was discussed at great length in the Quarterly Review.
Meanwhile throughout the summer months a band of trained speakers
had taken up positions in the parks and open spaces round London
every Sunday, and carried on the work of education by explaining the
truths of Socialism on an open platform. Thus occurred the first con
flict with the authorities, who endeavoured to suppress the right of public
meeting on Peckham Rye and Southwark Park. In spite of threats
and summonses H. M. Hyndman, John Williams, H. H. Champion,
H. Quelch, and others spoke Sunday after Sunday on the debate
able ground, and forced the Metropolitan Board of Works to give way
by sheer persistence. During the autumn, open-air meetings were held
regularly in the miserable streets of East London, and the enthusiastic
reception Socialism everywhere received roused the middle classes to
the fact that the apathy of the starving millions was due not to content,
but to despair, was but the heavy silence which might be followed by
the roaring hurricane. They resorted to the tactics which had served
them so well in the past. Peers and philanthropists hastened with
suspicious zeal to advocate state-aided emigration, as men wish to
remove barrels of gunpowder from a magazine in which sparks of fire
were blowing about. The following resolution was passed by the Execu
tive Council on August 7th, 1883 :—
RESOLVED.—
That this Meeting of the Executive Council of the Democratic Federation is strongly
opposed to State-Aided Emigration as unnecessary and harmful, and pledges the
Federation to agitate against the measure for the following reasons:—
1 — That the vast extent of uncultivated and waste Land in Great Britain and Ireland
should first be colonised and developed with the funds that would be spent on emigration.
2.—That Nationalisation of the Land should precede State-Aided Emigration, seeing
that in the opinion of the highest Agricultural authorities, Sir John Lawes, Sir James
Caird, and Lord Leicester, at least twice the amount of labour might be employed pro
fitably, even upon the Land now in cultivation, and twice the present quantity of Food
raised from it but for the restrictions imposed by landlord-made law.
3-—That the present production of wealth in Great Britain and Ireland is quite
enough to enable all to live in comfort or moderate luxury, though little more than onefourth of the people are actually engaged in useful work, if the fruits of labour were
justly divided and exchanged among the inhabitants.
4. —That State-aided Emigration would lead to the removal from our country of the
strongest and most vigorous of our people, leaving behind the weakly, the sickly, and
the very poor, whom the United States and our own Colonies have already refused to
receive.
5. —That State-aided Emigration, if tried at all, should begin with the useless class of
landlords, capitalists, and their hangers-on, who produce nothing whatever; but devour
the fruits of the labour of their industrious countrymen.
At a meeting held at the Mansion House to advocate this new method
■of punishing poverty by transportation for life, John Williams obtained
entrance, and plainly telling the assembled bishops and capitalists that
their scheme was abhorred by the workers, challenged them to argue
the matter before a working-class audience. For very shame the chal
lenge was accepted. The following handbill was issued :—
This Emigration of the poor is the old cry of the classes who get rich ont of other
men’s labour, and turn the workers adrift to starve or go to the workhouse when no
further profit can be made by employing them. Millions of Englishmen and Irishmen
have emigrated during the last five-and-thirty years. Still we are told that there are too
many workers; though three-fourths of the population live upon the labour of the one-
�fourth who are engaged in useful work. Even as it is, if none toiled more than eight
hours a day, there would not be a single unemployed man or woman in the country.
Fellow Citizens, there are too many idlers, not too many workers in this England of
ours. Whilst your comrades stand idle, because the landlords and capitalists will not
give employment save at a profit to themselves, thousands of acres of good land lie un
tilled around us, and hundreds of thousands of people want the bread, the clothes, the
houseroom which their labour properly organised would readily supply. Such is the
social anarchy which our “ governing classes ” call order. Worse than this : while men
and women eager to work are starving, a mere handful of lazy people, or 220,000
families who never work at all, own SIX THOUSAND MILLIONS STERLING on
which they take their yearly profit out of labour. Each of these families of wealthy
idlers own no less than twenty-six thousand pounds sterling—think of that ye who toil
and suffer—whilst men fight daily at the dock-gates, like wolves, for the privilege of
earning a few pence.
There is land enough, machinery enough, capital enough, in these islands to give
plenty to all. But greedy land-grabbers and greedier capitalists monopolise our whole
country for their own gain.
There is no need for emigration, Fellow-Citizens. These hypocrites themselves do
not propose that any of you should leave until the Spring. How then will the workless
and the poor pass through the winter ? Never since 1834 were the Poor Laws—that
miserable pittance of justice forced from the rich by fear—never were the Poor Laws so
stupidly, brutally, and cruelly administered as they are to-day. The unemployed are
treated as if wilfully idle : the homeless are criminals in the eyes of the luxurious and
the overfed.
Demand then justice, not charity, here and at once, from those who never cease to rob
you when you labour, and are eager to transport you when you are out of work. Tell
the Sham-Republican Baronet who promises you a “ Commission of Enquiry,” whilst
the wives and children of your brethren are crying for bread, that you will no longer be
put off with fine phrases or be deluded by courtly tricks. If none were overworked,
even in the State Service, there would not be enough idle “ hands ” in East London to
fill the places. Claim then Home Colonisation and State Employment and Short Hours
of Labour in England. Demand that the wealth which you alone produce shall be used
to employ your brethren before you and they are crushed down into hopeless misery.
They lie to you who tell you there is work for all in the Colonies and America.
Depression reigns there as well as here. There as well as here landlords and capitalists
are robbing and enslaving and starving their fellow-men. Even now State-Aided
labourers are forced to return home hopeless. Better then, surely, demand and obtain
your rights before you start. Show in force 1 Act together ! Let employed and un
employed ask plainly for the fruits of their own labour, and proclaim the right of all to
work for a. fair return, at home.
At Stepney Hall and the Haggerston Workmens’ Club, Williams,
Macdonald, Hyndman and James Murray, by the force of their eloquence
and logic, carried amendments against emigration by such majorities
that the “ National Association for the State-aided Emigration of
Labour ” has never since dared to hold an open meeting in any
quarter of London.
Wdth the commencement of the year 1884, the weekly journal Justin
was established. A reference to its pages shows the immense progress
which has been made since the early spring of that year, when Charles
Bradlaugh came out in debate against the delegate of the Federation.
The importance the movement has assumed has also forced the daily
press to bring before the notice of all the more stirring incidents of the
struggle which has now resulted in the formation of an active and
enthusiastic Social-Democratic party in this country.
JOHN WILLIAMS IN HOLLOWAY GAOL.
(Reprinted with additions from the Pall Mall Gazette.)
He arrives at Holloway, is stripped and weighed.
I think it was about four o’clock in the afternoon that I arrived at the gates of
Holloway Gaol in “ Black Maria ” with some others. We were taken into the Receiv-
�IO
ing Department, fifteen of us, and set in single file with our faces towards the wall and
our hands crossed, the right over the left. Here any money or “ valuables ” which we '
might happen to have on us were taken away and put into little bags. I was then
taken into a room in which was a warder. He bade me strip, and he examined me all
over, looking closely for any marks on my body. He then weighed me. From the
warder I was taken to the prison bath. There are seven iron baths in the room, each
seven feet long, with dirty sides, stained with marks of soapsuds. The baths are in a ,
row, and divided from one another by a wooden partition. I shivered, and my teeth
chattered as my feet felt the touch of the stone flooring; but there was the bath and the
nine inches of water, and there was the warder, and stripping myself of my clothe®,
which I put outside the door, I got into the bitter cold water and took my first bath,
and my only one during my sojourn at Holloway. There was soap and a moist, dirtylooking towel, with which I dried myself as well as I could. Looking up I heard the ’
noise as of something thrown down at the bath-room door.
The Blue Shirt and the Bellying Moleskins.
It was my prison clothes, a shirt and a pair of moleskin trousers. The shirt was like **
a dishcloth which had been washed in greasy slop water, the blue pattern having almost
faded by much usage. The moleskin trousers were twice too big, bellying out before
and behind, and one had constantly to hold them up, for no braces or belt is allowed,
only a strap. In my dirty blue shirt and my bellying moleskins, with teeth chattering
with the cold, and fingers numbed, I was taken to the prison doctor. (My own clothes
were bundled up and shoved into a net, from which a ticket hung, with “ Williams—one
month,” on it.) “Let down your trousers till they fall on your feet, pull your; shirt
over your head, and stand still, man,” said the doctor. And I did as I was told. Then ,
he sounded me and looked for marks, asked me questions, -and then told me had done ■?
with me. And I pulled up my trousers, tucked in my shirt, and was taken out of his ■»»
sight. I was then told to take a pair of socks from a bundle. I could find no pairs,
all were odd ones, and most of those full of holes. And if they aren’t full of holes
they are darned, but with the bad darning you might as well walk with peas in your j
shoes.
What happened to me happened to the rest of us. We were attended i
by prisoners who had earned a stripe, and were told off for such duties. Then
I got a coat and waistcoat given me, and my hair was cut (though it was only four
days before that I had been to the barber); and I’ll warrant you something more than
hair was cut, for the prison barber has not a professional touch.
C I 38 is introduced to the Cook and the Cell.
There we stood with right hand on left, and listened to the prison regulations being
read to us. “ If you have any complaints to make about your meals or your treatment,
make them to the warder. Frequent complaints are punished as an offence.” Ah !
thought I, that is a hint that you must not complain at all. The names were then
called over, and we filed past the warder; our identity henceforth sunk in numbers.
I was C I 38. We marched along, our footsteps echoing along the cold corridors,
until we came to the prison cook, who was waiting
To each of us he said, “What
have you got ? ” If you answered, “A month,” you got served out to you an eight
ounceloaf. If you said, “Two months,” you got a six-ounce loaf and a pint of gruel.
The longer you are in for the more you get. Then we marched on to the chief warder’s
office and were made to halt with our faces to the wall—seventeen of us. Here two
sheets apiece were served, soap, a Bible, and a prayer-book. Then further, and into a
narrow passage running past the cells. I walked on not noticing the numbers, but a
gruff voice cried, “Now then you, where are you a-goin’to ? Don’t you see your
number ? You didn’t know ! I’ll soon let you know. Why, you’ve been here afore,
ain’t you ? Not bin in afore? Well, now, you turn round.and look at that. What’s
that ? Your number—C I 38, and don’t forget it! ” And in a minute the iron door had
closed in on me, and I saw a prison cell for the first time.
Seventy-six ^Screws and Thirty-six Rivets, a Plank, and a Three
Legged Stool.
I shan’t forget the inside view of that door. It was held together by seventy-six
screws and thirty-six rivets. My cell was about twelve foot long by seven wide, and
thirty-six whitewashed bricks high. The furniture was a three-legged stool, a plank in
a corner, a tin dustpan and washing bowl, a pannikin for the water, and a table let in
the wall. It must have been six or seven o’clock by this time, anyhow it was dark
enough, but a jet of gas burned outside in the passage, and threw a dim light into th©
cell through a thick piece of rough glass. There was another window above the table,
with twenty-seven panes of glass, four-inch ones, but thick too like the other, and not
letting too much daylight in. I had forgotten there was a mattress too. But presentlj
came a knock at the door, and some one shouted, “ How long ? ’ “A month.
Then
bring out that mattress.” And I had to give up the mattress.
X
�Musings on the Three-legged Stool.
I sighed, sat down again on my three-legged stool, and wondered what was the !next
move would be, and I thought of my luckless lot. Here was I, a poor labouring man,
shut up in this cold cell like a common felon, like a burglar or garroter, for what seemed
to me no offence. I thought of the stripping, and of the search for marks, and the icy
water, the stone floors, and then looked round on the cold, whitewashed walls and the
plank reared up in the corner, and I though how the rich made the poor build them
prisons to live in. I thought of the powers of an organized officialdom instanced by
what I had just seen—the grim warder, the obedience to orders, the rigid system, and
thought what a lesson it should convey to my own class. How could they hipe to
wrestle with such an organisation until they organized themselves ? Mere preaching and
talk can do nothing of themselves. Here were men many of whom, one could see, has
had a hard struggle for existence. Their ages varied from fourteen to old men of seventyfive, and in the face of the latter, were unmistakeable traces of starvation. Next door
to me was an old man. who, when j was called in to show him how to scrub out his cell,
told me that he had failed to get employment, in search of which he was walking from
Birmingham to London. In want of food he picked up some old iron lying beside a
ditch, and before he had an opportunity of offering it for sale, was taken before a magis
trate and sentenced to one month’s hard labour. Society looks upon such a man as a
felon. Broken down by years of hard toil, too old for the capitalist class to make a
profit out of him, his choice lay between stealing or begging—and being imprisoned as
a rogue and vagabond. The cell on the other side of mine was occupied by a lad of
fifteen, who had been sentenced to three months for “loitering.” His father had for
months been out of work ; he could get none himself. Society refused him shelter and
food, denied him access to the means of useful work, and made a felon of him for stand
ing about the street and having no visible means of subsistence. As I looked at him I
thought of others, riding in Rotten Row, or idling the live-long day in mansions in
Belgravia, or the clubs in Pall Mall, and trusted the day might soon come when such
persons who have “ no visible means of existence,” except the labour of others, shall come
under the Rogue and Vagabond Act, instead of such lads as this.
The Bed and the BeddingI was soon disturbed by some one at the door. The iron disc which covers the small
circular glass window let into the door was lifted up and the warder (you can’t hear
them come along, for they wear slippers) cried, “Now then, don’t you know it’s bed
time? Be quick, I want to turn out the light.” I said, “All right, but where’s the
bed ?” “There up in the corner, don’t you see? You’re trying it on.’- And I looked
up in the corner at the plank ! And now I will tell you what the bed is like, and how
comfortable it was likely to be, even to a poor chap like me who had never slept on
feathers. There were three pieces of board about a quarter of an inch apart, and the
three together about 20 inches wide by 6 feet. It might have been a good “plank”
when it was new, but now the two outside ones are higher than the middle So that it
just caught one in the small of the back. For a pillow another piece of wood was
nailed on at the head. However, I took the bed down, and being green, I goes to work
and strips off my clothes, laid a sheet on the plank, and then Jrolled myself up in the
blanket and quilt. It was bitter cold, and I got no sleep that night, and when the first
bell rang in the morning I was right joyful, though my bones were that sore I could
scarcely walk, and I am not telling a word of a lie when I say [that I never got more
than two or three hours sleep on one night during the time I was in prison, except once,
and I often used to get up in the middle of the night to walk about and stamp my feet
and shake myself, but it was no go. It was not until another prisoner had put me up
to the wrinkle in chapel that I could get even two or three hours’ sleep. “ Fold your
coat up, put it under your hips, fold your trousers under your shoulder blades, and make
your waiscoat and cap into a pillow.”
The Three Rags, the Bag, and the Whitening.
Well. The first bell sounded at a quarter to six, and the warder came past to see
if I had turned out. I had a wash in my tin basin and putting my slops outside waited
forevents. The door unlocked and the warder looked in and said : “ Now then, why
ain’t them bedclothes rolled up ? And d’you see them three rags in that bag and that
whitening? well, just you scour yer pannikin and yer basin.” Then he turned to the
bedclothes again and said, “ Get them things rolled up—d’you mean to say you don’t
know how to do it ? ” I began to roll them up awkwardly enough perhaps, but he
stopped me: “ Now you do that properly.” I said I didn’t know how to do it. “You
don’t know what? We’ll soon show you how.” Then he called a prisoner in to show
me how to do the job in a regulation manner. Ycu take your sheets, quilt, and blanket
and roll ’em up roly-poly fashion, that’s how I call it. They left me then, and I swept
out my cell and inspected the three rags and the bag and the whitening. It wasn’t a
nice idea to brighten the pannikin I drank from, the bowl I washed in, and a urinal tin
�12
with the rags from the same bag, But I had to do it. The time passed on, and two
more bells sounded, and at a quarter to eight the warder came round with the
breakfast.
Bread and Water for Breakfast.
I didn’t know it was breakfast, and took no notice, but the door opened and an 8 oz.
loaf was slung in on to the floor. I picked it up and put it on the cupboard by the side
of the one I had given to me for supper, for I had not yet got my appetite; indeed, I
may say, from Monday night till Thursday only a few morsels passed my lips. I hadn't
the heart to eat. At a quarter to ten the bell rang for exercise, and every door was
again unlocked, and every prisoner stood outside his cell. When we were all out the
warder cried, “ Left turn! ” and we marched into the yard for the hour’s exercise which
one has every day, sometimes in the morning, sometimes in the afternoon. This was
recreation. And now I will tell you what it was like.
The Four Circles and the Oakum.
There are four large rings in the yard at some distance from each other, bricked inside
and outside, I should think some ninety men were there—boys and men from fifteen to
eighty. These were divided into four gangs, each one to a ring ; and we marched slowly
round the circles at a distance of about three or four feet from each other; for I needn’t
tell you that this is one of the principles of the silent system. But the silence is broken,
nevertheless, and notwithstanding the band of warders who take their stand on a rise in
the ground and keep their eyes and ears open for wagging tongues. I had walked round
once or twice when the man in front of me (a regular old gaol bird) put his hand to his
mouth as if to pull his heard or moustache, and in something between a half whisper
and a half mutter I heard him say, “ You’re a green ’un. I can see that. How long
have you got, matey ? A month ? Why didn’t ye get six months, you fool ? they'll
starve yer.” Even out of the hour the warders contrive to steal a few minutes. The
men know this well enough, and when the time was up, and the warder gave the signal
for return they used to take a sweep round to catch a glimpse of the clock if they could
to see how many minutes of fresh air they had been deprived of. Then they gave me
2^ lb. of oakum to pick. (You know oakum is old ropes.) Now it was rather strange
that I should have had to do this kind of labour considering that when my friends of the
Social-Democratic Federation issued a hancbbill, stating that I was being treated as a
felon, Mr. Saunders, the magistrate who sentenced me at Thames Police-court, declared
my friends ought to be ashamed of themselves for making such a statement. Surely to
have less food than the garrotter or burglar, and have to perform the same kind of work,
was being treated as a felon. I leave it to the public to judge. Well, they had to show
me how to pick this oakum, and on I went till twelve o’clock.
Stirabout and no Bread for Dinner.
Then the warder came round again, and I opened the door. He carried a tray, and I
was glad to see potatoes and rice on it. I thought these were for me, but I was mis
taken. My dinner was a pint and a half of stirabout. What’s stirabout ? Three
ounces of Indian meal and three ounces of oatmeal, and that was my dinner; but I
sickened at the sight of it. Then I put the stirabout with the two loaves on the cup
board. The old birds know well enough that the “ last joined ” don't often have sharp
appetites, and try every wrinkle to get hold of the rejected food. You’ll hear one say
at exercise with his hand to his mouth, “ I say, old ’un, have you ate your bread ? Put
it in your trousers and bring it into chapel.’’ You talk about food ? Now if I had had
two months I should have had for breakfast one pint of oatmeal gruel and 6 oz. of bread ;
for dinner I should have had 8 oz. of bread and half a pint of peasoup, and for supper a
pint of gruel and 6 oz. of bread. Had it been four months’ imprisonment, I should have
had 8 oz. of bread and one pint of gruel for breakfast, 8 oz. of bread, 8 oz. of potatoes,
and 3 oz. of meat for dinner, and a pint of gruel and 8 oz. of bread for supper. Then I
can tell you the tin dishes and pannikins in which the rations were served are filthy,
with the greasy finger marks of their last users.
The Records of a Tin Platter.
They had, however, one consolation, for they afforded me some very pleasant reading,
fit seems to be the habit of every prisoner, for prisoners are all alike, be they Baron
Trenck or Monte Cristo, to leave some record of their names, their expectations, and
their aspirations, even if it is only on a tin platter or a battered pannikin.) If I did not
eat my bread or drink my gruel, I examined with much curiosity these interesting
memoirs of prison life. I can remember a few if you like to hear them : “ Arry Bennett
in for 6 moons.” ’Arry had calculated how many chapels he would have to attend in
that time, at the rate of four times a week, and calculated the hours of exercise. “ Bill
Ford, 2 months for nicking a drop of soup out of old Tollemache’s at Stratford; ”
“ George Smith, from Shadwell, nine moons, out February, 1885.” “ Lord Mansfield,
from Holloway, six moons, Oh, what a glorious feed of beefsteak and onions I will
�Ste when I get out! ” This was scratched under a drawing of two cross pipes and a
pot of beer. “ Cheer up, the time will come for all.” “ Abandon not hope, all ye who
enter here.” Some draughtsman had drawn a likeness of one of the warders, and had
written under it, “ Now, move on there,” and added, ‘-Pity the poor prisoner.” “ One
month up for George Talbot, I wish it was two, for I m starving.
The Chaplain preaches on Social Democracy.
I need not go over all the days I spent at Holloway, for one day was much like
another. On the morning of the second day I should tell you that I was detained fronj
exercise to see the chaplain, who called upon me. “ What are you . ” said he, “ and
what’s your name ? ” I told him. He said, “ Oh, you’re Williams, are you ? I ve been
reading about you, and wishing you’d be sent here,” " Oh,” I replied, “ it s very kind o
you as a Christian minister.” “ You’re in for obstructing the street—what are you .
“ A labourer,” I replied, “ and a speaker for the Social-Democratic Federation.
“ Why
don’t you attend to your business instead of meddling with such a society ? You must
be mad or a lunatic or out of your senses.” “ I am perfectly sane,” I replied. “ Social
Democracy,” he said; “ well, you’re going headlong to perdition. How long are you
here for ?' ’ "A month.” “ Well, I wish it had been two.” “ You’re very kind, sir
“ Well, now, what is Democracy ? ” “lam not here to debate the question, sir, and I
decline to answer.” However, he repeated the question, and as he seemed so curious I
determined to give him the root of the matter, and to satisfy him. “ One thing it teaches,
sir, is the right of people to govern themselves.” “Theright of people to govern them
selves,” he replied, “ there are far too many voices already in the government of the
land;’their power should be taken away, not increased. Can you read?” _ “Yes.
“Then take that tract off there and read a sentence.’.’ “ I don’t wish to read, sir
“1
want to see if you can read. ’ I read him a paragraph to please him. He then said “Do.
vou ever go to a place of worship ? ” “I sometimes go and hear them preach.
“ Whom
have you heard ? ” “Stopford Brooke, Dr. Parker, and Stewart Headlam, and any who
are worth listening to." “Do you ever read your Bible?” "Yes, I do.”' “Do you
believe in the soul ? ” “ It dosen’t trouble me just now, sir.” He then called the warder
in and said, “ Warder, I am going to visit this prisoner three times a week. I see I can
learn something from him.” “ Oh, you’re past learning, sir, I can see.” “ Warder put
him down for me to visit.”
“ Oh you need not trouble yourself, ’ replied I. He took
the hint, for he never called upon me till the day I left.
Sunday Chapel-—One Good from an Established Chnrch.
On Sunday I went to chapel with the rest of the Church of England prisoners. We
sat on forms and were some distance from each other, for we were silent even m
chapel though the old birds used to get a word in edgeways, with their hands up to
their mouths. It fairly made me laugh to hear them give the answers to the Litany .
“ Spare us, good Lord,” “ Good Lord, deliver us—out of here.” I am not a member of
the Church of England, or of any other Church, holding the belief that neither
Atheists nor Churchman do any good by talking. They should spend their strength on
social questions. I say this to explain why I said I was Church of England when they
asked me “ You’ll get out of your cell four times a week and once of a Sunday it you
say you’re Church of Englaud.” One Sunday it was very cold and I had gone to
chapel, my hands numb, and shivering all over; and we were all shivering, and tried
to keep ourselves warm by rubbing of our hands and moving our feet for the day was
bitter I suppose the extra noise attracted the chaplain’s sharp ear, for he singled out
a few of us, add spoke from the pulpit about us, and prayed that when we went back
to our cells God would soften our hearts and drive the sin of obstruction from us, tor
“never in all my experience have I heard such unseemly noise in chapel.’ I was no
worse than the others, but a warder came into my cell afterwards and said, “ Now,
then what do you mean by making a row like that?” and the next day I was taken
before the governor. “Were you not making signs to another pnsouer ? asked the
governor. “No.” “Now, tell the truth. Were you not talking?” “No. I was
doing nothing, only rubbing my hands, it was that cold,” and after more questioning
was let off.
The Sermons.
The Chaplain seemed to take a delight in telling the prisoners time after time in
chapel what wicked people they were, how every man of them had had a splendid
chance in life, how they had missed grand opportunities; how, through not obeying
their superiors, they found themselves in this miserable condition, impressing upon
them to take no notice of the vanities of this world or of riches, that it was better to be
poor than rich—though by the look of him, he evidently did not practice what he
preached. He generally preached a sermon that he thought would strike terra
into the hearts of his brethren. In ending his sermon on the first Sunday after
I arrived there he impressed upon the prisoners to take. no notice ot the ques
tions of this world ; as sure as they bothered about Social questions they would
�come to grief.
On the second he dwelt upon that passage in the Bible that
relates to the handwriting on the wall.
He implored of the prisoners to
remember the handwriting on the wall, and told them it meant their time was come.
Ah, thought I, as I looked at him, there is a hand-writing on the wall to-day, and day
by day gets plainer and plainer. The interpretation of the writing means the utter
downfall of the system you uphold, and ere long the class that I belong to shall speak
with no unmistakeable voice. It would be well for you and the class you represent, if
you will try to interpret the hand-writing on the wall, which is as plain as plain can be
and really means that the robbery of labour shall no longer go on ; that such men as the
prisoners, who are now befcre you, shall for the first time have a fair chance of obtaining
a honest livelihood ; and that the prisons, built by their hands, shall be no longer used
to imprison those who are willing to labour, but shall be used for those only who rob
and plunder the labour of others.
C I 38 becomes Mr. Williams.
The day before my time was up I was shifted to another cell, with a stone floor. This
was a change for the better. My gas was inside instead of out, and I boiled my bread
over the flame. Then they gave me an extra blanket, and I had my only good night’s
rest in the month. I had then got to be that hungry that I pounced upon even a crumb.
The next day the parson came and told me to “turn over a new leaf’’ and give up
Social Democracy. I got my net full of clothes, damp and wrinkled ; they asked me if
I didn’t want some money to pay my railway fare to Bayswater, and packed me off
three-quarters of an hour before my time, as they thought there would be a demonstra
tion. And it was “ Good-bye, Mr. Williams,’’ from the warder. Some other poor devil
is C I 38 now; I am Mr, Williams ;• and as I stepped ovsr the threshold of the Prison
Gates I turned my head and muttered my last words there, “ Don’t forget the Hand
writing on the Wall.”
THE
SOCIAL-DEMOCRAIIC-FEDERATION.
OBJECT.
The Establishment of a Free Condition of Society based on the prin
ciple of Political Equality, with Equal Social Rights for all and the
complete Emancipation of Labour.
PROGRAMME.
1. All Officers or Administrators to be elected by Equal Direct Adult
Suffrage, and to be paid by the Community.
2. Legislation by the People, in such wise that no project of Law
shall become legally binding till accepted by the Majority of the People.
3. The Abolition of a Standing Army, and the Establishment of a
National Citizen Force ; the People to decide on Peace or War.
4. All Education, higher no less than elementary, to be Free, Com
pulsory, Secular, and Industrial for all alike.
5. The Administration of Justice to be Free and Gratuitous for all
Members of Society.
6. The Land with all the Mines, Railways and other Means of Tran
sit, to be declared and treated as Collective or Common Property.
7. Ireland and all other parts of the Empire to have Legislative
Independence.
8. The Production of Wealth to be regulated by Society in the com
mon interest of all its Members.
9. The Means of Production, Distribution and Exchange to be
declared and treated as Collective or Common Property.
As measures called for to palliate the evils of our existing society the
Social-Democratic Federation urges for immediate adoption :—
The Compulsory Construction of healthy artizan’s and agricultural
labourers’ dwellings in proportion to the population, such dwellings
�be let at rents to cover the cost of construction and maintenance alone.
P Free Compulsory Education for all classes, together with the provision
of at least one wholesome meal a day in each school.
Eight Hours or less to be the normal working day in all trades.
Cumulative Taxation upon all incomes above a fixed minimum not
Exceeding ^300 a year.
State Appropriation of Railways, with or without compensation.
The establishment of National Banks, which shall absorb all private
institutions that derive a profit from operations in money or credit.
Rapid Extinction of the National Debt.
Nationalisation of the Land, and organisation of agricultural and
industrial armies under State control on Co-operative principles.
fl
1
As means for the peaceable attainment of these objects the SocialDemocratic. Federation advocates :
Adult Suffrage. Annual Parliaments. Proportional Represen
Payment of Members ; and Official Expenses of Election
out of the Rates.
Abolition of the House of Lords and all
Hereditary Authorities.
Disestablishment and Disendowment
of all State Churches.
tation.
Membership of Branches of the Federation is open to all who agree
with its objects, and subscribe One Penny per week.
Those read)' to form Branches should communicate with the Hon. Sec.
All who are interested, in these sub
jects should, read.
The Historical Basis of Socialism in England.
By H. M. Hyndman.
Paul, Trench, & Co.
Crown 8-vo., price 8s. 6d
London: Kegan
This is the only Book in the English Language which gives the Historical and
Economical Theories of Organised Socialism. It should be carefully studied by all who
desire to understand why Socialists are enthusiastic for their cause, and confident of
success in the near future.
The following publications of
THE MODERN PRESS, 13, Paternoster Row, London, E.C.
Which will be sent post free at the published prices on receipt of
an order amounting to one shilling or more.
Woman, in the Past, Present and Future.
By
August Bebel, Deputy in the Reichstag. Translated from the
German by H. B. Adams Walther. Demy 8-vo., cloth, price 5s.
This work by the best known of the German Socialists aims at showing that the
social condition of women can be permanently improved only by the solution of the
whole social problem,
The Co-operative Commonwealth: an Exposition
of Modern Socialism. By Laurence Gronlund, of Philadelphia.
Demy 8-vo., cloth, price 3s. 6d.
This book supplies the want, frequently complained of, of definite proposals for the
administration of a Socialistic State. Mr. Gronlund has reconciled the teaching of
Marx with the influence of Carlyle in the constructive part of his work, which is
specially recommended to English Socialists.
7
�Socialism made Plain.
The social and political
manifesto of the Social-Democratic Federation issued in June 1883,
with proposals for organisation of labour issued in November 1883’
Fifty-first thousand. Crown 8-vo., paper cover, price id.
u JUSTICE,” the Organ of the Social Democracy. Every
Saturday, one penny.
Summary cf the Principles of Socialism.
By
H. M. Hyndman and William Morris. Second edition, 64-pp.
crown 8-vo., in wrapper designed by Wm. Morris, price 4d.
This gives an account of the growth of capitalist production, and concludes with a
statement of the demands of English Socialists for the immediate future.
The Socialist Catechism. By J. L. Joynes. Reprinted
with additions from Justice. Demy 8-vo., price id. Tenth thousand.
Socialist Rhymes
from Justice.
By J. L. Joynes.
Demy 8-vo., price id.
Reprinted chiefly
Wage-Labour and Capital. By Karl Marx.
lated by J. L. Joynes and reprinted from Justice.
w
Trans
Price 2d.
This is the only work of the great Socialist thinker which has been translated into
English
Socialism and the Worker.
By F.
Price id.
A.
Sorge.
An explanation in the simplest language of tne main idea of Socialism.
St .1
Socialism and Slavery. By H. M. Hyndman,
(in
reply Mr. Herbert Spencer’s article on the “ The Coming Slavery ”)
Crown 8-vo., in wrapper, price 6d.
Herbert Spencer on Socialism. By Frank Fairman.
16-pp. crown 8-vo., price id.
The Working Man’s Programme (Arbeiter Programm). By Ferdinand Lassalle. Translated from the German
by Edward Peters. Crown 8-vo., paper cover, price 6d.
The Robbery of the Poor.
By w. H. P. Campbell.
Demy 8-vo., paper cover, price is.
The Future of Marriage. By a Respectable Woman.
Crown 8-vo., paper cover, price 4d.
Socialism versus Smithism: An open letter from
H. M. Hyndman to Samuel Smith, M.P. for Liverpool.
8-vo. paper cover, price 2d.
The Appeal to the Young.
Crown
By Prince Peter
Kropotkin. Translated frcm the French by H. M. Hyndman and
reprinted from Justice. Royal 8-vo., 16-pp. Price one penny.
The most eloquent and noble appeal to the generous emotions ever penned by a
scientific man. Its author is now suffering five years imprisonment at the hands of the
French Republic for advocating the cause of the workers
Opening Address to the Trade Union Congress
at Southport, September, 1885. Delivered by T. R. Threlfall. Royal
8-vo., 16-pp. Price one penny.
An able address from a representative working man on political and social topics.
J
,
�
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 & 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
John E. Williams and the early history of the Social-Democratic Federation: with his own account of the month's imprisonment he suffered for speaking in Dod Street, Limehouse
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Williams, John E.
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 14, [2] p. : ill. (front. port.) ; 23 cm.
Notes: The Social Democratic Federation (SDF) was established as Britain's first organised socialist political party by H. M. Hyndman, and had its first meeting on 7 June 1881. Information on the Social Democratic Federation and publisher's list on unnumbered pages at the end.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
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
G4983
Subject
The topic of the resource
Socialism
Freedom of speech
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 (John E. Williams and the early history of the Social-Democratic Federation: with his own account of the month's imprisonment he suffered for speaking in Dod Street, Limehouse), 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
Freedom of Speech
Imprisonment
Social Democratic Federation
Socialism
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/164431bcff9e728cfe04a33719d22620.pdf?Expires=1779926400&Signature=ZW3fN90iTFBa%7ETfrGLiThqWGvbostXO2Px6idxwb79j1vsKhY51HiL2K3gYfHjtsrbXC1BYY225cDlvk60CB6sf4vYSPTbmbI8Eg4%7E4HpdQ2ZK%7EU2zVR-rINWcrpUssqOTUivyJHHFEoRMwD8MmU33JwzuWHxXO5gzUVd2El8DVCCbxlOWToVRto%7El3x-r4p0B1OVhko5WWfnt9lFF-BQ8nEPQwjNUnU7899i2Vd3tDV4fR7L-A2d0lvuyUO9AilFa-QeIiaAu2chdt4SRG8gyyak9rOhUxbRUg-Ga5rN6sf4QXvcSqV72O0yTMEVV9Cq%7EkPM8jy9IMv93jaAf7QJw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
965005284c593a974949228095a4b3de
PDF Text
Text
SOCIALISM
AND THE
WORKER
IT T
T
t
S
;
7 F
>
‘
a
!,
'
-
;
■
-■
>
r
7
'
7 u
■
7 ,7 7 7
/
7
:
•
.
Price One Penny.
BY PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR.
LENDING
LIBRARY
LONDON:
THE MODERN PRESS, 13, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C.
AND
W. L. ROSENBERG, 36, EAST FOURTH STREET, NEW YORK CITY.
�THE
SOCIAL-DEMOCRATIC. FEDERATION.
OBJECT.
The Establishment of a Free Condition of Society based on the prin
ciple of Political Equality, with Equal Social Rights for all and the
complete Emancipation of Labour.
PROGRAMME.
1. All Officers or Administrators to be elected by Equal Direct Adult
Suffrage, and to be paid by the Community.
2. Legislation by the People, in such wise that no project of Law
shall become legally binding till accepted by the Majority of the People.
3. The Abolition of a Standing Army, and the Establishment of a
National Citizen Force ; the People to decide on Peace or War.
4. All Education, higher no less than elementary, to be Free, Com
pulsory, Secular, and Industrial for all alike.
5. The Administration of Justice to be Free and Gratuitous for all
Members of Society.
6. The Land with all the Mines, Railways and other Means of Tran
sit, to be declared and treated as Collective or Common Property.
7. Ireland and all other parts of the Empire to have Legislative
Independence.
8. The Production of Wealth to be regulated by Society in the com
mon interest of all its Members.
9. The Means of Production, Distribution and Exchange to be
declared and treated as Collective or Common Property.
As measures called for to palliate the evils of our existing society the
Social-Democratic Federation urges for immediate adoption :—
The Compulsory Construction of healthy artizan’s and agricultural
labourers’ dwellings in proportion to the population, such dwellings to
be let at rents to cover the cost of construction and maintenance alone.
Free Compulsory Education for all classes, together with the provision
■of at least one wholesome meal a day in each school.
Eight Hours or less to be the normal working day in all trades.
Cumulative Taxation upon all incomes above a fixed minimum not
•exceeding ^300 a year.
State Appropriation of Railways, with or without compensation.
The establishment of National Banks, which shall absorb all private
institutions that derive a profit from operations in money or credit.
Rapid Extinction of the National Debt.
Nationalisation of the Land, and organisation of agricultural and
industrial.armies under State control on Co-operative principles.
As means for the peaceable attainment of these objects the SocialDemocratic Federation advocates :
Adult
tation.
Suffrage. Annual Parliaments. Proportional Represen
Payment of Members ; and Official Expenses of Election
■out of the Rates. Abolition of the House of Lords and all
Hereditary Authorities.
Disestablishment and Disendowment
of all State Churches.
.Secretary, Social-Democratic Federation, Bridge House, Blackfriars, E.C.
�SOCIALISM AND THE WORKER.
----------- >£<-----------
OCIALISM has been attacked and incriminated at all times,
but never with more animosity than recently. Socialists are
reproached with every kind of wickedness; of the tendency
to do away with property, marriage, family, to pollute every
thing that is sacred ; they have even been accused of arson and murder.
And why not ? If we look at the originators of these incriminations, we
are not the least astonished, for they have to defend privileges and
monopolies, which in reality are in danger, if drawn to the broad day
light and handled by the Socialist. They act according to the old
jesuitic stratagem : invent lies, pollute your enemy in every way you
can ; something will stick. But if we find those reproaches repeated
and echoed even by working men, whose interest are quite different, we
must wonder indeed.
If the workers, however, hate and attack Socialism, it is not a clear
perception of the wickedness of the aims of Socialism, by which their
judgment is guided, but by a dim and vague idea, and it is well known
that spectres are awful things in the dark, for people who believe in
them.
.
But everybody who hates and persecutes other people for their pur
poses and pursuits should be convinced that he is right in doing so.
For, if we hate and persecute persons whose purposes and pursuits are
reasonable and right, we are wrong.
For this reason let us examine the real aims of the Socialists. I think
I know them pretty well, and I promise to tell the truth, and nothing
but the truth about them.
. .
When you have read this to the end, you may persecute the Socialists
with renewed hatred, if you find they are bad ; on the other hand, you
will think favourably of them, if you find their views good and right.
For I am convinced, that you, dear reader, whoever you are, have not
a mind to love the bad and hate the good.
Foremost and above all, it seems to be certain that the Socialists
intend to divide all property. Everybody, who owns anything, must
give up what he owns; this whole mass has to be divided equally among
all the people, and each person may use his part, just as he likes. After
a while, when some have used up their allotted part, and a new dispro
portion of property has arisen, a new division will be made; and so on.
Especially the money and the soil are to be divided.—This is, what some
people say concerning Socialism.
Now honestly, reader, have you ever seen or heard of a man of sound
mind, who really demanded such nonsense ? No, you have not! Such
a demand involves the highest degree of ciaziness. Just reflect, dear
*3
I
�4
reader to whose lot, for instance, should a railroad fall ? Who should
haVe the rails, or a locomotive, or a carriage ? And since everybody
would have a right to demand an equal share, all these things would
nave to be broken and smashed up, and one would get a broken axletree
another the door of a carriage, or perhaps some bolts. Not even lunatics
could recommend such a state of things.
A division of money or soil might possibly be thought of, but money
and soil form only a small part of the wealth of a country. The ready
money forms even a very small part. And if the soil should be divided,
all the new owners would be in need of houses, barns, stables, agricultural
implements of all kinds. Such a distribution of the soil is, therefore
utterly impossible, and the Socialists know well enough that such a
proceeding would benefit nobody. During the great French Revolution
in 1709 something similar was tried; large estates were divided among
poor country people to make them happy. What is the result ? The.
French peasantry, generally, are so poor, that thousands of them live in
dwellings with only a door and no window at all, or with only one small
window at the side of the door. And small farmers are not much better
off m any country, except, perhaps, in the vicinity of large cities. The
small farmers must, as a rule, toil harder than any other person, to make
a living, and a very scanty and poor one in any case. Farming, in our
age, only pays well if done on a large scale, if large tracts of land can be
cultivated with the aid of machinery and the application of all modern
improvements. And this knowledge and doctrine of the Socialists is
strictly opposed to a division of the soil. On the contrary, the Socialists
are of the opinion, that there will be a time when a number of small
farmers will unite to cultivate their farms in common, and divide the
products among themselves, seeing that farming on a small scale cannot
compete with farming on a large scale, just as manufacturing on a small
scale cannot compete with manufacturing on a large scale. Therefore,
what has been said about the intention of the Socialists with respect to
dividing the soil, is an apparent falsehood.
Concerning the division of money I must relate an anecdote invented
to ridicule people who were represented to have such intentions. One
day in 1848, as the story goes, Baron Rothschild took a walk on the
Common at Frankfort on the Main.
Two labourers met nim and
accosted him thus : “ Baron, you are a rich man ; we want to divide
with you.” Baron Rothschild, not the least puzzled, took out his purse
good-humouredly and answered: — “ Certainly 1
We can do that
business on the spot. The account is easily made. I own 40 millions
oi florins; there are 40 millions of Germans. Consequently each
German has to receive one florin ; here is your share
and giving one
florin to each one of the labourers, who looked at their money quite
confused, he walked off smiling.
This teaches that the division of money is but an idle invention.
And with a little brain and thought, everybody must easily come to
the conclusion, that the great number of those who confess to the
principles of Socialism cannot possibly consist of blockheads or rather
lunatics, which they would prove to be, if they demanded such nonsense,.
In Germany 700,000 voters voted for Socialist candidates—can they all be
crazy?
Therefore, there must be something else in Socialism. The number
of Socialists in Germany is constantly growing. Even Prince Bismarck
confesses that. There must be something in it.
�Now if we go to the meetings of the Socialists, if we read their
papers and pamphlets what do we find ?
They do not intend to introduce division of property; on the con
trary, they are for abolishing its division.
This sounds strange, but it is so.
The Socialists are of the opinion, that division of property is flourish
ing in our society at present, and further they are of the opinion that
this division is carried on in a very unjust manner. If you doubt, only
think of our millionaires, and say, whether those fellows did or did not
understand to divide and to appropriate to themselves large sums of
money. Think of those swindling railroads and other companies. How
many honest mechanics, farmers, labourers, have been swindled by
them out of the little sums they had gathered by hard work and saving ?
The Socialists do not claim the honour of being the first to discover
that this kind of distribution is going on everywhere throughout thworld ; they have learned it. Men who belong to their adversaries have
taught them. John Stuart Mill, who was opposed to Socialism, said in
one of his writings : “ As we now see, the produce of labour is in almost
an inverse ratio to the labour—the largest portions to those who have
never worked at all, the next largest to those whose work is almost
nominal, and so in a descending scale, the remuneration dwindling as
the work grows harder and more disagreeable, until the most fatiguing
and exhausting bodily labour cannot count with certainty on being able
to earn even the necessaries of life,”
This sounds really dreadful, but if you look around and consult your
own experience, is it not so ? Certainly, it :’s I
There are people who have a princely income, who plunge from one
pleasure into another—and perhaps they have never in their life done
the least useful thing ; they need not work, they do not work themselves,
but—they draw the proceeds of the work of other people and enjoy
them.
On the other hand, look at him, who “ eats his bread in the sweat of
his brow,” look at the labourer who works for wages. If he is skilful,
industrious and strong, and if he is lucky enough to find employment,
he may even be able to save a little. But the large majority of labourers
cannot even think of that, in spite of all hardships they undergo. When
they have to stop work, they are as poor as when they began it. And
many, many labourers, hard toiling men, are not able to protect them
selves and their families from exposure and hunger. You need not go
far, reader, you will will find them everywhere. Ragged, palefaced,
despairing people will meet your vision, and on enquiring you will learn,
that they were industrious, orderly workers, and that there are thousands,
aye, hundreds of thousands of people living in the same miserable con
dition, in the cities as well as in the country.
Now look at the mechanics ? A few of them may succeed ; they may
be able to reach a state, in which they are safe from sorrow and care for
he necessaries of life. The greater number of mechanics who have a
little shop of their own and work on a small scale, have to battle with
poverty and care. Thousands, hundreds of thousands of mechanics fail
in this battle; they give up their small establishments and turn wage
labourers. One manufacturer on a large scale deprives hundreds of
small mechanics of their independent existence, one large shop or “ co
operative store ” crushes out fifty small shopkeepers. As things stand
�6
to-day, only those will succed in the great struggle for life, in the universal
competition, who command large means, a great amount of capital.
In commerce it is the same; merchants with small means rarely do a
good business, many go bankrupt, merchants with large means grow
richer and richer. It is similar with farmers throughout the civilised
countries of Europe and America. Owners of small farms just eke out a
scanty living and have to work very hard ; many gradually fall off: in
general the peasantry get poorer. There is the usurer, who knows how
to make profit of a poor crop. Very frequently we find that small farms
are bought by owners of large farms to be united with them. Only the
latter understand and are able to farm with profit.
Thus we see how the large class of those who work hard and
assiduously do not make money, do not amass riches—on the contrary,
many of them must suffer from want and care. But now, who creates
these riches which fall to those who never worked, or whose work hardly
deserves the name of work ? Who else, but that self-same working-class.
For industry and work scarcely a living ! Riches for those, who never
or seldom did anything useful ! Do you call that just ? Can you
approve of such a state of things? I know you cannot. No sensible
man can approve of it. And now say what you may against Socialists
—in this point they are right. This state of things cannot and must not
continue. It is wrong, and therefore it must be changed. Socialists do
not object to acquisitions made by honest work, on the contrary, they
try to secure the product of work to the worker himself, and to protect it
from the clutches of those who hitherto have been accustomed, not to
work themselves, but only to draw profit from the work of others, and
who, in doing so, are not content with a small part, but try to take the
lion’s share as it is in the fable.
But do the Socialists not go too far in their zeal ? It would, certainly,
be well and just if it could be accomplished, that those who toil and
work could be liberated from care and want, and those who have been
idle so far could be forced to work also. Birt are not the Socialists
enemies of the property-holders, and is not everybody who owns property
threatened to lose it by the Socialists, should they come into power—
so much so that he would have to face penury and want ? ' Ave they not
Communists ?
These objections and reproaches have been made and are made. Let
us not make light of them, but let us consider them quietly, in order to
judge right and justly.
Before we go on, we must explain two conceptions :
I. What is Communism ?
II. What is property ?
About Communism many lies have been set afloat, especially by people
whose interest it was to do so, viz., by those money-making idlers, so
that most people cannot but connect with the word Communism the idea
of rascality ; communist and scoundrel of the worst kind appear to them
to be synonymous. Therefore it is not an easy matter to speak of Com
munism without running risk to be condemned before one commences.
Many people in such a case will not hear, will not see, will not judge,
t heir verdict is formed. All social prejudices are awakened and called
forth by this expression. For that reason it is very difficult to come to
a quiet understanding about it. But the reader, who has followed us so
far, will follow us farther, not blindfolded, but using good common sense.
�7
If we open our eyes and look around us, we find many beneficent and
useful institutions brought forth by many or by the whole people in
common. In one place associations are formed, for instance, to save and
shelter shipwrecked persons; at another place the community erect a
school, or the State, the commonwealth, builds a harbour or a canal. In
ordinary life everybody cares for himself, but in such cases as those
just mentioned people unite for advancing a common, social purpose. Ex
perience teaches that, in doing so, they do admirably well; every one of
them who will reflect a little must confess that his own welfare is greatly
advanced by such institutions of common usefulness. What would people
be without common roads, common schools, etc., that is, such as are built
and instituted at the cost of the community for common use ? We should be
in a terrible situation, if all at once the different insurance companies
were to cease to exist, whose object is, to transfer a calamity, by which a
person might be struck heavily or perhaps be ruined, from his shoulders
to the shoulders of many. If I chose, I could mention here a thousand
other things, but the above named common institutions will be sufficient4
Now all these institutions are nothing but Communism. For Cowwwmswa i?
nothing but the principle of common interests of society. In every-day life
everybody looks out for his own interest, even at the cost of his fellow
men ; here cold, ugly egoism is dominant. The large cotton mills have
ruined thousands and thousands of weavers ; but who cares for hundreds
of honest, industrious, happy people, who get ruined by one mill ? Who
cares how many honest shoemakers are deprived of a living by the large
shoe manufacturers ? What does the usurer care for the victims of his
avarice ? What do the speculating swindlers care for the fate of the
shareholders, after their hard-earned savings are gone ? Nobody ever
thought of caring for such things, and it is my firm belief that a business
man in our days who would show any consideration for the welfare of
his fellowmen in his transactions would be certain to become a laughing
stock. Egoism rules supreme. Everybody thinks of his own welfare,
and does not care whether by doing so he destroys the welfare of others.
“What business have I to care for others if I am comfortable.” In
spite of the prevalence of Egoism, the common interest of mankind is
irrepressibly gaining ground. More and more people unite to culti
vate it, more and more associations are formed, the activity of the State
and community is extending its influence over more and more objects.
Who would have thought in former times of all the different associations
which are formed to-day to advance any number of common interests of
every description ? AVho held a.n idea in former years, that whole
countries would be cut in all directions by railroads, that telegraphs
would communicate news to the remotest parts of the world in an
instant ? Who could predict the admirable development of our postal
system ? Who thought of waterworks or of gas ? Who had an idea of
the modern arrangement of the fire brigades ? The root of all these
is Communism. They represent the victory of common interests over
hideous Egoism.
.
.
To turn institutions of common interest to the use of ail, is tiie tendency
of the age, and however people may curse at Communism, they are
bent to obey its mandates. Everywhere common interests press their
claims, and Communism, proudly elevating its head, marches on trium
phantly with all conditions of human life in its attendance.
He who declares himself an enemy of Communism declares himself
�8
nn enemy of common interest, an enemy of society and mankind ! Who
ever wishes to annihilate Communism will have to destroy the common
roads, the schools, the churches, he will have to destroy the public
gardens and parks, he will have to abolish the public baths,"the theatres,
she waterworks, all the public buildings, for instance, town halls, courts,
-ill the hospitals, the alms-houses, he will have to destroy the railroads’
She telegraphs, the post-office ! For all these belong to Communism.
Communism cannot be annihilated, it has its origin and root in human
nature like egoism. Everybody who will open his eyes must see that in
the present time we are under full sail to land in its sheltering harbour.
Sheltering ? Yes, sheltering ! Sheltering for the great majority of man
kind, for whom a better time will come, must come, when the common
interest, the interest of all, will be the rule governing all our social con
ditions, when a barrier will be erected against egoism by the regard for
the common or public welfare. If it happens nowadays that rich specu
lators make people in hard times pay exorbitant prices, and take advan
tage of a common calamity to double their wealth, or if railway
shareholders make their own rates for freight, injuring by high prices
producers as well as consumers in order to gain a large dividend ; or if
manufacturers prefer running short time to selling at lower prices—these
proceedings are considered “ all right,” for everybody can do with his own
as he chooses, But everybody must see that such egoism is opposed to
the common interest; and there will be a time when people will know
how to protect the common interest against such egGism. When that
time has come it will be better for all; all will enjoy life, not only those
who do so now at the cost of their fellow-beings.
If you define Communism in this way, some of my readers will say, we
do not object to it, quite on the contrary, we must confess to belong to
the Communists ourselves. But this is not what people generally under
stand by the word “ Communism..” We were to consider the Communism
which the Socialists want to introduce, the Communism with regard to
property. We admit that they do not intend to divide, but do they not
intend to abolish property ? That is what we oppose, otherwise we
would not object to it.
What is property ? “ To be sure that, what a person owns, possesses! ”
Well 1 But, now tell me, are you certain that the Socialists are, or ever
were, opposed to what Peter or Paul owns ? Can you show me a
sentence or passage from any of the writings or pamphlets of Socialists
which justifies the supposition, that they intend to attack the property
of any person ?
You cannot, because such an idea never entered the head of a Socialist.
I should not wonder if you yourself have not thought sometimes con
sidering the means and ways by which many amass their riches, it
would be only just and right to take that illgotten wealth from the
rascally owner, but it is a firm principle of Socialism, never to mingle
with personal property in order to investigate its origin, or to arrange it
in a different way. Never and nowhere 1 And whoever asserts to the
contrary, either does not know the principles of Socialism or willingly
and knowingly asserts an untruth. The Socialists deem an investigation
into the origin of an acknowledged personal property an unnecessary
trouble. They do not envy the Duke of Westminster or Sir Thomas
Brassey their wealth. Although they perceive very well the constant
changes with regard to property, although they investigate and are
�<1
■acquainted with the causes producing those changes, although they are
well aware that fraud and meanness and violence in a great many in
stances are among those causes; they forbear to investigate how much
these causes, how much others, have influenced the state of property of
this or that single person. They consider the personal property an
accomplished fact, and respect it; so much so, that they consider
stealing a crime. Every time Revolution was victorious in Paris, bills
were seen at the street corners threatening death to thieves. A remark
able fact is that Baron Rothschild fled suddenly from Paris as soon as
these bills were posted. At Lyons during an insurrection in 1832, a
man who had appropriated another man’s property was shot by a
labourer in command. During the reign of the Commune of 1871,
Paris had no thieves, no prostitutes.
On the other hand, the right of the owner is not always respected in
our time, but they are not Socialists who violate the sanctity of property
in these cases, although it must be confessed that in many instances an
abrogation of the right of a property-holder becomes necessary. Socialists
cannot be reproached with ever having condemned houses or tracts of
land for the purpose of building a street or opening a railroad. They
certainly are not Socialists who seize and sell houses or lots at auction for
unpaid taxes. Nor will you find Socialists who connive at those shame
fully unjust appropriations of the property of others, which however go
on in a lawful form.
One thing, however, calls forth all the energy of the Socialists, and
they will try with all their might to remedy it. I have stated already,
they do not care whether a person owns hundreds of thousands or
millions of pounds, whether that person makes use of his money one way
or the other, whether he spends it wisely or foolishly. He may spend
his own as he chooses. But—these sums of money are not used simply
to be spent, but to bring interest, to increase, if possible, the wealth of
the possessor. Does he himself want to work, to do something useful ?
Far from it. His money works for him, his money makes money, as the
saying is; or in plain English, his money is the channel through which
the earnings of other, industrious people flow into his pockets. Socialists
call all kinds of property in this respect “ capital,” this expression com
prising all means for production : and- because one class of the people
possess, by their wealth, these means—the capital—another, and by far
the largest class have only their physical or mental strength and skill
for labour, hence the capital becomes a means for enslaving workers, forcing them
to give up the greater part of their produce to him who owns the capital.
They themselves obtain hardly enough to support themselves and their
families, while the capitalists enjoy life and get richer without working
at all. This is the point. Dead property deprives living work of its
fruits. Now since work should, by rights, own what it produces, as its
sole and legitimate earning, dead property becomes the bitter enemy of
working life.
Hence the struggle of labour with capital.
Returning to the question ; What is property ? the answer given above
appears unsatisfactory; we must add another question; to whom justly
belongs what the working part of the human race produces.
The answer to this question is of the greatest importance. Now it is
the capital which appropriates the greater part of it, leaving to the
workers, who form by far the greater number, only so much of it, that
�IO
they may keep alive; they are treated like bees, they are robbed of the
honey they make. This class is excluded from enjoying the blessings of
civilisation, the greater part of their product is taken by the capital.
What right has the owner of a beehive to rob the bees of the fruit of
their industry and labour ? They are his property, his is the might.
What right has capital to rob the working class of the greater part of
the fruit of their industry and labour ? The wage-labourers, the
mechanics, the farm hands, are they the property of the capitalist ? Are
they his slaves ?
As things stand to-day—they are 1 Might is right and by the title of
such right the slaveowner considers the fruit of the work of his slaves
his property; by this right, in former times, the feudal landowner
made his serfs work for his employment and benefit. Slavery is injustice,
serfdom is injustice, so the right which capital claims to the work of the
worker is injustice. I would not like to be misunderstood here. As far
as anything is the personal property of a person, he may enjoy it, as he
chooses; nobody has a right to interfere. But as soon as he tries to use
this property to enslave other people, he steps over his domain and must
be checked. For, I think, it is acknowledged among civilised people,
that nobody has a right of ownership over his fellowmen. Slavery has
been abolished, serfdom has been abolished, so the power which capital
exercises now, will be abolished ; its place will be occupied by the natural
and sacred right of the worker to the proceeds of his work.
But—is not the capital as necessary as the labour ? Can labour pro
duce anything without capital ? There must be raw material, there must
be tools, there must be machines, there must be workshops, warehouses
and so forth ; there must be soil to be tilled, &c. What can mere labour
do without all these ? True! But labour existed before capital, and
made the tools, workshops, &c. Is it necessary that capital, now the
foundation of successful labour, and which has been produced by labour,
be owned by a few individuals ? Has this minority a right to continue
to take the best part of what labour produces ?
The Socialists take the side of Labour. They maintain that it is
every body's duty to work, unless he be sick or crippled. They maintain
that whoever is able to work and is not willing to do it, has no right to
enjoy the fruits of the industry and labour of others.
If capitalists attempt to justify their way of making profit, by saying
that they have to run risks sometimes, that a part of their property
might occasionally.be lost, we answer, that labour has nothing to do with
that. The real cause of it is the competition among the employers, the
custom to produce at random, without investigating whether what is
produced is really wanted. For the class of capitalists there is no risk,
because its wealth increases every day. But there is a great risk for the
working-class. When business is slack, when wages go down, when
many workers are out of employment,—when in consequence of this
mechanics, grocers, and even farmers suffer, the condition of the work
ing part of the people is pitiable and many suffer. The newspapers tell
about that. Have they not had startling accounts of people starving to
death in our great cities ? Look at the local columns of the daily papers
and it is exceptional if there is no account of some family or other being
poverty-stricken, of people driven to despair, driven to commit suicide
by want. And all this in cities that have stores and warehouses crowded
with goods ! Is this no risk ?
�11
But how could this state, of things be changed ?
This, certainly, cannot be done of a sudden. There is a natural pro
cess of development in this, as in all changes that history has recorded
so far. According to the reasoning of the Socialists, this development
will be as follows.
Some time ago the middle-class formed the firm and solid foundation
of society and State. Machinery was invented and a change occurred.
Manufacturing, and even farming to a certain extent, were conducted on
a large scale; the middle-class people were pressed down into a class of
wage-labourers, and were employed in large numbers by the manufac
turers or employers. More and more this middle-class cease to be pro
perty-holders ; it is getting 'more and more difficult for the mechanics
and small farmers to hold their ground ; thus the middle-class is con
stantly decreasing, the class of wage-labourers increasing, until there
will be only two classes of people—rich and poor. In this progress
the number of rich people is diminishing, wealth becoming concen
trated in the hands of comparatively few persons, who are getting
enormously rich.
But this process must soon have its limit. There will be a time, when
the large mass of the working-people will feel its consequences unbear
able, will abolish it. That will be the time, when Communism will enter
into its rights. Labour will then be organised according to a certain
reasonable plan, and since, for that purpose, the use of the existing
capital, comprising soil, houses, railways, shipping, manufactories,
machines, &c., will be necessary, those comparatively few possessors of
all the wealth of the nations will have to be expropriated. Perhaps
they then will consent themselves to such a measure and give up every
thing necessary for production of their own accord, honoured and
praised for their patriotism and humanity, and remunerated deservedly;
perhaps they will use their ample means to resist the common demand,
and will perish, overwhelmed by the newly formed organisation of the
State. As I hinted before, in the new order of things all branches of
labour will be organised, similar to the arrangements we see to-day in
large factories, large estates, or institutions of the Government. Un
necessary work will be avoided and the reward for work done will be
greater. Labour will not be wasted in making luxuries for the idle, but
be usefully employed in making the necessaries of life for other workers.
It will be everybody’s duty to work, hence everybody will have ample
leisure for recreation and mental development. All will strive to amelio
rate the conditions of the community they belong to ; for, by doing so,
everybody will improve his own private situation.
The basis of this state of things will be abolition of private property
of individuals in such things as are necessary for production and trans
portation, such as factories, machines, railroads, &c., or which have
been created for instruction and amusement, such as schools, colleges,
museums, parks, &c.
Personal property will be what is necessary
or useful for private life. These are the outlines of a picture of future
times. Nobody is able to state whether the development will go on
exactly in the way we sketch out; but that does not matter, if only the
underlying idea of Communism is right. When Stephenson, more than
fifty years ago, built the first railroad, he certainly did not plan all the
locomotives, rails, signals, stations, etc., the way we find them to-day,
but his idea was right, and it conquered the world. Thus the idea of
�12
Socialism will conquer the world, for this idea is nothing but the real,
well understood interest of mankind. It is injustice, that a large majority,
to-day must work hard and suffer want, in order to procure an affluence of enjoyment
for an minority of people, who do not work. And who would deny, that, if it
is everybody s duty to work, if the production of unnecessary, nay even
injurious articles is abolished, if production is organised m conformity
with the real wants and pleasures of mankind—who would deny, that
■the standard of life of the whole human race might be raised infinitely
above its present grade, that the great mass of human beings might enter
the sphere of a life worthy of a human being ; from which they have been
excluded so far ?
Let me point out to you an example of organised labour in one branch,
to show the benefit of such an arrangement. How would it be possible
to send a letter to any place in the United Kingdom for a penny, a post
card for a half-penny, a letter to America for 2-J-d., if the postmasters in
the different parts of the world were private like the merchants and
manufacturers of to-day, if we had not the communistic arrangement of the
post ? Formerly the post was also a private business in nearly all the
•countries of Europe, like our railroads, and the owners of this institution
derived a princely income from it, although its use was very limited.
And well arranged, as our post-office may be.called, it might be better
yet, and will be more convenient in time.
Similar benefits would arise from all branches of human activity.
Look at our railroads—might they not be the property of the community
at large, as.well as the high roads, instead of being a monopoly in the
hands of private persons, whose sole object is to enrich themselves at the
cost of their fellow-citizens? If so, it has been proved that you could
go to any part of these islands with a shilling ticket, just as a letter goes
now, by post, with a penny stamp. In this manner one branch after
the other will be organised according to the ideas of communism, perhaps
by classes of people who are far from confessing to the principles of
Socialism, of Communism, by classes who are inimical to it—because
they do not understand it—and are narrow-minded enough to shut their
ears and their eyes to everything that does not tend to their private
interest.
This is not yet enough. All means for transportation, such as ships, etc.,
must come into the hands of the community at large ; so must all means
for production. This demand of Socialism has been the cause for accusing
them of hostility to property, even to the property of those who own but
a little. But who is it actually who drive the owner of small means
from his house, from his soil? Is it the Socialist? It is the large
capitalist, the large landowner ! As the magnet attracts iron filings, so
large capital attracts the small sums round it. And the same capitalists
who in all directions seize what they can get, try to persuade the small
•owners to beware of Socialism, this being ready to tear their property
from them. What a shameful falsehood ! Socialism only teaches the
way in which in a future time people will try to re-establish justice and
a more equal condition of life for the whole people while the owners of
small property are being robbed of the little they own, not by Socislists
—they have no power to do so, nor the desire for doing it—but by the
rich capitalists.
And this way is well-organised labour !
This certainly includes expropriation of those who have expropriated
�*3
he mass of the people, restitution of all means of production to those
who made them. Socialism is the true and only friend of the man of
small means, for it is the party of the working people. Large property
is the natural enemy of small property, as long as it has not been able to.
seize and devour it.
Moreover, Socialism, far from intending to abolish any property to-day
or to-morrow, only predicts that there will be a time, not suddenly pro
voked, but brought on by historical development, when the working
people will insist upon their right to the product of their own work, against
the privilege which property enjoys with regard to the work of others.
The conception, of. “ property of capital" will be transformed gradually
into the conception of “property of work."
Nowhere, you will perceive, abolition of property is thought of by
Socialists, and nobody I trust, will object to the change just mentioned.
The development of mankind to greater perfection never was and never
will be arrested by the prevailing laws concerning property, as for instance,
it was not arrested, when humanity demanded abolition of slavery, by
the pretended divine right of the slave owners. And if such rights and
laws demand that humanity stop its progress, such demand is madness.
Laws and rights concerning property are subjected to constant changes,
when such changes are in the interest of progress. But even in our
better institutions injustice is ruling, and the change just spoken of will
abolish that injustice and lead mankind to a higher state of perfection.
At the bottom of our institutions there is a remnant of slavery; as soon
as capital shall cease to govern, wage-labour and the rest of slavery will
be abolished.
Freedom and equality will then be no longer empty and cheap phrases,
but will have a meaning ; when all men are really free and equal, they
will honour and advance one another. The working man will then no
longer be deprived of the fruit of his work, his property, and everybody
who will work will be able to spend a good deal more in food, clothing,
lodging, recreation, pleasure and instruction than he can spend at
present.
If the Socialists had nothing to offer to the suffering people but the
consolation that Communism will bring help at some future time, when
the conditions for life, nearly unbearable now, will have become quite so, ■
this consolation would be poor. Long enough a future state of bliss has
been held out to suffering mankind, in which they would be rewarded for
all the wants and sufferings and pains of this world, and now most people
have lost confidence in such empty promises. They demand an ameliora
tion, not words, not promises, but facts. They do not want to expect
with resignation what may come after death, they demand a change of
their unfortunate situation while living on earth.
The interests of all workers are the same ! This is best shown by the fact
that in many strikes working shopkeepers are in favour of the wage
labourers. Low wages are unfavourable to the farmer as well as to the
mechanic, for when wages are low, the struggle for economical indepen
dence is more difficult; large capital increases, and at the expense of
small property. If working people would only learn to comprehend
the solidarity of their interest !
As it is with the increase of wages, so it is with the decrease of workmg-hours. Eight hours work a day is judged sufficient by physicians.
A person that has worked properly eight hours a day, ought to have
�*4
done his duty and has a right to request some hours for recreation, for
instruction, and for his family. Those who are the loudest in complaining
of the laziness of the working men, would soon make wry faces if they
were compelled to work only six hours a day. This decreasing the
working-hours will better the condition of the whole working-class.
Everybody can easily see that. Even in the country it could be done,
although there such a shortening will meet with the greatest objections,
and it will de done. What a great benefit will be achieved by this mea
sure alone! Whole armies of paupers, tramps, etc., will find useful em
ployment, they will disappear and with them a great deal of mischief
and crime.
Now if the wage-labourers of the cities and manufacturing places will
be ready to lead the van in the struggle for the interest of labour, the
rest of the whole working-class have no right to put themselves in the
position of idle, indifferent, or even grudging and hostile spectators. On
the contrary, it is the duty of the whole working-class to participate in
this struggle, for this war is carried on in the interest of all workers, and
the wage-labourers who have taken up the gauntlet are the Pioneers for
the human race.
But in order to carry on this war successfully, the workers must be
organised. Singly and isolated they are powerless; if all would unite
for the same purpose, they would be a formidable power, which nothing
could resist. You may easily break many single matches, a whole bundle
of them tied together, you would try in vain to break.
With regard to this, the Socialists have the gratification of seeing, that
their endeavours have not been fruitless. In Germany Socialism already
forms a respectable power, which commences to puzzle even the great
Bismark. They have been able to elect twenty-four representatives into
the Parliament of the German Empire, who, by their untiring activity, bv
the speeches they have delivered, have opened the eyes of hundreds of
thousands of people in Germany. And who would venture to pretend
that those men strove for something that was bad, that they betrayed
the interests of their constituents ? But not only in the parliament, in a
great many municipal assemblies also we find members belonging to the
working-class or representing its interests.
And all this has been accomplished in a few’ years: It is only 24 years
since the labour party unfurled its banner there. And what has been
tried and done during those 22 years to suppress this labour movement!
It has been ridiculed, scorned, incriminated. Many of its prominent
leaders have been put into prison. Many were deprived of their offices
and situations, of their customers. In spite of all this it grew and
thrived. In France, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Austria, Russia,
Italy, Spain, and now in England—everywhere throughout the civilised
world Socialism has taken root. Everywhere it has begun the struggle
against capital, monopoly, and classrule, and its victory is assured.
Concerning Socialism there might be said, what was said in olden times
about Christianity: If it is bad, it will die of its own badness ; if it is
good, it will conquer the world, in spite of all persecutions !
And Socialism will conquer the world, its principles will carry the whole
human race to a higher state of perfection.
Reader, you may judge for yourself and decide either in favour of or
against Socialism. If you think the aims and endeavours of the Socialists
deserve your hatred, try to crush them ; if on the contrary, you are con-
�*5
vinced that they are good, that the Socialists endeavour to promote the
happiness and welfare of mankind, join them I And if you do not like
to act publicly, help them secretly. Try to propagate their principles
among your acquaintances, explaining them in your intercourse, destroy
ing the falsehoods brought against them. Tell them that Socialists
form the true and only party of the working people. And if you are a
capitalist yourself, reflect how much nobler it is to help to promote the
welfare of the many, than to serve only your own interest, ugly and
hideous Egoism.
All who are interested, in Socialism
should, read.
The Historical Basis of Socialism in England.
By H. M. Hyndman.
Paul, Trench, & Co.
Crown 8-vo., price 8s. 6d
London: Kegan
This is the only Book in the English Language which gives the Historical and
Economical Theories of Organised Socialism. It should be carefully studied by all who
desire to understand why Socialists are enthusiastic for their cause, and confident of
ucces s in the near future.
Woman in the Past, Present and Future.
By
August ' Bebel, Deputy in the Reichstag. Translated from the
German by H. B. Adams Walther. Demy 8-vo., cloth, price 5s.
This work by the best known of the German Socialists aims at showing that the
social condition of women can be permanently improved only by the solution of the
whole social problem,
The Co-operative Commonwealth: an Exposition
of Modern Socialism. By Laurence Gronlund, of Philadelphia.
Demy 8-vo., paper cover, is.
This book supplies the want, frequently complained of, of definite proposals for the
administration of a Socialistic State. Mr. Gronlund has reconciled the teaching of
Marx with the influence of Carlyle in the constructive part of his work, which is
specially recommended to English Socialists.
“ JUSTICE,” the Organ, of the Social Democracy. Every
Saturday, one penny.
Socialism and Soldiering; with some comments on the
Army Enlistment Fraud. By George Bateman (Late 23rd Regi
ment), with Portrait. With an introduction by H. H. Champion
(Late Royal Artillery). Price One Penny.
Summary of the Principles of Socialism
By
H. M. Hyndman and William Morris.
Second edition, 64-pp.
crown 8-vo., in wrapper designed by Wm. Morris, price 4b.
This gives an account of the growth of capitalist production, and concludes with a
statement of the demands of English Socialists for the immediate future.
THE MODERN PRESS, 13, Paternoster Row, London, E.C.
(The Publications of the Modern Press can be obtained from W. L.
Rosenberg, 261, East Tenth Street, New York City.)
�Social Progress and Individual Effort.
Desirable Mansions.
Co-operative Production.
England Arise. Song with Music.
By Edward Carpenter.
Price id. each.
Cashel Byron’s Profession: A Novel. By
G. Bernard Shaw.
Royal 8vo, paper covers.
Price is.
The Genesis of Capital. Translated from the
French of Gabriel Deville by B. J.
Royal 8vo. Price id.
The Nationalisation of Societv. By J. Theo
dore D’Auton.
Royal 8vo., price id.
The Australian Labour Market: Startling
Disclosures.
By John Norton, New South Wales
Labour Delegate. Royal 8vo., Price id.
The Industrial Problem Solved. By W. B.
Robertson.
Royal 8vo., Price id.
The Nationalisation of Railways.
F. Keddell. Reprinted from Justice and revised.
8vo., price id.
By
Roval
Mining Rates and Royalties. By J. Morrison
Davidson (Author of “ New Book of Kings,” &c.)
By the REV. MERCER DAVIES, M.A.
The Bishops and their Wealth. Price 2cl.
The Bishops and their Religion. Price id.
The Facts about the Unemployed.
One of the Middle Class.
By
Royal 8vo., price id.
An appeal and a warning issued in October, 1886, showing the causes of
the present distress, how they can be removed, what steps have already
been taken, and what are the consequences of continued indifference to
hunger and despair.
Also the following Leaflets for Distribution.
The Use of a Vote.
Royal 8-vo. Handbill.
Price 2s. per 500, post free.
Work for all, Overwork for none. Royal
8-vo. Handbill.
2s. per 500, post free.
�
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 & 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
Socialism and the worker
Description
An account of the resource
Edition: New ed.
Place of publication: London; New York City
Collation: 15, [1] p. ; 23 cm.
Notes: Stamp on title page: 'South Place Chapel Finsbury, Lending Library'. Publisher's list on preliminary pages unnumbered pages at the end. Information on the Social-Democratic Federation on title page verso.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Sorge, Friedrich Adolph
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
G4979
Subject
The topic of the resource
Socialism
Labour
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 (Socialism and the worker), 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
Socialism
Working Classes
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/2afb5229c51b2363f903dc1d87643e5d.pdf?Expires=1779926400&Signature=F2umHn1msFDuqoq1pEqYbNkrHHtF7gFbSMvevmdmDNJY8iyXLc0Oj4LqdWTrM%7EHxlZmpF7ABNbXrEpX8Jfkoe%7Ed741G-JMzAWnY48HUCLS4BccYbN4VRYmL-boZ12j1MD9A1mUdc15lxFatDvzt3WGq51LJwncneDXVYttrpcbUv4HkiLzSGXGhRntWXXrfXyfegPiWOWaZjt6rtunkHkiNp-R9vRzGEEZ1JdLgR1FS-7Znp4NS5nXn5HJ4p%7EuXF-cDgTAAAkB4hH1YKkii3qrXACTRihEJqiaernW%7EVtK5u7rA1Dz%7Eb4ZNEKfkk0krJ4KmmcLn5W1hdFAFhUAFFvw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
1e6cbbb6beadbd8db9d4b4dd7f10f1e4
PDF Text
Text
■nit S
PRICE ONE PENNY.
SEVENTY-FIRST THOUSAND I
SOCIALISM
MADE PLAIN
AND
“THE UNEMPLOYED”
BEING TWO
MANIFESTOES
OF THE
SOG/A L-DEMOGRA TIG
FEDERA TION.
Address Secretary, Social-Democratic Federation,
Bridge House, Blackfriars. E.C.
EDUCATE.
AGITATE.
ORGANISE.
THE MODERN PRESS, 13, Paternoster Row, E.C.
1886.
Agent for U.S.A., W. L. ROSENBERG, 56, EAST
STREET, NEW YORK CITY.
FOURTH
�Summary of the Principles of Socialism.
By H. M. Hyndman and William Morris.
Second
edition, 64-pp. crown 8-vo., in wrapper designed by Wm.
Morris, price 4d.
This gives an account of the growth of capitalist production, and con
cludes with a statement of the demands of English Socialists for the imme
diate future.
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.
Royal 8-vo.,
Reprinted with additions from Justice.
price id. Fifteenth thousand.
Socialist Rhymes.
J.
By
Reprinted chiefly from Justice.
L.
Joynes.
Royal 8-vo., price id.
Wage-Labour and Capital.
By Karl Marx.
Translated by J. L. Joynes and reprinted from Justice.
Price 2d.
This is the only work of the great Socialist thinker which has been
translated into English.
Socialism and the Worker.
Sorge.
By F. A.
Price id.
An explanation in the simplest language of the main idea of Socialism.
John Williams and the History of the
Social-Democratic Federation.
8-vo., price id.
Socialism
and
With portrait.
Slavery.
By
H.
Royal
M.
Hyndman. (In reply Mr. Herbert Spencer’s article on
the “ Coming Slavery ”). New Edition. Price id.
The Modern Press, 13, Paternoster Row, E.G.
And W. L. ROSENBERG, 56, East Fourth Street, New
York City.
�SOCIALISM
MADE
PLAIN,
BEING THE
Social and Political Manifesto of the Democratic Federation
EDUCATE.
AGITATE
ORGANISE.
Fellow Citizens,
qpHE time has come when it is absolutely necessary
that the mass of the people should seriously take
in hand their own business unless they are content to
find themselves in the near future worse off than they
have ever yet been. At present, social and political
power is monopolised by xhose who live upon the
labour of their fellows; and Tories or Conservatives,
Whigs, Liberals or Radicals strive only to keep the
workers ignorant of the truths which most nearly con
cern them. After the Reform Bill of 1832 the capi
talists entered into alliance with the landlords except
on one question, and from the repeal of the Corn
Laws in 1846 to this day the lords of the money-bag
and the lords of the soil have together been absolute
masterc of the millions who labour throughout the
United Kingdom. So complete has been their control
that since the year 1848 no vigorous attempt has even
been made to overthrow it. But what has been the re
sult to the workers of this supremacy of the luxurious
classes ? During fifty years our labourers have com
peted against one another for wages which barely
suffice to keep them
aUve.
Whilst the realised
�weaith and the annual income of the country have
more than trebled, those who create these riches re
main a wage-slave class, overworked and underfed,
at the mercy of every crisis and the victims of each suc
ceeding depression. The improved machinery, the
extension of railways, the great steam and electric
communications—that vast increase of the power of
man over nature which has been the main feature of
our epoch, has brought luxury for the few, misery and
degradation for the many. Even in the past ten years
what have we seen ? The interests of Great Britain
utterly neglected, Ireland shamefully misgoverned,
India ruined and South Africa estranged. In 1874
the Liberals were dismissed for incapacity and Conser
vatives ruled in their stead for six years. Not a single
measure did they introduce during that long tenure of
office which could in any way lighten the lot of the
millions who toil. The Conservatives having been
turned out in disgust the Liberals again try their
h|and, and once more not a single measure is before
Parliament, not a single measure is proposed for future
legislation, which can benefit the working men and
women who are really the source of all our wealth.
Fellow-Citizens the further success of this pitiful
trickery depends upon your ignorance and will last as
long as your apathy. Landlords and capitalists, who
o ahi the House of Lords and fill the House of Commons,
wish nothing better than to protect their interests
under the pretence of looking after yours. Take up
then your own heritage, push aside these wealthy huck
sters of both factions who trade upon your labour,
and trust for the future in your own strength alone.
�Consider the figures below.
Total Production of the United
Kingdom................................. £1,300,000,000
Taken by Landlords, Capitalists
and Profitmongers
..........
1,000,000,000
Left for the Producers..................
300,000,000
Study these figures all who toil and suffer that others
may be lazy and rich ; look upon the poverty, the star
vation, the prostitution around you ye who labour and
return the value of your entire day’s wages to the employ
ing classes in the first two or three hours of your day’s
work. Ponder on these facts, reflect upon these figures,
men and women of England, and then ask yourselves,
whether it is worth while for such a result as this to
bow down in slavish subjection before your “ governing
classes,” whether you will not rather demand and
obtain the full fruits of your labour and become your
own governing class yourselves. Submit then no longer
to a system of Parliamentary Government which is
maintained in the interests of those who rob and oppress
you—which has proved itself for generations to be alike
a failure and a fraud.
EDUCATE !
AGITATE !
ORGANISE !
Fellow Citizens, we of the Democratic Federation
demand complete adult suffrage for every man and
woman in these islands, because in this way alone dan
the whole people give free expression to their will; we
are in favor of paid delegates and annual Conventions
because by this means alone can the people control
their representatives; we stand up for the direct r&
ference of all grave issues to the country at larg<&,
and for the punishment as felony of every species ol
�corruption, because thus only can tyranny be checked
and bribery uprooted ; we call for the abolition of all
hereditary authority, because such authority is neces
sarily independent of the mass of the people. But all
these reforms when secured mean only that the men and
women of these islands will at length be masters in
their own house. Mere political machinery is worth
less unless used, to produce good social conditions.
All wealth is due to labour ; therefore to the labourers
all wealth is due.
But we are strangers in our own country. Thirty
thousand persons own the land of Great Britain against
the 30,000,000 who are suffered to exist therein. A
long series of robberies and confiscations has deprived
us of the soil which should be ours. The organised
brute force of the few has for generations robbed and
tyrannised over the unorganised brute force of the many.
We now call for Nationalisation of the Land. We
claim that land in country and land in towns, mines,
parks, mountains, moors should be owned by the people
for the people, to be held, used, built over and culti
vated upon such terms as the people themselves see fit
to ordain. The handful ot marauders who now hold
possession have and can have no right save brute force
against the tens of millions whom they wrong.
But private ownership of land in our present society
is only one and not the worst form of monopoly which
enables the wealthy classes to use the means of pro
duction against the labourers whom they enslave. Of
the £1,000,000,000 taken by the classes who live without
labour out of a total yearly production of ^1,300,000,000,
the landlords who have seized Our soil, and shut us out
�from its enjoyment, absorb little more than £60,000,000
as their direct share. The few thousand persons who
own the National Debt, saddled upon the community
by a landlord Parliament, exact ^28,000,000 yearly from
the labour of their countrymen for nothing ; the share
holders who have been allowed to lay hands upon
our great railway communications take a still larger
sum.
Above all, the active capitalist class, the
loan-mongers, the farmers, the mine-exploiters, the
contractors, the middle-men, the factory-lords—these,
the modern slave-drivers, these are they who, through
their money, machinery, capital, and credit turn every
advance in human knowledge, every further improve
ment in human dexterity, into an engine for accumu
lating wealth out of other men’s labour, and for
exacting more and yet more surplus value out of the
wage-slaves whom they employ.
So long as the
means of production, either of raw materials or of
manufactured goods are the monopoly of a class, so
long must the labourers on the farm, in the mine or in
the factory sell themselves for a bare subsistence wage.
As land must in future be a national possession, so
must the other means of producing and distributing
wealth. The creation of wealth is already a social
business, where each is forced to co-operate with his
neighbour; it is high time that exchange of the produce
should be social too, and removed from the control of
individual greed and individual profit.
As stepping-stones to a happier period, we urge for
immediate adoption :—
The COMPULSORY CONSTRUCTION of healthy
artisans’ and agricultural labburers’ dwellings in pro
�8
portion to the population, such dwellings to be let at
rents to cover the cost of construction and maintenance
alone.
FREE COMPULSORY EDUCATION for all
classes, together with the provision of at least one
wholesome meal a day in each school.
EIGHT HOURS or less to be the normal WORK
ING DAY in all trades.
CUMULATIVE TAXATION upon all incomes
above a fixed minimum not exceeding ^300 a year.
STATE APPROPRIATION
with or without compensation.
OF
RAILWAYS,
The establishment of NATIONAL BANKS, which
shall absorb all private institutions that derive a profit
from operations in money or credit.
RAPID
DEBT.
EXTINCTION
of
the
NATIONAL
NATIONALISATION OF THE LAND, and
organisation of agricultural and industrial armies under
State control on co-operative principles.
By these measures a healthy, independent, and
thoroughly educated people will steadily grow up
around us, ready to abandon that baneful competition
for starvation wages which ruins our present workers,
ready to organise the labour of each for the benefiit
of all, determined, too, to take control finally of the
entire social and political machinery of a State in
which class distinctions and class privileges shall cease
to be.
Do any say we attack private property ? We deny
'Vp attack only that private property for a few
�thousand loiterers and siave-drivers, which renders all
property in the fruits of their own labour impossible
for millions. We challenge that private property
which renders poverty at once a necessity and a crime.
Fellow-Citizens, we appeal to every man and woman
among you who is weary of this miserable huckster’s
society, where poverty and prostitution, fraud and
adulteration, swindling and jobbery, luxury and debau
chery reign supreme, we appeal to you to work with
us in a never-ceasing effort to secure a happier lot for
our people and their children, and to hold up a high
ideal of national greatness for those who come after.
Such an ideal of true greatness and glory, needs but
intelligence, enthusiasm, and combination, to make it
a reality even in our own day. We, at least, will never
falter. We stretch out our hands for help, co-operation,
and encouragement, to all creeds and all nationalities,
ready ourselves to render assistance in every struggle
against class injustice and individual greed. The land
of England is no mean heritage; there is enough and
to spare for all; with the powers mankind now possess
wealth may easily be made as plentiful as water at the
expense of trifling toil. But to-day the worn-out wage
slaves of our boasted civilisation look hopelessly at the
wealth which they have created to be devoured only by
the rich and their hangers-on. To the abject poor
patriotism is but a mockery, all talk of happiness, of
beauty, of morality, is a sneer. We call, then, upon
every lover of freedom to support us in our endeavour
to form a real party of the people, which shall secure a
noble future for our own and other lands.
The aims and objects of the Democratic Federation
�are before you.
organised effort.
Success can only be achieved by
Educate !
We shall need all our intelligence.
Agitate !
We shall need all our enthusiasm.
Organise !
We shall need all our force.
EDUCATE !
(Signed)
June, 1883.
A GITA TE !
ORGA NISE !
The Executive Committee,
Democratic Federation.
The Federation consists of branches in various towns,
membership of which is open to all who hold the prin
ciples set forth in the manifesto of the body, and who
subscribe to its programme. Subscription id. per week.
Further information can be obtained by reading
EVERY
SATURDAY.
“JUSTICE”
w
1
ONE
PENNY.
A paper managed by working men, and edited by a
working man. It can be obtained from any newsagent,
or will be forwarded for 13 weeks to any address if is.
8d. is sent to The Modern Press, 13, Paternoster Row,
London, E.C.
Full particulars can be obtained by writing to the
Secretary, Social-Democratic Federation,
Bridge House, Blackfriars, E.C.
�MANIFESTO
OF THE
Social-Democratic Federation.
Issued after the West End Riots, Feb. 8, 1886.
15^ February.
Fellow Citizens,
We invite you to attend a mass meeting of employed
and unemployed workers in Hyde Park, at 3.30 p.m.
punctually, on Sunday next, February 21st, to demand
that the Government should organise the labour of
those who are now starving, owing to no fault of their
own, and should, as at other periods of distress, com
mence useful public works, paying to those engaged rates
of wages sufficient to ensure a healthy subsistence.
In calling this meeting we earnestly appeal to all who
attend it, whether in or out of work, to help us to keep
order. Those who understand the vital importance of
the Social-Democratic movement to workers of every
grade will be the first to put down any attempts of their
enemies to discredit the cause of the people, or to
endanger that right of public meeting which can alone
enable the producing class to gain any real advantage
without bitter civil strife.
The objects of the Social-Democrats when attained
will benefit not the workers only but even those who
to-day live in luxury, at the expense of the misery and
�12
degradation of the labourers. The present hopeless
breakdown shows clearly enough that the upper and
middle classes are unable to handle the industrial
machinery even to their own profit. Hundreds of
thousands of our fellows eager to do' useful work, in
order to maintain themselves and their families in
reasonable comfort, find that they cannot earn sufficient
wages to give them the bare necessaries of life. At the
same time the very goods which they themselves most
want are unsaleable because the producers are thus
denied the possibility of purchasing them. Even the
employed must know that the lot of their workless
fellows to-day may be theirs to-morrow. The uncer
tainty of employment is yearly increasing in every trade,
while in many branches men over forty years of age are
systematically refused work.
Hard times now come much oftener than formerly and
each crisis lasts longer than the one before. The
reason of this is that the workers themselves, having no
property, are forced to compete with one another for
subsistence wages, and have nothing to do with the dis
posal of the wealth which they produce for the profit of
others. When capitalists cannot mike that profit, they
cut their men adrift.
What is to be done? The landlords and capitalists
practically confess that they, at least do not know.
When forced to recognize that people will no longer
starve in silence, they condemn skilled artizans as well
as famine-stricken labourers to prove that poverty is
their only crime by breaking stones or picking oakum
at tenpence a day; or they endeavour to salve their
consciences, shocked by the misery which clamours at
�*3
their doors, by the pitiful expedient of an unasked-for
charity.
Social-Democrats alone dare deal directly with the
difficulty. More than two years ago as palliatives for
the serious distress which even then prevailed, we
issued the following proposals :—
“ i.—That no Government servant be employed at his
or her present wages for a longer period than eight
hours in each day. This alone would give room for
many now out of work, seeing that the ordinary hours
of work in the Post Office and other State establish
ments are from ten to twelve hours, or more, in the day.
2. —That all uncultivated Crown, or other lands, or
lands now in pasture, which in the opinion of skilled
agriculturists, would best pay to cultivate, be at once
worked with improved machinery by such of the unem
ployed as are accustomed to or would prefer agricultural
occupation. These labourers to be paid the rate of
wages which, in the judgment of a board of assessors,
shall be sufficient to keep them and their families in
health and comfort, or that such necessary food be sup
plied at cost at a general meal, lodging being provided
on the spot. An equitable portion of the profits, if
any, derived 'from such farming operations to be divided
from time to time among the people employed.
3. —That any public works oi importance in or near
any industrial centre—such as artisans’ dwellings, em
bankment of rivers, construction of canals or aqueducts
—should be begun at once instead of their commence
ment being deferred ; and that the same rate of wages
be paid, in proportion to cost of living, to the workers
employed that is paid to the agricultural labourers, or
�*4
that their feeding be conducted on wholesale principles
as above. That if, on valuation of works completed
any profit should be shown above what such works
would have cost, at rates of wages for similar work
averaged for the last five years, an equitable proportion
of such profit be divided among the labourers.
4. —That, where possible, light relief works on similar
principles should be commenced for those women or
men, who are incapable of heavy labour; or that they
be engaged on clothing or other work which they could
exchange through the State with the products of those
who are at work upon the land.
5. —That the cost of the initial proceedings and the
payment of wages be met by the ratepayers and the
State in equal portions, or in such proportions as may
be determined. The advantage to the ratepavers is that
able-bodied persons would be engaged upon beneficial
remunerative labour, instead of upon useless workhouse
tasks ; the advantage to the State would be that no
permanent pauperism would result from the prevailing
depression. Therefore the Municipalities and the State
should at once organise the unemployed labour and
thereby save expense later.”
To these we would now add free dinners for the
children in all Board Schools, as nothing is more
terrible for the workers at times like these than to see the
health of their offspring ruined for life by sheer lack of
nourishment.
Is this incendiarism ? Are these proposals anarch
ical ? That they can be but temporary expedients
we readily admit. But every man must acknowledge
that a society in which the statement of such elemen
�tary truths as that men should be allowed to work and
children to eat is accounted revolutionary cannot long
be propped up even by the adoption of the continental
methods of police repression or the arbitrary despotism
of a military governor.
All the facts around us confirm us in the conviction
that the class supremacy due to historical development is
even now being sapped by the growth of new economical
foims. The scientific truths on which this belief isfounded,
can be studied in the authorised publications of the
Social-Democratic Federation.
We call then upon the workers of London and of
these islands to stand side by side with us in orderly
union, to the end that they may organise for themselves
and for their children a sound system of national and
international co-operation which shall happily replace
the anarchy and misery of to-day. The work that we
have taken up is no light one, but the object is noble
and the reward is sure.
Let the governing classes face the inevitable downfall
of a decaying civilisation without hypocrisy and without
panic.
On them rests the responsibility of a
peaceful or a forcible issue to the last great class
struggle of our times. Here in the centre of capitalist
domination and commercial greed we at least are
resolved to continue our efforts, confident that they
must lead to the final emancipation of labour and to
the conquest of the future by the workers of the world.
(Signed)
The General Council of the
Social-Democratic Federation.
�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 is now suffering five years imprison
ment at the hands of the French Republic for advocating the cause of the
workers.
Herbert Spencer on Socialism. By Frank
Fairman.
16-pp. crown 8-vo., price id.
The Robbery of the Poor. By w. H. P.
Campbell.
New Edition.
Paper wrapper, price 6d.
The Man with the Red Flag: Being John
Burns’ Speech at the Old Bailey, when tried for Seditious
Conspiracy, on April gth, 1886. (From the Verbatim
Notes of the official shorthand reporter). With Portrait.
Price 3d.
What an Eight Hour Bill Means. By T.
Mann, (Amalgamated Engineers).
Price id.
Socialism and Slavery. By H. M. Hyndman.
(In reply to Mr. Herbert Spencer’s Article on “The
Coming Slavery ”). New Edition. 16-pp., Royal'8-vo.
Price id.
The Modern Press, 13, Paternoster Row, E.C.
And W. L. ROSENBERG, 56, East Fourth Street, New
York City.
�
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 & 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
Socialism made plain and "The Unemployed" : being two manifestoes of the Social-Democratic Federation
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Social-Democratic Federation
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 15, [1] p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: First manifesto (p. 1 to 10) titled, 'Socialism Made Plain, being the Social and Political Manifesto of the Democratic Federation'. Second manifesto (p. 11 to 15) titled, 'Manifesto of the Social-Democratic Federation. Issued after the West End Riots, Feb. 8 1886'. End of text of first manifesto dated June, 1883. Second manifesto dated, 15th February [1886]. Publisher's advertisements on page [2] and on unnumbered page at end.
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
T465
Subject
The topic of the resource
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 (Socialism made plain and "The Unemployed" : being two manifestoes of the Social-Democratic Federation), 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
Political Manifesto
Socialism
Unemployment
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/1158e85b09dfca834c59418580ed93a7.pdf?Expires=1779926400&Signature=K9f1Icea-23klcPvhFMXyydH436KON14eKjKl-eoQXMFsUXuh4U00qCJqaw3mbt0PI%7Ec%7Eo2ZcWudWF6lZ7fOlQqidh1QkxFPmvAYym3gNkgMqvobKjEd4VDNheCyTI85aQx6SnkHqjFz%7Eir9595iBC06iCDeSv%7EQxeC5638%7EHR6idDHi9JsvyAOwRuEtzzzlXNzfuCtdlaWxg5yOM6W4F5Eqh5BG7BpPf7dP9SbejANxavjkHbVIxeyrSsL4TxUcdd9TqdRhNdQlWUY3lUgNHowtRNB4031yis1H%7Ep7dwxPLZBCjISyhF5HlgHspKZTO3uu-m71rqh5QmefzneB2xg__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
a24dfb5bb13874813cca8f04a22446a9
PDF Text
Text
OU
T2ETZE
Bights nf I’alunir
ACCORDING TO
JOHN RUSKIN.
ARRANGED BY
TLLOIVE^NS BARCLAY.
WITH-INTRODUCTION BY
JAMES HOLMES, Sec. Amalgamated Hosiery Union.
.
. .
“ I know no better definition of the rights of man
SHALT NOT STEAL I
THOU SHALT NOT BE STOLEN FROM:
Thou
what a Society
were that—Plato’s Republic.. More’s Utopia, mere emblems of it!
Give every man what is his—the accurate price of what he has done and
been—no more shall any complain, neither shall the earth suffer any
more.”—Carlyle.
Chas. D. Merrick, Printer, 34, Cank Street, Leicester.
�INTRODUCTION.
He that will not follow truth, is a slave to error, and he that shrinks
from the full examination of all opinions on vital questions, is either more in
love with his own opinions than with truth, which is egotism : or he is afraid
of truth, which is cowardice.
Equality of social condition should be the aim of all good men. The
basis of true worth is manhood and womanhood, touched into sweetness
by fraternity and justice.
Labour is the great equaliser—and all capable men and women in a happy
and progressive community must work either with head or hand or both.
What a revolution would be produced if the words attributed to St. Paul
were applied to Modem Society and enforced; “ If a man will not work
neither should he eat! ” What a driving out of Royal and Aristocratic drones
would take place ; and what a decrease of gout there would be I Then what
should the labourer get for his work ;—a mere pittance in the form of wages,
without any thought as to whether the wages are sufficient or not? No;
emphatically no ! He should have a full reward in the full produce of labour,
so that he might have in health more than enough, then he might provide for
sickness when it overtakes him, and a competence for old age, so that life may
be made worth living to the workers instead of millions of money accumulating
in the hands of a few,—like the Rothschilds—who are said to be worth
£200,000,000, not obtained by labour or honest exchange, but from the produce
of labour, of which the labourers have been spoiled.
These statements, by many, may be thought extreme, and contrary to our
best and greatest thinkers and teachers of Political Economy. Take these
words from one who has been called “ The Father of Political Economy”:—
“ The produce of labour constitutes the natural recompense or wages of labour.”
(Wealth of Nations, chap, 8). Thus we see that our statements are strictly in
accord with Adam Smith. Labour is the foundation of real dignity, for only
by it do we contribute to the well being of one another.
In the title of the pamphlet containing the teachings of the high-toned,
moral, and original teacher—John Ruskin-the same truth is implied. In his
words are couched some of the truest and noblest ideas. But very few working
men have either the time or means to get at the works of great minds like
Ruskin, so the arranger of the following extracts has culled from his book—
“ Unto this last,” some of the best teachings on the question of labour and
wages, which I think has been done wisely and well; and if working men will
only d'ink of the stream brought to their doors, they will be refreshed thereby,
Read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest the great truths here set forth.
On the organization of labour I would specially call your attention to the
following points . “Training Schools for youth, in which there shall be taught:
(a) the laws of health; (b) habits of gentleness and justice ; and (c) the calling
by which he (the youth) is to live.” These kind of schools exist to day in
Sweden, Germany and Switzerlani ; and to the matter, under the headings
—“ His scheme,”—“ Riches and Wealth,”—“Proof/’—“The whole question
one of justice.”—-“Injustice of the present system,”—“Wages,”—“Cause of
Poverty,”—“The true function of the Capitalist,” and “Last Words.”
Let us all endeavour to become mire thoughtful, competent, intelligent as
workers, making the best we can of our time, money, and energy, for the im
provement of the great body of the world’s workers, and help to make it as
impossible for the idlers to thrive as it is for the drones to live among the bees.
JAMES HOLMES.
�THE
RIGHTS OF LABOUR
According to JOHN RUSKIN.
jlrHE object of this pamphlet is to place before the workers,
in a cheap form, the main views of one of the greatest
thinkers of any age, on a subject that ought to interest them more
than any other. The subject is Political Economy, in other
words, the relation of Capital and Labour. Until working men
understand thoroughly what this relation is, all hope is vain of
bettering their condition as a class.
“Unto this Last,” is the book from which the following extracts
are taken. It met with bitter opposition from all the usual
enemies of the working man—including Press, Priests, and Pro
fessors The author had great difficulty in getting it published ;
a fact not to be wondered at when we consider its revolutionary.
character, combined with the logic, grace, and vigour, of which
he is so capable. The Greeks fabled Plato as born with a nest
of bees in his mouth, emblematical of his future honeyed
words. They said, if the Gods came down to dwell among men,
they would speak the language of Plato. Mr. Ruskin has been
aptly termed “ The modern Platothere can be no doubt the
resemblance'is strong. Mazzini describes him as “The most
analytic mind in Europe.” His lofty morality is a reproach to
bishopdom. He lashes the hypocrite and scourges the oppressor;
Meanness and injustice fall back from his terrific onslaught.
Sweet to the innocent and good ; Gentle to the erring and unfor
tunate. True Philosopher; mighty Poet without the name,
Prophet too; not a visionary, but one who sees the very truth,—no will-o’-the-wisp, but a beacon-light to lighten men’s darkness,—
a great teacher, whose clear, brilliant, and powerful language, is but
the fitting conductor of original and valuable thought. Such
is Ruskin,
’ In order to estimate him the more accurately, we are going to
let him speak for himself, only occasionally making a note or
comment.
�4
Mr, Ruskin’s Objects.
He informs us in his preface, that his first object is to give an
accurate and stable definition of Wealth, and as he believes
“ for the first time in plain English.” His second object is to
show that “ the acquisition of wealth is finally possible only under
certain moral conditions of society—of which, quite the first, is a
belief in the existence, and, even for practical purposes, in the
attainability of honesty.” A third object is the organization of
labour ; but this he only casually touches upon, because he thinks
it simple “if we can once get a sufficient quantity of honesty,” and
impossible if we cannot.
His Scheme.
Mr. Ruskin has a scheme of organization of labour, and the
most extraordinary part, is that dealing with wages, which, it is
contended, should be fixed. “ Lest,” he says, “the reader should
be alarmed by the hints thrown out during the following investiga
tion of first principles, I will state at once the worst of the creed
at which I wish him to arrive :
Firstly—There should be training schools for youth, established
at government cost and under government discipline, over the
whole country; that every child born in the country should, at
the parents’ wish be permitted, and in certain cases be under
penalty required to pass through them ; and that in these schools
the child should, with other minor pieces of knowledge hereafter
to be considered, imperatively be taught, with the best skill of
teaching that the country could produce, the following three things:
(a) —The laws of health and the exercises enjoined by them ;
(b) —Habits of gentleness and justice ; and
(c) —The calling by which he is to live.
Secondly—That in connection with these training schools, there
should be established, also entirely under government regulation,
manufactories and workshops for the production and sale of every
necessary of life, and for the exercise of every useful art. And
that, interfering no whit with private enterprise, nor setting any
restraints or tax on private trade, but leaving both to do their best
and beat the government if they could—there should, at these
government manufactories and shops, be authoritatively good and
exemplary work done, and pure and true substance sold, so that a
man could be sure, if he chose to pay the government price, that
he got for his money bread that was bread, ale that was ale, and
work that was work.
�5
Thirdly.—That any man or woman, boy or girl, out of employ
ment, should be at once received at the nearest government school,
and set to such work as it appeared on trial they were fit for, at a
fixed rate of wages determined every year. That being found in
capable of work through ignorance, they should be taught, or being
found incapable of work through sickness should be tended ; but
that, being found objecting to work, they should be set under
compulsion of the strictest nature, to the more painful and degrad
ing forms of necessary toil, especially to that in mines and other
places of danger, (such danger being, however, diminished to the
utmost by careful regulation and discipline), and the due wages
of such work be retained—cost of compulsion first abstracted—
to be at the workman’s command so soon as he has come to
sounder mind respecting the laws of employment.
Lastly.—That for the old and destitute, comfort and home
should be provided; which provision, when misfortune had been,
by the working of such a system, sifted from guilt, would be
honourable instead of disgraceful to the receiver. For (I repeat
this passage out of my Political Economy of Art, to which the
reader is referred for further detail), ‘ a labourer serves his country
with his spade, just as a man in the middle ranks of life serves it
with sword, pen or lancet. If the service be less, and, therefore,
the wages during health less, then the reward when health is broken
may be less, but not less honourable; and it ought to be quite as
natural and straightforward a matter for a labourer to take his
pension from his parish because he has deserved well of his parish,
as for a man in higher rank to take his pension from his country,
because he has deserved well of his Country.”
Principles first.
So far, Mr. Ruskin’s scheme of organization, as given in his
preface, and which, though apart from his main work, it was
thought worth giving. As regards the expense of carrying out his
scheme, he contends that the economy in crime alone resulting
from the adoption of it, would support it ten times over ; as for
the rest, he bids the reader remember that “ in a science dealing
with, so subtle elements as those of human nature, it is only
possible to answer for the final truth of principles, not for the
direct success of plans. What can be immediately accomplished
is always questionable; what can be finally accomplished, incon
ceivable,”
What Political Economy is.
We now proceed to Mr. Ruskin’s Political Economy proper.
Political Economy, he says, “ consists in the production, preser
vation, and distribution, at fittest time and place, of useful or
�6
pleasurable things. The farmer who cuts his hay at the right time ;
the shipwright who drives his bolts well home in sound wood ; the
builder who lays good bricks in well-tempered mortar■ the house
wife who guards against all waste in the kitchen ; and the singer
who rightly disciplines and never overstrains his voice; are all
Political Economists in the true and final sense. Political Economy
teaches nations to desire and labour for the things that lead to life,
and to scorn and destroy the things that lead to destruction. And
if, in a state of infancy, they suppose indifferent things, such as ex
crescences of shell fish, and pieces of blue and red stone * to be
valuable, and spend a large measure of labour which ought to be
employed in the extension and ennobling of life, in diving and
digging for them, and cutting them into various shapes,—or if in
the same state of infancy, they imagine precious and beneficent
things, such as air, light and cleanliness, to be valueless
and peace, trust, and love, by which alone they can possess or use
anything to be prudently exchangeable when the market offers, for
gold, iron, and excrescences,—the only science of Political Econo
my teaches them in all these cases, what is vanity and what
substance.”
“ Theiobject of Political Economy is to get good method of
consumption, to use everything and to use it nobly,—consumption
absolute is the end, crown and perfection of production. Twenty
people can gain money tor one who can use it. The question for
a nation is not how much labour it employs, but how much life it
produces.”
What Wealth Is.
Mr. Ruskin goes on to ask what Wealth is; he draws attention to
the definition of Mr. Mill, who, he thinks, has written the “ most
reputed essay of modern times ” on the subject.
Mr. Mill says,
“To be wealthy, is to have a large stock of useful articles.” “ I
accept this definition ” says our author, “ but let us understand it,
ist.—What does to have mean? and.—What is the meaning of
useful? We will first examine our verb. As thus: Lately in a
wreck of a Californian ship, one of the passengers fastened a belt
about him with two hundred pounds of gold in it, with which he
was found afterwards at the bottom of the sea. Now, as he was
sinking—had he the gold ? or had the gold him ? I presume the
reader will see that possession, or having., consists not only in the
quantity or nature of the thing possessed, but also, (and in a
greater degree) in its suitableness to the person possessing it.
Therefore we must make the have depend upon a can, and say
the possession of useful articles which we can use. Next for our
* Pearls, saphires, and rubies.
�7
adjective. What is the meaning of usefult” It depends on the
person much more than the article, whether its usefulness or
ab-usefulness will be the quality developed in it. When you give
a man half-a-crown, it depends on his disposition whether he is
rich or po.or with it—whether he will buy disease, ruin, and hatred,
or buy health, advancement and domestic love. Thus the moral
elements—human capacities and dispositions, must be taken into
consideration. But the Economists tell us (Mill’s Political
Economy, Book iii. Chap. i. Sec. 2) moral considerations have
nothing to do with Political Economy.” Our author, of course,
here speaks ironically, and leaves us to draw our own conclusions.
Wealth and value are with Mr. Ruskin synonymous terms. Value
he derives from Latin valere, to be well, or strong in life, (if a man)
or valiant; strong for life, (if a thing) or valuable. To be valuable
is to avail towards life ; to make it so avail is to be valiant; and
wealth therefore is “ The Possession of the Valuable by the
Valiant.”
Difference between Riches and Wealth.
Mr. Ruskin makes a distinction between Wealth and Riches.
“ Riches ” he says, “ is a relative word implying its opposite
‘ poverty ’ as positively as the word ‘ north ’ implies its opposite
‘south.’
The force ^of the,guinea you have in your pocket
depends wholly on the default of a guinea in your neighbour’s
pocket. If he did not want it, it would be of no use to you. The
degree of power it possesses, depends accurately upon the need or
desire he has for it; and the art of making yourself rich in the
ordinary mercantile sense, is therefore equally and necessarily the
art of keeping your neighbour poor. There is precisely as much
poverty or debt on one side, as riches on the other; therefore
riches do not necessarily involve an addition to the actual property,
or well-being of the state in which they exist. The power of
riches is in an inverse proportion to the number of persons who
are as rich as ourselves, and who are ready to give the same price
for an article of which the supply is limited. To become rich wre
must establish the maximum of inequality in our own favour.”
These statements Mr. Ruskin attempts to prove by examples.
Proof.
He supposes “Two sailors cast away on an uninhabited coast
maintaining themselves by their own labour. Their Political Econ
omy would consist in careful preservation and just division of
their possessions. But suppose that one fell ill at a critical time_
�8
him. The companion might say with perfect justice ‘ I will do
this additional work for you, but you must do as much for me
another time. I will count the hours I spend on your ground,
and you will give me the same number whenever I need your
help, and you are able to give it.’ Suppose the disabled man’s
sickness to continue for several years, what will be the positions of
the two men when the invalid is able to resume work? As a
community they must be poorer than if no sickness had taken place.
The healthy man may have toiled with an energy quickened by
the enlarged need, but in the end, his own property must have
suffered by the withdrawal of his time and thought from it. This
is, of course, an example of one only out of many ways in which
inequality of possession may be established, giving rise to the mer
cantile forms of riches and poverty. In the instance before us,
one of the men might from the first have directly chosen to be
idle, and to put his life in pawn for present ease; or he might have
mismanaged his land, and been compelled to have recourse to his
neighbour for food ’and help, pledging his future labour for it.
But what I want the reader to note is the fact that the establish
ment of the mercantile wealth which consists in a claim upon
labour, signifies a political diminution of the real wealth which
consists in substantial possessions.
Take another example, more consistent with the ordinary
course of affairs of trade. Suppose three men, instead of two, to
form a little isolated republic. Suppose the third man undertakes
to superintend the transference of commodities for the other two.
If this carrier, or messenger, always brings to each estate, from the
other what is chiefly wanted at the right time, the operations of
the two farmers will go on ’prosperously and the largest possible
result in produce be obtained. But suppose no intercourse
between the land-owners is possible, except through the travelling
agent, and that, after a time, this agent, watching the course of
each man’s agriculture, keeps back the articles entrusted, until
there comes a period of extreme necessity for them on one side or
the other, and then exacts in exchange for them, all that the dis
tressed farmers can spare of other kinds of produce. He might
eventually become possessed of the superfluous produce of the two
estates, and in some year of scarcity purchase them both for him
self, and maintain the former proprietors thence-forward as his
labourers or servants. This would be a case of commercial wealth
acquired on the exactest principles of modern Political Economy.
But more distinctly even than'in the former instance, it is manifest
that the wealth of the state, or three men considered as a society,
is less than jt would have been had the merchant been content
with juster profit. The operations of the two agriculturalists have
�9
been cramped to the utmost; the continual limitation of the things
they wanted at critical times, together with the failure of courage
consequent on the prolongation of a struggle for mere existence,
without any sense of permanent gain, will have diminished the
result of their labor ; and the stores finally accumulated by the
merchant (the carrier or messenger) will not in anywise be equi
valent to those which, had his dealings been honest, would have
filled at once the granaries of the farmers and his own.
The Whole Question one of Justice.
“ The whole question, therefore, respecting not only the ad
vantage but even the quantity of national wealth, resolves itself
finally into one of abstract justice. It is impossible to conclude
of any given mass of acquired wealth whether it signifies good or
evil, because it may be indicative on the one hand of faithful in
dustries, progressive energies, and productive ingenuities, or, on
the other, it may be indicative of ruinous chicane, mortal luxury,
merciless tyranny. One mass of money is the outcome of action
which has created,—another, of action which has annihilated,—ten
times as much in the gathering of it; such and such strong hands
have been paralysed as if they had been numbed by nightshade ; so
many strong men’s courage broken ; this and the other false direc
tion given to labour, and lying image of prosperity set up. That
which seems to be wealth, may in verity be only the gilded index
of far-reaching ruin—a wrecker’s handful of coin gleaned from the
beach to which he has beguiled an argosy.” Mr. Ruskin con
cludes this part of the subject with a classification of the people
who become rich, and the people who remain poor, respectively, in
a community regulated only by supply and demand. The persons
who became rich are, generally speaking, “industrious, resolute,
proud, covetous, prompt, methodical, sensible, unimaginative, insen
sitive, and ignorant.” The persons who remain poor are, “ the
entirely foolish, the entirely wise, the idle, the reckless, the humble,
the thoughtful, the dull, the imaginative, the sensitive, the wellinformed, the improvident, the impulsively wicked, the clumsy
knave, the open thief, and the entirely merciful and just person.”
Capital,
Mr. Ruskin next discourses of that kind of wealth known as
Capital. Capital signifies “ head, source, or root. It is a root
that does not enter into vital function until it produces something
else than a root—something different from itself. Capital that pro
duces nothing but capital is only root producing root, bulb issuing
in bulb ; seed issuing in seed—never in bread. “ The best and
�io
simplest type of capital is a well-made ploughshare, and the true
question for every capitalist is not ‘how many ploughs have
you ?’ but ‘ where are your furrows ?’ not, ‘ how quickly will this
capital reproduce itself?’ but ‘ what substance will it furnish good
for life ? What work construct protective of life ? if none, its own
reproduction is useless—if worse than none ffor capital may destroy
life as well as support it) its own reproduction is worse than
useless.” As might be expected from the foregoing, Mr. Ruskin’s
views on the employment of capital are utterly at variance with those
of current political economy
Injustice of the Present System.
“ There is not in history,” says he, “record of anything so dis
graceful to the human intellect as that the commercial text, “Buy
in the cheapest market, sell in the dearest,” could represent an
available principle of economy. Charcoal may be cheap among
your roof timbers after a fire, and bricks may be cheap after an
earthquake................ There are few bargains in which the buyer
can ascertain with precision that the seller would have taken no
less—or the seller, that the purchaser would have given no more.
This prevents neither from striving to injure the other, nor from
accepting for a scientific principle that he is to buy for the least
and sell for the most, though what the real least or most may be,
he cannot tell. In like manner a just person lays it down for a
principle that he is to pay a just price without being able to ascer
tain precisely the limits of such price. Now it is easier to deter
mine what a man ought to have for his work, than what his
necessities will compel him to take for it. There is no equitable
reason in a man’s being poor, that if he give me a pound of bread
to-day I should return him less than a pound of bread to-morrow.
Again, I want a horseshoe for my horse. Twenty smiths, or
20,000 smiths, may be ready to forge it; their number does not in
one atom’s weight affect the question of the equitable payment of
the one who does forge it. The “robbery of the poor because
they are poor,” says our author elsewhere, “ is especially the mer
cantile form of theft. The ordinary highwayman’s opposite form
of robbery of the rich because they are rich, being less profitable
and more dangerous than the robbery of the poor, is rarely prac
tised by persons of discretion!'
Wages.
We must now consider Mr. Ruskin’s ideas on the recompense
of labour, and the method of the recompense. “Perhaps,” says
he, “ one of the most curious facts in the history of human error,
is the denial bv the political economist of the nosihilif-v r>f
�ri
lating wages so as to fix the rate ; while for all the important, and
most of the important labour on the earth, wages are already so
regulated. We do not sell our Prime-ministership by Dutch
auction; nor on the decease of a bishop, whatever may be the
advantages of simony, do we (yet) offer his diocese to the clergy
man who will take it at the lowest contract. Sick, we do not
inquire for a physician who takes less than a guinea : Litigious,
we never think of reducing six-and-eightpence to four-and-sixpence.
The best labour always has been, and is, as all labour ought to be,
paid by an invariable standard, ‘What,’the reader perhaps answers
amazedly, ‘ pay good and bad workmen alike ?”
Certainly ! You pay with equal fee your good and bad phy
sician and prime-minister, why not your bricklayer ? “ Nay, but
I choose my physician. By all means choose your bricklayer; that
is the proper reward of the good workman, to be “ chosen.” The
natural and right system respecting all labour is that it should be
paid at a fixed rate, but the good workman employed, and the
bad workman unemployed. The false, unnatural, and destructive
system is, when the bad workman is allowed to offer his work at
half-price, and either take the place of the good, or force him by
his competition to work for an inadequate sum. So far as you
employ it at all, bad work should be paid no less than good work ;
as a bad clergyman takes his tithes, a bad physician his fee, and a
bad lawyer his costs; this I say partly because the best work
never was nor ever will be done for money at all, but chiefly
because the moment the people know they have to pay the bad
and good alike, they will try to discern the one from the other,
and not use the bad. A sagacious writer in The Scotsman asks
me if I should like any common scribbler to be paid by Smith,
Elder & Co., as their good authors are ? I should if they em
ployed him; but would seriously recommend them, for the
scribbler’s sake, as well as their own, not to employ him. In
practice, according to the laws of demand and supply, when two
men are ready to do the work, and only one man wants to have
it done, the two men underbid each other for it, and the one who
gets it to do is underpaid. But when two men want the work
done, and there is only one man ready to do it, the two men who
want it done overbid each other, and the workman is overpaid.”
Mr, Ruskin goes in for just pay.
On this question of labour and its reward, we will quote one
more extract from him : “ I have been naturally asked several
times, ‘ But what are you to do with your bad unemployed
workmen ?’ Well, it seems to me the question might have
occurred to you before. Your housemaid’s place is vacant—vou
�12
give ^20 a-year. Two girls come for it—one neatly dressed, the
other dirtily; one with good recommendations, the other with
none. You do not, under these circumstances, usually ask the
dirty one if she will come for ^15 or ^12 , and on her consent
ing take her instead of the well-recommended one. Still less do
you try to beat both down by making them bid against each
other till you can hire both, one at ^£12 a-year, the other at ^8.
You simply take the one fittest for the place and send away the
other, not perhaps concerning yourself with the question you now
so impatiently put to me. ‘ What is to become of her ?’ Verily
it is a question of weight. ‘ Your bad workman, idler, and rogue,
what are you to do with him ? Meantime, consider whether it
may not be advisable to produce, as few as possible. If you
examine into the history of rogues you will find that they are as
truly manufactured articles as anything else, and it is just because
our present system of Political Economy gives so large a stimulus
to that manufacture, thafyou may know it to be a false one. We
had better seek for a system which will develope honest men, than
for one which will deal cunningly with vagabonds.
How to get the most Work out of a man.
The greatest average of work and greatest benefit to the com
munity would be obtained from a servant by our present pro
cedure, if he were an engine of which the motive power was
steam, magnetism, gravitation, or any other agent of calculable
force. But the largest quantity of work will be done by this
curious engine man, when the motive force—that is to say, the
will or spirit of the creature is brought to its greatest strength by
its own proper fuel; namely, by the affections.
Observe, I am here considering the affections wholly as a motive
power; not at all as things in themselves desirable or noble. I
look at them simply as an anomalous force, rendering every one
of the ordinary Political Economist’s calculations nugatory . . . .
If the master, instead of endeavouring to get as much work as
possible from the servant, seeks rather to render his appointed
and necessary work beneficial to him, and to forward his interests
in all just and wholesome ways, the real amount of work ultimately
done, or of good rendered by the person so cared for, will indeed
be the greatest possible. Nor is this one whit less true because
indulgence will be frequently abused and kindness met with in
gratitude. For the servant who, gently treated, is ungrateful,
treated ungently, will be revengeful; and the man who is dishonest
to a liberal master, will be injurious to an unjust one. And as
�i3
with servants, so with employees. The only means which the
master has of doing justice to the men employed by him, is to ask
himself sternly whether he is dealing with such as he would with
his own son, if compelled by circumstances his son had to take
such a position. As the captain of a ship is bound to be the last
man to leave his ship in case of wreck, and to share his last crust
with the sailors in case of famine, so the manufacturer in any
commercial crisis or distress, is bound to take the suffering of it
with his men, and even to take more of it for himself than he
allows his men to feel—as a father would in a famine, shipwreck,
or battle, sacrifice himself for his son.
The true function of the Capitalist.
For the manufacturer’s or merchant’s function in a state is to
provide for it as the soldier’s is to defend it, the physician’s to keep
it in health, and the lawyer’s to enforce justice in it. It is no more
the function of the merchant to get profit, for himself, than it is a
teacher’s to get his stipend. The stipend is a due and necessary
adjunct, but not the object of his life, if he is a true teacher, any
more than his fee (or honorarium) is the object of life to a true
physician. Each has a work to do irrespective of fee—to be done
at any cost. All of which sounds very strange : the only real
strangeness in the matter being, nevertheless, that it should so
sound. For all this is true, and that not partially nor theoretically,
but everlastingly and practically; all other doctrine than this
respecting matters political being false in premises, absurd in
deduction, and impossible in practice, consistently with any pro
gressive state of national life.” It is impossible to do justice to
Mr. Ruskin in a short pamphlet like this. Those who are interested
in Political Economy (which is essentially the science of the
working-man), should co-operate to get his book and study for
themselves. One or two more extracts and we must draw to a
close.
The Cause of Poverty.
Speaking of the poor, our author says, “ Their distress (irres
pective of that caused by sloth, minor errors, or crime), arises on
the grand scale from the two reacting forces of competition and
oppression. In all the ranges of human thought, I know none so
melancholy as the speculations of Political Economists on the
population question. It is proposed to better the condition of the
labourer by giving him higher wages. ‘ Nay,’ says the economist,
‘ if you raise his wages, he will either people down to the same
point of misery at which you found him, or drink your wages away.
�14
He will, I know it ! ’ Who gave him this will ? Suppose it were
your own son of whom you spoke, declaring to me that you dared
not take him into your firm, nor even give him his just labourer’s
wages, because if you did, he would die of drunkenness, and leave
half a score of children to the parish. ‘Who gave your son these
dispositions?’ I should enquire, ‘ Has he them by inheritance or
by education ? By one or the other they must come ; and as in
him so also in the poor. Either these poor are of a race essentially
different from ours, and unredeemable, (which, however often
implied, I have heard none yet openly say,) or else by such care
as we have ourselves received, we may make them continent and
sober as ourselves—wise and dispassionate as we are—models
arduous of imitation.”
Are there too many of us ?
“ There is not yet, nor will yet for ages be, any real over popula
tion in the world ; but a local over-population, or more accurately,
a degree of population locally unmanageable under existing circum
stances, for want of forethought and sufficient machinery,
necessarily shows itself by pressure of competition; and the taking
advantage of this competition by the purchaser to obtain their
labour unjustly cheap, consumates at once their suffering and his
own. The multiplication of animals is checked only by want of
food, and by the hostility of races ; the population of the gnat is
restrained by the hunger of the swallow, and that of the swallow
by the scarcity of gnats. Man, considered as an animal, is indeed
limited by the same laws : hunger or plague, or war, are the
necessary and only restraints upon his increase—effectual restraints
hitherto—his principal study having been how most swiftly to
destroy himself, or ravage his dwelling-place; and his highest
skill directed to give range to the famine, seed to the plague, and
sway to the sword. But, considered as other than an animal, his
increase is not limited by these laws, but by his courage and his
love. His race has its bounds, but these have not yet been
reached, nor will be reached for ages. The art of life has yet to
be learned. It is one very awful form of the operations of wealth
in Europe that it is entirely capitalists’ wealth which supports unjust
wars. Just wars do not need so much money to support them. They
are waged gratis. Nations like France and England have not
grace nor honesty enough in all their multitudes to buy an hour’s
piece of mind with—purchasing of each other ten millions sterling
worth of consternation annually : a remarkable crop—half thorns,
half aspen leaves—sown, reaped, and granaried by the ‘ science ’ of
the modern Polit:cal Economist teaching covetousness instead
of truth.............
�i5
Last Words.
“ Nevertheless, I desire to leave this one great fact clearly stated,
There, is no wealth but life, life including all its powers of love, of
joy, and of admiration. That country is the richest which
nourishes the greatest number of noble and happy human beings ;
that man is wealthiest who, having perfected the functions of his
own life to the utmost, has also the widest helpful influence, both
personal, and by means of his possessions, over the lives of others.
Strive then to make Economy the law of the house ; strict, simple,
generous ; waste nothing and grudge nothing; care in no wise to
make more of money, but care to make much of it; remembering
always the great, palpable, inevitable fact—-the rule and root of all
economy—that what one person has, another cannot have ; and
that every atom of substance, of whatever kind, used or consumed,
is so much human life spent—so much life spent either in
preventing and slaying of life, or in gaining more. Consider
whether, even supposing it guiltless, luxury would be desired by
any of us, if we saw clearly at our sides the suffering which accom
panies it in the world. Luxury is indeed possible in the future—
innocent and exquisite ; luxury for all and by the help of all : but
luxury at present can only be enjoyed by the ignorant. The
cruelest man living could not sit at his feast, unless he sat blind
fold. Raise the veil boldly—face the light. What is chiefly
needed to-day is the desire for a life rich by joyful human labour.
Scenes smooth in field, fair in garden, full in orchard; trim,
sweet, and frequent in homestead ; full of currents of undersound ;
triplets of birds, murmur and chirp of insects, deep-toned words
of men and wayward trebles of childhood. We need examples of
people who will show what the maximum quantity of pleasure is
that may be obtained by a consistent well-administered com
petence, modest, confessed, and laborious. Who will decide for
themselves that they will be happy in the world, and resolve
to seek—not greater wealth, but simpler pleasure; not higher
fortune, but deeper felicity : making the first of possession, self
possession and “ honouring themselves in the calm pursuits of
peace.”
What working man is there that will not reverence
these far-seeing and noble utterances of a great and good man,
devoted to the cause of the poor and down-trodden—showing the
truth and demanding justice.
At all events, reader, unless you have had a previous intro
duction, may we not count on having awakened an interest in you
to examine still further into the teachings of John Ruskin,
��
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 & 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 rights of labour : according to John Ruskin
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Ruskin, John [1819-1900]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: Leicester
Collation: 15 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: The binding process has trimmed the bottom edge too close to the text, taking away the last line on p. 7 and cutting through the last line on p. 10. Printed by Chas. D. Merrick, 34 Cane Street, Leicester.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
[s.n.]
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[n.d.]
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
T400
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Barclay, Thomas (arr)
Holmes, James
Subject
The topic of the resource
Socialism
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (The rights of labour : according to John Ruskin), identified by </span><span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span><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
Political Economy
Social conditions
Social conditions;Socialism
Socialism
Working Classes
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/6ea73c16174c3e137d46e7a0c3d5cdd9.pdf?Expires=1779926400&Signature=mj8kpcHBcsD7NqmD9kxCuRrMaDOKTfl7ZzktxWqlc%7EX5U-nqaXOd9Ssttf8kAikIFFVcVOPCz7Q3skc6Tsf5NlhBKynljdu%7ExPnMtbEoufe0y0xZAiUdG5pPKCrTmAiKFmU11LSs5jpqArgmWoG6o2MObaax7Y75HhbloYG8shJjPRzayMRw8xzcUm%7EaZA2Jfo-kuPVDtQrAf40k6VA-J3mOI7af8kRlo18mlC-Napndbcc2VWRmq9HDr8S2dpTWD-%7EoRtEHQ%7EmgA%7EXe751MmSyxVXbXgxsWlbLhuFDRwVHzM%7E7931Wl2dLd6H6KjTpdw94r7TggRc5CJ9FlbudYgA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
c029b94fa1cf05ebac9475f426a0d7a9
PDF Text
Text
11
PROBLEM
INDUSTRIAL
SOLVED.
BY
W. B. ROBERTSON.
“ England is full of wealth, of multifarious produce, supply for human want in
every kind—yet England is dying of inanition. With unabated bounty the land
of England blooms and grows; waving with yellow harvests; thick-studded with
workshops, industrial implements, with fifteen millions of workers, understood to
be the strongest, the cunningest, and the willingest our earth ever had ; these men
are here, the work they have done, the fruit they have realised is here, abundant,
exuberant on every hand of us; and behold some baleful fiat as of Enchantment
has gone forth, saying, ‘ Touch it not, ye master-workers, ye master-idlers ; none of
you can touch it, no man of you shall be the better for it; this is enchanted fruit.’ ”—
Thomas Carlyle {Past and Present}.
----- LENDING
sb
LONDON:
THE
MODERN
PRESS,
13,
PATERNOSTER
ROW,
E.C.
�CON TEN 7 S.
Overproduction
------
Overpopulation
.......
Remedy
.........
�OVERPRODUCTION. —I.
Y over-production is meant that there are more commodities
produced than can be sold. The problem, therefore, in
connexion with over-production is, why can this surplus of
commodities not be sold?
.Many writers, among them John Stuart Mill, deny the possibility of
a general over-supply. They maintain that, while there may be over
production as regards one or more kinds of commodities, there cannot
be over-production in all kinds, so long as there is a human want un
satisfied. It is impossible, for instance, to have an over-supply of food
so long as millions of our fellow-men are in need of the barest necessities
of life. If there be any strength in an argument like this at all, it would
follow, or rather it is implied in such argument, that the mere need, the
mere human desire, for any given commodity is sufficient to set the
machinery in motion to produce it. Here is a man with an empty
stomach and in need of a meal, this of itself, is, on such grounds, sufficient
to procure such meal; or here is another man with a bare back, and in
need of a coat, this is enough to procure him the coat.
Now it must be plain to every one, that those that have nothing but
empty stomachs and bare backs cannot influence in the slightest degree
the quantity of food that may be produced, or the quantity of coats that
may be made. Is any farmer going to plough and sow a field for men
that come to him with nothing except empty stomachs; or is any tailor
going to make coats for men that have nothing to show but bare backs ?
Here, however, from one of the Cobden Club publications, are facts
that show clearly enough that the quantity of food produced has nothing
to do with the number of people that are m need of food, that in fact
the more food there is, the greater will be the number of people in want.
In this pamphlet * we have the paradoxical statement that the present
depression, which set m in 1884, “ was the natural and necessary result
of the improved and fairly good harvest with which this country was
favoured in that year.” This statement the author (Augustus Mongredien) proves by figures taken from the Boardof Trade returns. Thus,
in 1884, our imports and exports together were twenty-five million odd
pounds sterling less than the average of the four previous years. This
* Trade Depression : Recent and Present.
�4
diminution is accounted for by the fact that in the same year “ our
foreign supplies of cereals fell short of the previous years to the extent
of 15^ millions of pounds sterling ; and to that extent, therefore, we may
infer that the home harvests of 1884 had exceeded in yield the harvests
of the previous few years.”
The effect of this extra harvest was, according to our authority, to
lessen directly our importations of cereals ; we had the cereals at home,
and consequently did not require to buy them from foreign countries.
Indirectly our exports were also lessened. Our whole foreign trade,
exports and imports together, by this good harvest, Mr. Mongredien
computes, was reduced by 43 millions of pounds sterling ; for he
considers the effects of this good harvest as extending into 1885. After,
making allowances he concludes, that this 43 millions worth of goods,
represents from 2,500 to 3,000 cargoes; by so many cargoes, therefore,
would our shipowners’ trade be lessened ; they would have that number
of cargoes the less to carry, This sudden diminution in their business
threw idle ships upon their hands; it then affected the shipbuilders, for
the shipowners having more ships than they could find employment for,
were of course not likely to order more. “ As a natural consequence,”
Mr. Mongredien proceeds, “ the diminished construction of ships (in
which the consumption of iron enters so largely) occasioned a propor
tionate falling off in the demand for that metal, so that (other causes
assisting) the wave of depression extended to the iron trade, and then
spread to the closely connected coal-producing industries and others,
which they influence more or less directly.
Moreover, it would
necessarily follow from there being between 2,500 and 3,000 fewer
cargoes to load and unload at our chief ports, London, Liverpool, Glas
gow, &c., that there would be less demand for persons living by that
kind of labour, so that a number of dock labourers of all sorts would be
thrown out of work. . . . On examination we find that the industries
which really did most suffer from the recent and present depression are
precisely those which we have enumerated above.”
Such then is the account of trade depression given by the Cobden
Club. There can be no questioning its accuracy so far as it goes; it
leaves us helpless, however—in fact, it paralyses us. The farmer always
endeavours to make his labour as productive as possible—the better his
crops the more he rejoices, and the more does the nation rejoice with
him. How tempered must this joy be though, if its cause is also to be
the means of throwing thousands of hard working men out of work, and
depriving them of the necessaries of life ! The bounties of Nature
would thus seem to benefit no one, for the more bountiful she is, the less
wrork is there for people to do, and in consequence the less able are they
to get at these bounties.
Besides the foregoing facts, we have others showing that .people may
and do suffer want in the midst of plenty. The stocks of wheat held in
Liverpool at the end of 1885 were 3,578,938 centals, while at the end of
1884 there were only 1,869,146 centals. Now, the winter 1885-6 was
marked by great distress throughout the country; and yet we were more
abundantly supplied in food-stuffs than we had ever been, for the figures
taken at other ports besides Liverpool showed the same increase. The
argument, therefore, that a general overproduction is impossible while
there is human want can no longer be maintained.
It now remains for us to explain why overproduction comes about, and
�5
why it is, as already remarked, that the more abundant commodities are,
the greater will be the number of people in want. For this purpose it
will be necessary for us to say a word upon the system of renumerating
labour.
The remuneration of every kind of labour is fixed in the same way,
viz., by competition. This competition may be amongst the employers,
or amongst the employed. When there is a great deal of work to be
done, when everybody is in employment, and there is still a demand for
more men, these additional men must be drawn from other masters ; and
to be so drawn inducements in the shape of higher wages must be held
out to them. Under circumstances like these wages tend to rise.
In a state of society, for example, such as that presented by a newly
settled country where human labour is little aided by machinery, the
labouring classes are,, it is well known, highly paid. The reason of this
is because labourers are few compared with the amount of work that is
offered. For these few labourers employers compete amongst themselves
—each one holding out better inducements than the other. Take
America some years ago ; wages were high then because there were
more labourers wanted than could be got. Not only were wages high,
but masters were very civil to their servants, as is evidenced by the fact
that servants were euphemistically called “ helps,” allowed to sit at the
same table with their employers, and treated in every way as equals.
This courtesy, on the part of employers, is rapidly disappearing with the
cause that gave rise to it; for labourers are no longer scarce in America,
and if a servant dislikes to be called a servant, he can go about his busi
ness—there are plenty others willing to take his place. It was the
scarcity of labour that gave rise to the appearance of a system of equality
in America, which many attributed to the Republican form of Govern
ment. The form of Government had nothing whatever to do with it. So
much then for the fixing of wages when labour is scarce.
When labour is plentiful, when there are a great many seeking
work, the labourers compete with one another for such employment as
there is to be had. This of course brings wages down. It is useless for
a man to offer his services for five shillings a day, when there are plenty
others willing to do the same thing for two shillings and sixpence. Thus
one man underbids another, and the one whose necessities are the
greatest is the one that will accept the lowest terms. It is this competi
tion amongst the working-classes that has brought wages down to star
vation point in the simpler kinds of work. Starving men and women
compete with starving men and women, and are glad to get the oppor
tunity of working long hours every day for a few coppers ; because this is
better than nothing at all.
The foregoing then is the method upon which wages are fixed, and it
operates in every department of human activity. The reason that a
navvy is worse paid than a mechanic is simply because there are more
men able to do navvy’s work than mechanic’s work, and the competition
is consequently keener amongst the navvies than amongst the mechanics.
We might go through all the different kinds of labour, and we wnuld
find that wages in each kind are high or low according to the relation
between the number of men seeking employment, and the quantity of
employment to be got. The law of wages, then, may be stated in these
words: Wages vary according to the relation between the quantity of
labour offered and the quantity of labour required.
�6
If people had borne this in mind, we would not have had so many ex
pressions.of surprise at the fact that our working population has made so
little, if, indeed, any progress. We often hear our great wealth spoken
of, the wonderful strides we have made, and yet only a few seem, and we
are told this with astonishment, to have participated in our increased
power. All this is quite in accordance with what Political Economy has
predicted, as is shown by the following passage from Ricardo;—“ If the
shoes and clothing of the labourer could, by improvements in machinery,
be produced by one fourth of the labour now necessary to their production,
they would probably fall 75 per cent.; but so far is it from being true,
that the labourer would thereby be enabled permanently to consume four
coats, or lour pairs of shoes, instead of one, that his wages would in no long
time be adjusted by the effects of competition, and the stimulus to popuation, to the new value of the necessaries on which they were expended. If
these improvements extended to all the objects of the labourers’ consump
tion, we should find him, probably at the end of a very few years,
in possession of only a small, if any, adddition to his enjoyments.”
This was written at the beginning of the present century.
It
afnounts to saying, “ It makes no difference how much you improve
your methods of production, the position of the labourer will
not be one whit the better; he will not enjoy any more of
the necessaries and conveniences of life, his command over these
necessaries and conveniences will always be just enough to enable him
to subsist and to raise up more labourers.” This is perfectly true. It
was at the beginning of the century, as we have just remarked, that
Ricardo wrote the passage. Since then, we have introduced improve
ments into every kind of work, -and the result is as predicted. The
labourers are poor and ignorant; they still toil unceasingly; and they
think themselves lucky if they can get the opportunity of undergoing
this toil.
We shall now endeavour to give more pointedly, the reason of this
anomalous position, the reason why in the midst of plenty people starve,
why, in fact, the more plentiful things are the less able are we to get at
them. As Carlyle says:—“ We have more riches than any nation ever
had before ; we have less good of them than any nation ever had before.
Our successful industry is hitherto unsuccessful; a strange success if we
stop here ! In the midst of plethoric plenty, the people perish ; with gold
walls and full barns, no man feels himself safe or satisfied. Workers,
master-workers, un workers, all men come to a pause ; stand fixed, and
cannot farther. Have’we actually got enchanted then ; accursed by
some God1”
Now let us offer a simple illustration of some of the economic effects
of such a system of remunerating labour. Suppose that the only thing
we did in this country was to make cotton—a single industry is supposed
because it simplifies matters ; suppose, moreover, that we could make
enough cotton to supply our own requirements for that article, and had
enough to send to other countries for our food and whatever else we
needed. At the beginning of the centruy we will further suppose that
everybody is employed, that there is nobody out of work, and the wages
are good enough to keep them comfortably and respectably. By and by
improved methods of production and transit are introduced, and to such
an extent that one man can do as much as five formerly did. As these
improvements are applied four men out of every five would be thrown
�out of work ; wages, moreover, would be reduced, for rather than be
thrown out of work the men would offer their services at a lower rate, and
competition amongst the workers would become keener. Here, then, with
an increasing power of production, we would have a reduced number of
consumers—these too getting a smaller share of the produce of their
labour. What under such circumstances can be more natural than a
glut, than over-production ?
With such a fair start then at the beginning of the century, we should
be as bad to-day as we now actually are. The men that had been thrown
out of work with every successive improvement, and their families, would
have to live somehow ; many of them would become thieves and vagrants,
many of them paupers. All this too would come about independently of
the extraordinary tendency of population to increase. When we take
this into account we can only wonder, not that evils are so rampant in
society, but that society has continued so long upon such a basis.
The hard lot of man then would appear not to be due to the niggard
liness of nature as we have been taught; to have no connection with the
curse that doomed him to eat his bread “ by the sweat of his brow.” It
is due to a mere convention, the shadowy nature of which will appear
clearly enough later on.
The real significance of over-production is to reduce our present indus
trial system to an absurdity. It is ridiculous for people to have to starve
because they have grown too much food, to go unclad because they have
made too many clothes, and unhoused because they have built too many
houses. There would be work for all the unemployed to-morrow if the
half of London were destroyed; there is nothing like calamities for
trade.
By bringing about over-production, then, the working population has
proved our present industrial system to be false; and how very unequal
that system is we see every day. Here in a few words is one of its most ■
glaring inequalities. The governing class has said to the working class,
you go to work under this system—your share of the result of your labour
will be fixed in this wise, our share of the result of your labour will be
fixed in this other wise. So the working population said all right, took up
their hammers and went to work. They weret old to work hard and ever
harder, and overseers were put to see that they did work hard. But
what is this that has come upon us now ? The governing class exclaim,
“ Stop ! you have produced too much ; you must lay down your hammers
until we require you again ; we have quite enough here of everything to
suit us—indeed more than enough. So you can go and shake your heels
outside there while we enjoy ourselves and consume the things that you
have made.”
OVER-POPULATION.—II.
The view that attributes our social disorders to the fact that we are
overpopulated, is perhaps more widely accepted than any other. The
reason for this is because it is an easily understood view. What can be
more clear than that, if there be a greater number of people in a commu
nity than can get employment, and if the livelihood of these people depend upon
their getting employment, the privation of those that cannot get employment
�8
is due to the fact that there is no room for them in such community ? At
one time it was universally believed that the sun moved round the earth ;
for what could be more clear than that, if Rome continued to remain in the
same spot and the sun every day passed over it, the sun must so move ?
Rome, however, did not continue to remain in the same spot; hence
what was so very clear was all wrong. Similarly the livelihood of man
does not depend upon his getting employment, it depends upon his get
ting the means of livelihood ; hence what is so very clear as to our being
over-populated, may also be all wrong. This is a point, however, that
remains for us to consider.
The reader has of course heard of Malthus and his celebrated essay on
“ Population.” In that essay it was shown that in every community the
number of members is limited by the means of subsistence at their
command; increase the subsistence and an increased population will
result; diminish the subsistence, and there follows a diminished popula
tion. “ This is incontrovertibly true,” he says. “ Through the animal
and vegetable kingdoms, Nature has scattered the seeds of life abroad
with the most profuse and liberal hand; but has been comparatively
sparing in the room and the nourishment necessary to rear them. The
germs of existence contained in this earth, if they could freely develop
themselves, would fill millions of worlds in a few thousand years.
Necessity, that imperious, all pervading law of nature, restrains them
within the prescribed bounds. The race of plants, and the race of
animals shrink under this great restrictive law; and man cannot by any
efforts of reason escape from it.” Such was the truth that Malthus
laboured to enforce—a truth that one would have thought so self-evident
as not to need enforcing. His essay, however, is really nothing more
than a demonstration of the extraordinary strength of the principle of
self- con servation.
Malthusians consider themselves followers of Malthus on the ground
that they accept and seek to promulgate his views on population. Let
us consider for a moment their position.
This country, they say, is over-populated. Why I Because there
are more people in it wanting work than can get work ; many are con
sequently compelled to idleness, these not having any other way of
procuring the necessaries of life except by labour, are consequently
either thrown upon the generosity of their friends or become recipients
of public relief, or criminals. In this simple way does the Malthusian
explain all our social calamities, and, as the only remedy, he suggests
that people must be more prudent, must regulate the number of children
they bring into the world—in a word, the population of a country must
correspond to the work to be done in that country, the more work the
greater the population may be, the less work the less the population.
The reader will now see that there is a difference between the view of
Malthus and the view of the Malthusian.; the former set up subsistence as
the limit to population, the latter sets up employment or work to be
done—the more work there is to be done as already remarked, the more
room is there for an increased population.
Let us now follow the Malthusian position to its logical issue. Why
do we call one method of'production or transit an improvement upon
another ? Simply because it involves less labour, simply because it
abridges labour, and that is the reason that we adopt the improved
method. Now, with every abridgment in the labour of making and
�9
transferring things there becomes relatively, less and less labour to do,
and consequently, the ideal population of the Malthusian becomes less
and less. In this way, if the Malthusian position had free play, the most
ingenious race, the race that is most apt to discover quicker and quicker
methods of doing things, would thereby be always narrowing the limits
of its populatiou. It would consequently be the first to disappear from
the face of the earth, the fittest to survive would be the most stupid, the
unkindest countries would be the most densely populated; in a word,
nature and man would be at daggers drawn.
We do not say that such is not the case to-day—in fact it is the case.
Nature and man are at war, and all through one little fallacy in our
economic system. Meanwhile as to our statement that it is the case that
nature and man are at daggers drawn, that the stupidest, or least
adaptive, are fittest to survive, we have practical proof of this in recent
legislative action in America and Australia. Chinese labour was forbid
den the markets of these countries, because the Chinaman can underbid
the Anglo-Saxon. Laws are made to protect the weak against the
strong; the strong man m the case just noticed, is the Chinaman, the
weak, the Anglo-Saxon, who requires special protection. The fittest
will always survive—that statement points to a law that we cannot alter.
What we can alter, however, and what we must alter if we would
continue our race—if, indeed, we wish to make any further progress at
all—are the conditions that make the Chinaman and those that approach
him in character the superior.
Suppose again, that the Malthusian doctrines were practically adopted
and most rigidly carried out. Suppose that to-day our population was
so regulated, that there was not an idle man in the kingdom, not a
pauper, not even a criminal. Every one is fed, and clad, and legitimately
employed. There remains, however, in this happy state of affairs just
one thing that we have got to-day, and that is our present industrial
system.
Let us now take a step forward from this ideal point to a time when
improved methods of production and transit have been introduced. Com
modities can be manufactured with less labour, goods can be conveyed
to their destinations with less labour—in a word, we shall suppose, as
is really what happens, that in nearly every department of human effort,
improvements have been introduced. They are called improvements,
because they lessen labour. What then would be the economic effect
of a year’s progress upon the ideal state of affairs that we have just
been imagining ? The first effect would be that to make the same
quantity of manufactures, less workmen would be required ; masters
would consequently have to discharge some of their men. Now, what
becomes of these men? Well, they do not want to be discharged, so
they offer their services at a lower wage, competition amongst the work
men for such employment as there is to be had becomes keener, wages
consequently become lower, for masters are obliged to follow the market
rate of wages. No matter, however, whether wages be high or low, the
masters cannot employ as many men as they did before the introduction
of the supposed improvements. What, then, becomes of the surplus ?
Why, enforced idleness, and with it loss of independence : then as wc
go on improving, we recruit the ranks of the enforced idlers—they are
enforced idlers at first—and out of them springs the necessity for those
vigorous institutions police courts, prisons, and workhouses.
�IO
The Malthusian would thus have to resort periodically to some drastic
measures to restore the balance between employment and population.
One word more in connexion with improvements. We have seen
their effect to be the lessening the nurhber of those employed and the
lowering of wages. Now here comes the economic effect par excellence.
Fewer men in employment at reduced wages means a diminution in the
power of the community to consume. Improved methods of production,
&c., are ever increasing our power over nature, our power to produce ;
they are at the same time, by rendering competition amongst labourers
keener and keener, diminishing our power to consume. This is going
on all over the world, is operating upon the industrial classes in every
civilised community, is the noose with which we are stranglingourselves,
is in the words of Carlyle, “ the accursed invisible night-mare that is
crushing out the life of us and ours.”
Can anyone wonder that the markets of the world are glutted ? The
supply pipes are ever widening, the waste pipes ever contracting: of
course, there is a running over ; of course, as Carlyle says, our wealth
“i s an enchanted wealth.”
THE REMEDY.—III.
The 'main evils that result from our present economic svrstem have
appeared from our observations on over-production and over-population.
Over-production and over-population are themselves under existing
arrangements sources of great suffering. Both, curiously enough, too,
exist together. This in itself shews that there must be some contradic
tory forces in operation in the industrial world ; for is it not ridiculous
that we should have too large a population while we are complaining of
having too great an abundance of useful things? How are we to tell
when a population is great or small ? By a reference to the limit of
population. Now the limit to population is professed to be the means
of subsistence. But our population is so far from pressing upon this
limit that we are complaining of a too abundant supply of the means of
subsistence. Here then is an absurdity; and we are landed in this
absurdity because the limit to population is not as supposed, the means
of subsistence, but the employment offered in a community. By referring
to this limit, the employment offered in a community, we find that our
population is too great; for there are many more than can get employ
ment, and by so many is our population excessive. Now, it remains for
us to ask ourselves whether we are to maintain this limiting principle,
or whether it would not be better for us to adopt another.
We have already shewn that it is impossible to have population regu
lated by the employment to be had in a community because such em
ployment is always varying, is by the introduction of improved methods
of production always becoming less and less. Now, here is a fertile source
of evil; for with every contraction of the field of employment some are
thrust out of that field, these keep on recruiting the everlasting army of
paupers and criminals, and form the dregs of society. They are forced
into these positions, and no subsequent action on the part of society is
of any avail in recalling them. There is the field of labour, it is full;
�11
place another man in it, it is more than full; the consequence is that
either that man or some one else must go out.
Besides paupers and criminals, and what are called the dregs of
society, such a limiting principle to population leads in its working out
to deterioration in workmanship, and indeed in human character. As
already shown, improvements by lessening the demand for labour lead
to a keener competition amongst labourers, and thereby lead to a con
traction of the labourers’ pockets ; to meet this diminished consuming
power commodities have to be made as cheaply as possible ; there is no
effective demand for good materials, consequently jerrymaundering is in
the ascendant. As to the deterioration in human character that is con
tinually going on, we have already shown what class is best fitted to
survive. It is the class that can live on least, whose manner of living
approaches more and more closely to the beasts. Thus is our civilisa
tion being undermined, and thus are all our attempts at social progress
frustrated. It is apparent, then, that some other limit to population
must be substituted for the one that prevails to-day, and it is. such
other limit that we now proceed to unfold.
This other limit is the means of subsistence—the very limit that is
supposed to be in operation, but which we have shown to be not the
case. Now, in the first place, with such a limit as the means of subsist
ence over-population would be impossible; for no community could ever
consist of more members than it could support. This, of course, is evi
dent, and requires no further elucidation.
In speaking of the limiting principle that is in operation now, viz.,
employment, we objected to it that it was always varying. Might not
the means of subsistence vary too ? If, moreover, at any time, writh the
means of subsistence as the limit to population there should become less
subsistence than will suffice to maintain the whole population, who is to
have such subsistence and who is to go without ? Of course the means
of subsistence might vary; the difficulties that might arise from such a
possibility will, however, disappear after we have shown how this limit
is to be practically adopted, and this brings us to enquire into the nature
of property.
What is property ? Why does society have such a thing as property
at all ? Why should it put itself about to ensure any man in the pos
session of whatever goods he may have got hold of? The only reason
that can be given for this, and a very gocd one it is, is to encourage
industry. For instance, I make chairs ; suppose that as soon as I have
done so a stronger man than myself comes along and takes them from me;
I should most certainly come to the conclusion to make no more chairs,
because I would derive no benefit from pursuing such a course, and
would at once betake myself to procuring whatever I wanted by stealing
also. Of course, there would very soon be nothing to steal, and society
would at once collapse. To prevent this collapse, however, and to
preserve its own life, society steps forward and says that these chairs are
mine, that they are mine because I made them ; the reason that such a
course of conduct on the part of society preserves its life is because I am
.thereby encouraged to go on making more chairs, and every other
maker of everything else is encouraged in the same way. Thus are the
members of the community kept supplied with such commodities as are
required.
The institution of private property, then, is maintained by society
�T2
for the sake of encouraging industry, and for the sake of nothing
else, except what is implied in the encouragement of industry
— viz., the continuance of society.
Such, then, is the reason why
we have such a thing as property.
How far does society
practically adhere to this, the. recognised theory of property ?
It has departed from it as far as it can. To see that this is so, the
merest glance round is sufficient; for those that have made everything
have got nothing. As soon as an article has been made it is by some
magical operation—an operation so subtle that it is scarce perceptible
—snatched from the maker, and becomes the property of some one else.
Speaking in this connection John Stuart Mill says that he would prefer
Communism itself to such an unholy state of affairs. “ If,” he says,
“ the institution of private property necessarily carried with it as a con
sequence that the produce of labour should be apportioned as we now
see it, almost in an inverse ratio to the labour—the largest portions to
those who have never worked at all, the next largest to those whose work
is almost nominal, and so, in a descending scale, the remuneration dwind
ling as the work grows harder aud more disagreeable, until the most
fatiguing and exhausting bodily labour cannot count with certainty on
being able to earn even the necessaries of life: if this, or communism
were the alternative, ail the difficulties, great or small, of communism
would be but as dust in the balance.” Surely it cannot be impossible for
society to carry out so simple a theory—a theory that it recognises and
accepts as true—as to see that people have the produce of their own
labour, that industry is rewarded and encouraged.
The grossest inconsistency on the part of society as regards property
is the maintenance of property in. land. How can that encourage in
dustry ? It is only the produce of the land, the result of labour, that can
be called property. By insuring to this individual or to that individual
this or that tract of land, what industry does society encourage ? It en
courages the industry of the idle—a terrible industry, a scourge: it
reduces thousands of its members to the position of flunkeys, ministers
to idleness.
As we have already said, the view that property is maintained in a
community for the purpose of encouraging industry and for no other pur
pose, is not new neither is it denied. All that it implies is that men are
to be rewarded according to their industry—this, no one can for a mo
ment deny, is far from being practically carried out; in fact, we
practically carry out the very opposite doctrine.
Here then are two principles, viz.: that population is limited by
subsistence and that property is instituted to encourage industry ; that
are universally accepted and argued upon, as if they were carried into
practice ; we have shown that the one not carried into practice, how
ever, seeks to deny them. Why should they not be adopted by society ?
It is the adoption of these two principles, and of these two principles
alone that is recommended here. Indeed by seeing that the theory of
property alone is applied, the limiting principle to population will be
implicitly applied too.
Such, and such alone, is the work that lies before reformers now.
'AXVV
•
wy""........... •''WXxxxax"
�OBJECT.
The Establishment of a Free Condition of Society based on the prin
ciple of Political Equality, with Equal Social Rights for all and the
complete Emancipation of Labour.
PROGRAMME.
1. All Officers or Administrators to be elected by Equal Direct Adult
Suffrage, and to be paid by the Community.
2. Legislation by the People, in such wise that no project of Law
shall become legally binding till accepted by the Majority of the People.
3. The Abolition of a Standing Army, and the Establishment of a
National Citizen Force ; the People to decide on Peace or War.
4. All Education, higher no less than elementary, to be Free, Com
pulsory, Secular, and Industrial for all alike.
5. The Administration of Justice to be Free and Gratuitous for all
Members of Society.
6. The Land with all the Mines, Railways and other Means of Tran
sit, to be declared and treated as Collective or Common Property.
7. Ireland and all other parts of the Empire to have Legislative
Independence.
8. The Production of Wealth to be regulated by Society in the com
mon interest of all its Members.
9. The Means of Production, Distribution and Exchange to be
declared and treated as Collective or Common Property.
As measures called for to palliate the evils of our existing society the
Social-Democratic Federation urges for immediate adoption :—
The Compulsory Construction of healthy artizan’s and agricultural
labourers’ dwellings in proportion to the population, such dwellings to
be let at rents to cover the cost of construction and maintenance alone.
Free Compulsory Education for all classes, together with the provision
of at least one wholesome meal a day in each school.
Eight Hours or less to be the normal working day in all trades.
Cumulative Taxation upon all incomes above a fixed minimum not
exceeding /300 a year.
State Appropriation of Railways, with or without compensation.
The establishment of National Banks, which shall absorb all private
institutions that derive a profit from operations in money or credit.
Rapid Extinction of the National Debt.
Nationalisation of the Land, and organisation of agricultural and
industrial armies under State control on Co-operative principles.
As means for the peaceable attainment of these objects the SocialDemocratic Federation advocates :
Adult Suffrage. Annual Parliaments. Proportional Represen
tation.
Payment of Members ; and Official Expenses of Election
out of the Rates.
Abolition of the House of Lords and all
Hereditary Authorities. Disestablishment and Disendowment
of all State Churches.
Secretary, Social-Democratic Federation, Bridge House, Blackfriars, E.G.
�4t J
■
All who are interested in Socialism
should read
THE FOLLOWING PUBLICATIONS OF
THE MODERN PRESS, 13, Paternoster Row, London, E.C.
Which will be sent post free at the published prices on receipt of
an order amounting to one shilling or more.
(The Publications of the Modern Press can be obtained from W. L.
Rosenberg, 261, East Tenth Street, New York City.)
The Historical Basis of Socialism in England.
By H. M. Hyndman.
Paul, Trench, & Co.
Crown 8-vo., price 8s. 6d
London: Kegan
This is the only Book in the English Language which gives the Historical and
Economical Theories of Organised Socialism. It should be carefully studied by all who
desire to understand why Socialists are enthusiastic for their cause, and confident of
ucces s in the near future.
Woman in the Past, Present and Future.
By
August Bebel, Deputy in the Reichstag. Translated from the
German by H. B. Adams Walther. Demy 8-vo., cloth, price 5s.
ft.
F
This work by the best known of the German Socialists aims at showing that the
social condition of women can be permanently improved only by the solution of the
whole social problem,
The Co-operative Commonwealth:
an Exposition
of Modern Socialism. By Laurence Gronlund, of Philadelphia.
Demy 8-vo., paper cover, is.
This book supplies the want, frequently complained of, of definite proposals for the
administration of a Socialistic State. Mr. Gronlund has reconciled the teaching of
Marx with the influence of Carlyle in the constructive part of his work, which is
specially recommended to English Socialists.
Socialism versus Smithism:
I
An open letter from
H. M. Hyndman to Samuel Smith, M.P. for Liverpool.
8-vo. Cheaper edition, price id.
Crown
John E. Williams, and the Early History of
THE SOCIAL-DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION.
trait. Price one penny.
1
With Por
Opening Address to the Trade Union Congress
at Southport, September, 1885. Delivered by T. R. Threlfall. Royal
8-vo., 16-pp. Price one penny.
An able address from a representative working man on political and social topics.
i| L- ■
Ek.
I
I
Social ism made Plain.
The social and political
manifesto of the Social-Democratic Federation issued in June 1883 ;
with “The Unemployed,” a Manifesto issued after the “ Riots in
the West End” on 8th February, 1886. Sixty-first thousand.
Crown 8-vo., paper cover, price id.
“ JUSTICE,”
the Organ of the Social Democracy. Every
Saturday, one penny.
I!
�Socialism and Soldiering*;
with some comments on the
Army Enlistment Fraud. By George Bateman (Late 23rd Regi
ment), with Portrait. With an introduction by H. H. Champion
(Late Royal Artillery). Price One Penny.
The Working Man’s Programme
(Arbeiter Pro-
gramm). By Ferdinand Lassalle. Translated from the German
by Edward Peters. Crown 8-vo., paper cover, price 6d.
The Robbery of the Poor.
By W. H. P. Campbell.
Demy 8-vo., paper cover, price 6d.
The Appeal to the Young.
By Prince Peter
Kropotkin. Translated from the French by H. M. Hindman and
reprinted from Justice. Royal 8-vo., 16-pp. Price one penny.
The most eloquent and noble appeal to the generous emotions ever penned by a
scientific man. Its author has just suffered five years’ imprisonment at t.he hands of the
French Republic for advocating the cause of the workers
Wage-Labour and Capital.
From the German of
Karl Marx translated by J. L. Joynes and reprinted from Justice.
New and cheaper edition, Royal 8-vo., price id.
By Edward Carpenter.—Social
Progress and Indi
The Man with the Red Flag :
Being John Burns’
vidual Effort; Desirable Mansions; and Co-operative Production.
One penny each.
Speech at the Old Bailey, when tried for Seditious Conspiracy, on
April gth, 1886. (From the Verbatim Notes of the official short
hand reporter.) With Portrait. Price threepence.
The Socialist Catechism.
with additions from Justice.
By J. L. Joynes. Reprinted
Demy 8-vo., price id. 20th thousand.
Socialism and Slavery.
By H. M. Hyndman.
(In
reply to Mr. Herbert Spencer’s article on “ The Coming Slavery.”)
New Edition, with portrait. 16 pp. Royal 8-vo., price one penny.
The Emigration Fraud Exposed.
By H. M.
What an Eight Hours Bill Means.
By T. Mann
Hyndman. With a Portrait of the Author. Reprinted by per
mission from the Nineteenth Century for February, 1885. Crown 8-vo.,
price one penny.
(Amalgamated Engineers). New edition with portrait.
Thousand. Price one penny.
Socialism and the Worker.
Price id.
By F. A.
Sixth
Sorge.
An explanation in the simplest language of tne main idea of Socialism.
The Chicago Riots and the Class War in the
United States. By H. M. Hyndman. Reprinted
from Time, June, 1886.
Price one penny.
International Trade Union Congress, held at
August, 1886. Report by Adolphe Smith.
Price Three-Halfpence.
Paris,
24-pp., Royal 8-vo.
�Social Progress and Individual Effort.
Desirable Mansions.
Co-operative Production.
England Arise. Song with Music.
By Edward Carpenter.
Price id. each.
Cashel Byron’s Profession:
G. Bernard Shaw.
A Novel.
The Genesis Of Capital.
Translated from the
French of Gabriel Deville by B. J.
Royal 8vo. Price id.
The Nationalisation of Societv.
dore D’Auton.
By
Price is.
Royal 8vo, paper covers.
By J. Theo
Royal 8vo., price id.
The Australian Labour Market:
Startling
The Industrial Problem Solved.
By W. B.
Disclosures. By John Norton, New South Wales
Labour Delegate. Royal 8vo., Price id.
Robertson.
Royal 8vo., Price id.
The Nationalisation of Railways.
By
F. Keddell. Reprinted from Justice and revised.
8vo., price id.
Mining Rates and Royalties.
Royal
By J. Morrison
Davidson (Author of “ New Book of Kings,” &c.)
By the REV. MERCER DAVIES, M.A.
The Bishops and their Wealth.
The Bishops and their Religion.
Price 2d.
Price id.
The Facts about the Unemployed.
One of the Middle Class.
Royal 8vo., price id.
By
An appeal and a warning issued in October, 1886, showing the causes of
the present distress, how they can be removed, what steps have already
been taken, and what are the consequences of continued indifference to
hunger and despair.
Also the following Leaflets for Distribution.
The Use of a Vote.
Royal 8-vo. Handbill.
Price 2S. per 500, post free.
Work for all, Overwork for none.
8-vo. Handbill.
2s. per 500, post free.
Royal
�
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 & 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 industrial problem solved
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Robertson, W.B.
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 12, [4] p. ; 23 cm.
Notes: Stamp on title page: South Place Chapel Finsbury, Lending Library. Publisher's list and Information on the Social-Democratic Federation on unnumbered pages at the end.
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
1887
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
G4973
Subject
The topic of the resource
Industry
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 industrial problem solved), 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
Economics
Industrial Democracy
Industrialization
Population Increase
Production
Socialism
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/80e9996980e2c27ff46dce43d319598f.pdf?Expires=1779926400&Signature=o6swADgU1yFVBrZQU8esnB7x29jZi7Abdlvm15KI1rxqEuh%7EmSAD2zA0NhgsMYd03vjYxfLRusvN4wZnUdl4VWZ33GFiE%7E-jv3Y9-AaNiMIslsRiX8IW9C0o3sEB89W3JheLpxpUNC9pFMFVIfgMekBnlEnMybqntNPwqMT3ffTIy9kkVnyGB6cahLSf5oV07uToU7uHiNXM-ayErR4TSs2L5-GzrrQAwmwLPsud0e794JRr6Q3y1PN05jOJw%7EIlyn1W9CNqDc4fQBpAWsRPxLWFC9gfvTdxtVz2dgT1UoTuNmEJgTazEOjNkVt43NHZgxgB%7E0qFqCCNkrcVN6rkSw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
ecebb09cca30d63e51417489e00da298
PDF Text
Text
£ -2-? 3 I
NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
SOCIALISM.
To the Editor -------Sir,
The efforts of the members of the “Trinitv
Church Mutual Improvement Association ” to increase
their store of useful knowledge deserve nothing but
praise. But, judging from the report you give of a
lecture on “Socialism” by the Reverend President, I
fear the members will be liable to mistakes of a serious
kind if they confine their search for truth within such a
limited area as that apparently covered by this exposition.
That Christ was a great Socialistic teacher is beyond
dispute, and that he taught and practised “self-sacrifice ”
is not by any means a full statement of the facts. He
taught rich men to “sell all that they possessed”, and
his earliest followers, we are told, did so, and had “ all
things in common”. Are we to understand that the
lecturer is prepared to direct his flock to follow this
example, in both the spirit and the letter ? If not, what
becomes of the assertion that the Christ-like form of
Socialism is the “only one” which will “ever be
possible ” ?
�I do not understand the phrase “ Compulsory Social
ism , nor to what system it can be applied. Hence I am
unable to judge of its asserted “ absolute impossibility”.
The lecturer appears to have implied that this system of
compulsory Socialism” was “experimented upon in
France , and “ caused the streets of Paris to be
drenched in blood”. It is not explained which event
was referred to—the early French Revolution, that of
1830, or the more modern Commune? In either case, the
reference was entirely misleading, and Socialism, either
compulsory” or “arbitrary”, was in no sense whatever
the cause of the events mentioned. This muddling-up
of Socialism, Atheism, and other disliked “isms” is a
very common practice, especially in addressing an audience
believed to be not too well read in history. But at the
present day such inaccuracies and loose statements are
risky and liable to be detected, even in least expected
quarters. Hardly less obscure and misleading were the
lecturer’s definitions of “ Individualism” and “ Christian
Socialism ”. The Rev. Stewart Headlam would have
demolished the lecturer’s position in a few minutes, and,
unless the reporter failed to catch the drift of the state
ments made, the result of the prescribed line of action
would certainly be “confusion worse confounded”.
If Socialism is to be described at all, it should be fairly
and candidly done, because the exhibition of a mere cari
cature of so important a movement will certainly not
“mutually improve” any persons who listen thereto.
Systems of Socialism have been and are many and various,
and a proper historical description of them must be both
interesting and instructive. Such a retrospect would
reach back to Crete and Sparta, the ancient German com
�3
munities (from one of which, the Anglo-Saxons came), the
Essenes of Judea, the Anabaptists, and many other forms
of Socialistic association. Of later years the labours of
worthy old Robert Owen, Fourierism, the theories of
Paine, Spence, Godwin, and others would require notice.
Later on still the work and writings of Karl Marx and his
school, with the views of Mill, Spencer, Bax, the leading
spirits of the Social Democratic Federation, the leaders of
the Co-operative movement, the Fabian Society, and a
host of modern writers and speakers—all these would haw1
to be carefully considered before moderate justice could
be done to the subject of Socialism. Certainly this vast
subject is not one to be disposed of by a vague, hackneyed,
and utterly misleading reference to the French Revolution
—an event no more the result of any form of Socialism
than it was the consequence of the discovery of the Coper
nican system or of the mariner’s compass.
Let me explain that I am not a Socialist, any more
than the reverend lecturer is one, except in the sense that
now-a-days we are all more or less acting under the
influence of Socialistic principles, whether we know it
or not. This great subject is one which is daily engaging
the deep attention of many of the wisest and best men
and women of the age, in this and other countries. The
absorbing problems of land and labour, and capital and
labour, are being thought out and solutions sought; and
into the possession of the ripe fruit of all this study and
investigation humanity will one day enter. I may, or I
may not, agree with Mr. Morris, Mr. Hyndman, or Mrs.
Besant, in the conclusions at which they arrive ; but that
they and a thousand others are doing useful work I am
bound to admit. Such a movement is not to be thrust
�4
aside by a Podsnapian wave of the hand, nor settled and
disposed of in a half-hour lecture.
The old laissez faire system has been tried and found
grievously wanting, and the doctrine of “ every man for
himself ” has failed to satisfy the needs of the age. This
movement towards Socialism is not the work of “Agi
tators ”, and therein lies the silly old mistake into which
so many well-meaning people have fallen. Agitators are
effects, not causes ; they are the products of the spirit
that moves in millions of human breasts, a spirit that
cannot be sneered down, nor even chained down, by any
human power. Agitators are only the outward and visible
signs of the inward and spiritual aspirations of the people.
We may few of us live to see it, but I recognise even
in this much misunderstood, and so often fatuously misrepresented Socialism, one of those hopeful and noble
onward and upward tendencies of humanity, that are
working day by day towards that golden age sung of by
the poets, and which, as Southey says,
“ Shall bless the race, redeemed of man, when wealth
And power, and all their hideous progeny,
Shall sink, annihilate, and all mankind
Live in the equal brotherhood of love I ”
January 20th, 1890.
Yours, etc.,
PAT),
[Note. — The editor of the newspaper in which the
report referred to appeared, declined to insert the above
letter.]
A. Bonneb, Printer, 34 Bouverie St., Fleet St., 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 & 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
Socialism
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Rad
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [London]
Collation: 4 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Letter to the editor of an unidentified newspaper, which had published a report to which the letter (unpublished) is a reply. Signed "RAD". Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
A. Bonner, Printer
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[1890]
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
N546
Subject
The topic of the resource
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 (Socialism), 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
NSS
Socialism
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/acb4612ea498fd668dd22f20d9478acb.pdf?Expires=1779926400&Signature=Kko3awKH1rquFPBy2SKIq4uaNv6pKj2zH4xY3dLvIaQya1hlXMgf6MKI5JrQH%7EnjxGYREAyJqrJKXvExcEBHjTOx9HTFd4LGGkNCkTHe2Mc0s7ZjpZIBoD34lIigjC0ncTODUyIdCw2Od%7E3klmS61pZ8Poj6XxxXkZEqvBZA0S3-sWa37-wo4fIMGWOkOt8wyJuqwEOFZ0R3YWtNYF9SrK6TTNWhAcp37G6ar5kNSlNZfxQ9FdDRSDlcq9BLHjjtodYCxAueXv1bOJRVmgvJaXHfHS72q197YDPy2mmVRt%7E8PgcPeSgLhMBhpiOW-WVqw2e-zIvvFdXJyyAV2F4CHg__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
36647f66265b1e8d2d59127d35ecefba
PDF Text
Text
PRIGE TWOPENCE.
SOCIALISM
anU IJrarticr
BEING
A LECTURE DELIVERED TO A WORK
ING CLASS AUDIENCE.
KARL PEARSON.
SECOKD
EDITION
LONDON:
W. REEVES, 185, FLEET STREET, LONDON, E.C,
�Note to Second Edition.
This lecture delivered early in 1884, and afterwards
printed as a pamphlet, seems somewhat out of place
in 1887. Things have been rapidly changing in the
last three years. The discontent of the hand
workers has become greater and more manifest; if
I read the times aright, we are still only at the
threshold of the social crisis. The socialist of the
market-place has accomplished many things, of
which one only seems to me of real value. The
“ Church Parade ” is a brilliant inspiration and will
do much good if it brings home to our shepherds how
completely they have been neglecting the herd in
order to pipe to the dancing of their mistresses,
Wealth and Power. On the other hand the need
for a scientific exposition of evolutionary Socialism
is as pressing and as unsupplied as ever. It is only
after repeated request from the publisher that I
have consented to a reprint in its present form of a
pamphlet which has no claim to be a scientific
treatment of a very difficult and urgent problem.
Inner Temple,
K.P.
March 6th, 1887,
�To E.
C.
This lecture has been printed just as it was delivered
You would have wished it carefully revised. Other
labour has hindered my touching it, and it now seems
better to let its simple language stand. It was addressed
to simple folk ; had it been intended for a middle-class
audience it would have adopted a more logical, but un
doubtedly harsher tone. The selfishness of the ‘ upper ’
classes arises to a great extent from ignorance, but these
are times in which such ignorance itself is criminal. The
object of this pamphlet will be fulfilled should it bring
home even to one or two that truth, which I have learnt
from you, namely—that the higher socialism of our time
does not strive for a mere political reorganization, it is
labouring for a renascence of morality.
K. P
Inner Temple, Christmas Eve, 1884.
�SOCIALISM:
IN THEORY AND PRACTICE.
-------- 0--------
During the past year there was a great deal of
discussion in the newspapers—and out of them_
concerning the dwellings of the so-called poor.
Numerous philanthropical people wrote letters and
articles describing the extreme misery and unhealthy
condition of many of our London courts and alleys.
The Prince of Wales got up in the House of Lords
and remarked that he had visited several of the most
■deplorable slums in the Holborn district, and found
them “ very deplorable indeed 1” The whole sub
ject seemed an excellent one out of which to make
political capital. The leader of the Conservatives
wrote an article in a Tory magazine on the dwellings
of the poor. He told us that things are much
better in the country than they are in the towns,
that the great landlords look after the housing of
the agricultural labourers. It is the employers of
labour, the capitalists, who are at fault. They
■ought to provide proper dwellings for their work
people. This was the opinion of Lord Salisbury, a
great owner of land. But the Conservatives having
come forward as the friends of the working-men, it
seemed impossible, with a view to future elections,
to let the matter rest there. Accordingly, Mr.
Joseph Chamberlain, a Radical leader and capital
ist, wrote another article in a Liberal magazine, to
�SOCIALISM : IN THEORY AND PRACTICE.
5
show that it is no business whatever of the employers
of labour to look after the housing of their work
people. It is the duty of the owner of the land to
see that decent houses are built upon it. In other
words, the only men, who under our present social
regime could make vast improvements, threw the
responsibility off their own shoulders. “ Very
deplorable, indeed,” said Lord Salisbury, “ but of
course not the landlord’s fault; why does not that
greedy fellow, the capitalist, look after his work
people ?” “ Nothing could be more wretched; I
am sure it will lead to a revolution,” ejaculated Mr.
Chamberlain, “ but, of course, it has nothing to do
with the capitalist; why does not that idle person,
that absolutely useless landlord, build more decent
houses ?” Then the landlord and capitalist for once
agreed and thought it would be well to appoint a
Royal Commission, which meant, that after a certain
amount of philanthropic twaddle and a vast ocean
of political froth the whole matter would end in
nothing or an absolutely fruitless Act of Parliament.
*
Any change would have to be made at the cost of
either the landlord or capitalist, or of both, and
whether we like it or not, it is these two who practcally govern this country. They are not likely to
empty their pockets for our benefit. It is generally
known how strong the interest of the land
lords is in both Houses of Parliament, but this is
comparatively small when we measure the
interests of the capitalists. You will be surprised,
if you investigate the matter, to find the large
proportion of the House of Commons which re
presents the interests of capital. The number of
members of that House who are themselves
* Three years afterwards we see it has ended in
nothing—-not even an Act
�6
SOCIALISM :
employers of labour, who are connected with grea
commercial interests, who are chairmen or directors
of large capitalistic companies, or in some other way
are representatives of capital (as well as of their
constituents) is quite astounding. It is said that
one large railway company alone can muster forty
votes on a division; while the railway interests, if
combined, might form a coalition which, in con
ceivable cases, would be of extreme danger to the
State. I have merely touched upon this matter to
remind you how thoroughly we are governed in this
country by a class. The government of this country
is not in the hands of the people. It is mere self
deception for us to suppose that all classes have a
voice in the management of our affairs. The
educative class (the class which labours with its
head) and the productive class (the class which
labours with its hands) have little or no real
influence in the House of Commons. The govern
ing class is the class of wealth, in both of its
branches—owners of land and owners of capital.
This class naturally governs in its own interests,
and the interests of wealth are what we must seek
for would we understand the motive for any
particular form of foreign or domestic policy on the
part of either great State party.
It may strike you that I have wandered very far
from the topic with which I started, namely, the
dwellings of the poor, but I wanted to point out to
you, by a practical example, how very unlikely it is
that a reform, urgently needed by one class of the
community, will be carried out efficiently by another
governing class, when that reform must be paid for
out of the latter’s pockets. Confirmation of this
view may be drawn from the fact that the govern
ing class pretend to have discovered in 1884 only
�IN THEORY AND PRACTICE,
7
that the poor are badly housed. There is
something almost laughable in all the pother lately
raised about the housing of the poor. So far as my
own experience goes—and I would ask if that is not
a fact ?—the poor are not worse housed in 1884 than
they were in 1874. The evil is one of very old
standing. It was crying out for reform ten years
ago, twenty years ago, forty years ago. More than
forty years ago—in 1842—there was a report issued
by a “Commission on the sanitary condition of
the labouring population of Great Britain.” The
descriptions given in that report are of a precisely
similar character to what was put before the public
in a little tract entitled the “ Bitter Cry of Outcast
London.” In that report we hear of 40,000 people
in Liverpool alone living in cellars underground.
We are told that the annual number of deaths from
fever, generated by uncleanliness and overcrowding
in the dwellings of the poor, was then in England
and Wales double the number of persons killed in
the battle of Waterloo. We hear of streets without
drainage, of workshops without ventilation, and of
ten to twenty people sleeping in the same room,
often five in a bed, rarely with any regard to sex.
The whole essence of this report was to show that
owing to the great capitalistic industries, the
working classes, if they had not become poorer, had
become more demoralized. They had been forced
to crowd together and occupy unhealthy and often
ruinous dwellings. The governing class and the
public authorities scarcely troubled themselves
about the matter, but treated the working classes as
machines rather than as men. We see, then, that
precisely the same evil was crying loudly for remedy
in 1842 as it cries now in 1884. We ask why has
there been no remedy applied during all these
�8
SOCIALISM :
years ? There can only be two answers to that
question; either no remedy is possible, or else thosem whose power the remedy lies refuse to apply it.
We must consider these two points.
Is no remedy possible ? Not long ago a thinking
Conservative (if such be not a contradiction in terms !)
stated that although he recognised the deplorable
misery of the poorer members of the working classes,
he still held no remedy was possible. The misery
might become so intense that an outbreak would
intervene ; still, when the outbreak was over, matters
would sink back into their old course. There must
be poor, and the poor would be miserable. No
*
violent revolution, no peaceful reform, could per
manently benefit the poorer class of toilers. It was,
so to speak, a law of nature (if not of God) that
society should have a basis of misery. History
proved this to be always the case.
It is to this latter phrase I want to call your
attention—History proved this to be always the case.
Our Conservative friend was distinctly right in his
method when he appealed to history. That is peculi
arly the method which ought to be made use of for
the solution of all social and political problems. It
is of the utmost importance to induce the working
classes to study social and political problems from
the historical standpoint. Do not listen to mere
theory, or to the mere talk of rival political agitators.
Endeavour, if possible, to see how like problems
have been treated by different peoples in different
ages, and with what measure of success. The study
of history is, I am aware, extremely difficult, because
the popular history books tell us only of wars and of
kings, and very little of the real life of the people—
* This seems to be the doctrine recently expounded
to “ Church paraders,” March, 1887.
�IN THEORY AND PRACTICE.
9
how they worked, how they were fed, and how they
were housed. But the real mission of history is to
tell us how the great mass of the people toiled and
lived; to tell us of their pleasure and of their
misery. That is the only history that can help us
in social problems. Does, then, history tell us that
there always has been, and therefore always must
be, a large amount of misery at the basis of society ?
The question is one really of statistics, and extremely
difficult to answer; but, after careful investigation, I
must state that I have come to a conclusion totally
different from that of our Conservative friend. I
admit, in the words of the man who worked for the
poor in Galilee, that at all times and places “ the poor
are always with you ” ; but the amount of poverty as
well as the degree of misery attending it has varied
immensely. I have made special investigation of
the condition of the artisan class in Germany some
three to four hundred years ago, and do not hesitate
to assert that anything like the condition of the
.courts and dwellings of poorer London was then
totally unknown. If this be true, the argument from
history is false. The artisan class has occupied a
firmer and more substantial position in times gone
by than it at present occupies. If it has sunk in the
scale of comfort, it can certainly rise. In other
words, a remedy for the present state of things does
seem to me possible. Should any of you want to
know why the working classes were better off four
hundred years ago than they are at present, I must
state it as my own opinion, that it was due to a
better social system. The social system, so far as
the workman was concerned, was based upon the
guild, and the political system of those old towns
was based as a rule upon the guilds. Thus the
union which directed the workman in his work, and
�IO
socialism.
:
brought his class together for social purposes,
was practically the same as that which directed the
municipal government of his city. If you would
exactly understand what that means, you must
suppose the trades unions of to-day to take a large
share in the government of London. If they did so,
how long do you think the dwellings of the poor
would remain what they are ? Do you believe the
evil would remain another forty years ? or that in
1920 it would be necessary to shuffle out of im
mediate action by another Royal Commission ?
As I have said, the guilds of working men had
originally a large share in municipal government.
The city guilds, as you know, are still very wealthy
bodies, and have great authority in the city. This
is all that remains in London of the old system of
working men’s guilds taking a part in the manage
ment of the city’s affairs.
In old days, then, the labouring classes were
united in guilds and these guilds had a considerable
share in local government. The social and political
system was thus, to some extent, based upon labour.
Such an organization of society, we call socialistic.
The workmen of four hundred years ago were better
off than are the workmen of to-day, because the old
institutions were more socialistic—in other words,
society was organized rather on the basis of labour
than the basis of wealth. A society based upon
wealth, since it grants power and place to the
owners of something which is in the hands of
a few individuals, may be termed individual
istic. To-day we live in an individualistic state. I
believe the workman of four hundred years ago was
better off than his brother now, because he formed
part of a socialistic rather than an individualistic
system. I believe a remedy possible for the present
�IN THEORY AND PRACTICE.
II
state of affairs, because history seems to teach us that
the artisan has a firmer and happier position under a
socialism than under an individualism. It also
teaches us that some forms of socialism have existed
in the past, and may therefore be possible in the
present or future. I hold, and I would ask you to
believe with me, that a remedy is possible. If it is, we
are thrown back on the alternative that the govern
ing class has refused or neglected to apply it. We
have seen that the evil did not arise or did not
accumulate to such an extent where society was
partly based upon labour; we are, therefore, forced
to the probable conclusion, that the evil has arisen
and continues to subsist, because our social and
political system is based upon wealth rather than
upon labour—because we live under an individualism
rather than under a socialism. It is the fault of our
present social system, and not a law of history, that
the toilers should be condemned to extreme misery
and poverty.
We have now to consider the following questions:—
What do we mean by labour and a social system based
upon labour ? By what means can we attempt to
convert a system based upon wealth to one based
upon labour; in other words, how shall we proceed
to convert our present individualism into a socialism ?
In the latter question it will be necessary to include
the consideration of the attitude which the artisan
class should itself take with regard to organizations
for socialistic change, and h@w it should endeavour
to take political action especially with regard to the
two great capitalistic parties.
Let me first endeavour to explain what I under
stand by labour. You may imagine, perhaps at
first, that I refer only to labour of the hand—such
abour as is required to make a pair of boots or turn
�12
SOCIALISM :
a lathe. But I conceive labour to be something or
far wider extent than this. I conceive it to include
all work, whether work of the head or of the hand,
which is needful or. profitable to the community at
large. The man who puts cargo into a ship is no
more or less a labourer than the captain who
directs her course across the ocean; nor is either
more of a labourer than the mathematician or astro
nomer whose calculations and observations enable the
captain to know which direction he shall take when
he is many hundred miles from land. The shoe
maker or the postman are no more labourers than
the clerk who sits in a merchant’s office or the judge
who sits on the bench. The schoolmaster, thewriter and the actor are all true labourers. Insome cases they may be overpaid; in many
they are underpaid. Men of wealth have been
known to pay the governess who teaches their
children less than they pay their cook, and treat her
with infinitely less respect. I have laid stress on
the importance of labour of the head, because I
have met working men—although few—who believed
nothing but labour of the hand could have any value’;
all but labourers with the hand were idlers. You
have doubtless heard of the victory gained last year
by English troops in Egypt. Now, how do you sup
pose that victory was gained ? Were the English
soldiers a bit braver than the Arabs ? Were they
stronger ? Not in the least. They won the victory
because they were better disciplined, because they
had better weapons—shortly, because what we may
term their organisation was better. That organiza
tion was due to labour of the head. Now, what
happened in Egypt is going on in the world at large
every day. It is not always the stronger, but the
better organized, the better educated man who goes
�IN THEORY AND PRACTICE.
I J.
ahead. What is true of individual men is true of
nations. The better organised, the better educated
nation is victorious in the battle of life. We English
have been so successful because we were well
organized, because we were better educated than
Hindoos, Zulus, and all the races we have con
quered. You must never forget how much of that
organization, that education, is due to labourers with
the head. Some of you may be indifferent to the
great empire of England, to this superiority
of Englishmen, but let me assure you that, small asin some cases is the comfort of the English working
classes, it is on the average large compared with
that of an inferior race—compared, say, with the
abject misery of the Egyptian peasant. I want, if
possible, to point out to you the need for sympathy
between labour of all kinds—that labourers with the
hand and labourers with the head are mutually
dependent. They are both true labourers as
opposed to the idlers—the drones, , who, by some
chance having a monopoly of wealth, live on thelabour of others. I would say to every man—
“ Friend, what is your calling, what are you doing
for society at large ? Are you making its shoes, are
you teaching its children, are you helping to main
tain order and forward its business ? If you are
doing none of this, are you relieving its work hours
by administering to its play ? Do you bring plea
sure to the people as an actor, a- writer, or a
painter ? If you are doing none of this, if you are
simply a possessor of wealth, struggling to amuse
yourself, and pass through life for your own pleasure,
then—why, then, you are not wanted here, and the
sooner you clear out, bag and baggage, the better
for us—and perhaps for yourself.” Do you grasp
now the significance of a society based upon labour ?
�14
SOCIALISM
The possessor of wealth, simp y because he ha
wealth, would have no place in such a society. The
workers would remove him even as the worker bees
eject the drones from their hive. ,
Society ought to be one vast guild of labourers—
workers with the head and workers with the hand—
and so organised there would be no place in it for
those who merely live on the work of others. In a
political or social system based upon labour it would
be the mere possessor of wealth who would have no
power ; how far we are at present from such a social
ism maybe best observed by noting that wealth now
has almost all political and social power—labour little
or none.
We have now reached what I conceive to be the
fundamental axiom of Socialism. Society must be
■organised on the basis of labour, and, therefore, political
power, the power of organising, must be in the
hands of labour.
That labour, as I have
endeavoured to impress upon you, is of two kinds.
There is labour of the hand, which provides
necessaries for all society: there is the labour of
the head, which produces all that we term progress,
and enables any individual society to maintain its
place in the battle of life—the labour which
educates and organises. I have come across a
tendency in some workers with the hand to suppose
all folk beside themselves to be idlers—social
drones, supported by their work. I admit that the
great mass of idlers are in what are termed the
‘upper and middle classes of society.’ But this
arises from the fact that society, being graduated
solely according to wealth, the people with the most
money, and who are most idle, of course take their
place in these viciously named ‘upper classes.’ In
a labour scale they would naturally appear at the
�IN THEORY AND PRACTICE.
15
very bottom, and form ‘ the dregs of population.’
It is true the labourer with the head is, as a rule,
better clothed, housed, and fed than the labourer
with the hand, but this often arises from the fact
that he is also a capitalist. Still, if the labourer
with the head, whose labour is.his sole source of liveli
hood, is better clothed, housed, and fed than the
artisan, it does no show that in all cases he is earn
ing more than his due; on the contrary, it may
denote that the artisan is earning far less than his
due. The difference, in fact, often represents the
work which goes to support the drones of our pre
sent social system.
At this point I reach what I conceive to be the
second great axiom of true Socialism. All forms of
labour are equally honourable. No form of labour
which is necessary for society can disgrace the
man who practises it or place him in a lower social
grade than any other form of labour. Let us look
at this point somewhat more closely, for it is of the
first importance. So long as the worker looks upon
his work as merely work for himself—considers it
only as a means to his own subsistence, and values
it only as it satisfies his own wants, so long one form
of work will be more degrading than another. To
shovel mud into a cart will be a lower form of work
than to make a pair of shoes, and to make shoes
will not be such high-class labour as to direct a
factory. But there is another way of regarding
work, in which all forms of real labour appear of
equal value—viz., when the labourer looks at
his work not with regard to himself, but with
regard to society at large. Let him con
sider his work as something necessary tor
society, as a condition of its existence, and then
all gradations vanish. It is just as necessary for
�i6
SOCIALISM :
society that its mud should be cleared from the
streets, as that it should have shoes, or again, as
that its factories should be directed. Once let the
workman recognise that his labour is needful for
society, and whatever its character, it becomes
honourable at once. In other words, from the
social standpoint all labour is equally honourable.
We might even go so far as to assert that the
lowest forms of labour are the more honourable,
because they involve the greater personal sacrifice
for the need of society. Once let this second axiom
of true Socialism be recognised—the equality of
every form of labour—and all the vicious distinc
tions of caste—the false lines which society has
drawn between one class of workers and another—
must disappear. The degradation of labour must
cease. Once admit that labour, though differing in
kind, as the shoemaker’s from the blacksmith’s, is
equal in degree, and all class barriers are broken
down. In other words, in a socialistic state, or in
a society based upon labour, there can be no
difference of class. All labourers, whether of the
hand or the head, must meet on equal terms ; they
are alike needful to society; their value will depend
only on the fashion and the energy with which they
perform their particular duties.
Before leaving this subject of labour, there is one
point, however, which must be noticed. I have
said that all forms of labour are equally honourable,
because'we may regard them as equally necessary
for society. But still the effects of various kinds of
labour on the individual will be different. The man
who spends his whole day in shovelling up mud
will hardly be as intelligent as the shoemaker or
engineer. His labour does not call for the same
exercise of intelligence, nor draw out his ingenuity to
�IN THEORY AND PRACTICE.
17
the same extent. Thus, although his labour is
equally honourable, it has not such a good influence
on the man himself. Hence the hours of labour, in
such occupations, ought to be as short as possible ;
sufficient leisure ought to be given to those engaged
in the more mechanical and disagreeable forms of
toil to elevate and improve themselves apart from
their work. When we admit that all labour is
•equally honourable, and therefore deserving of
equal wage, then to educate the labourer will not
lead him to despise his work. It will only lead him
to appreciate and enjoy more fully his leisure.
This question of leisure is a matter of the utmost
importance. We hear much of the demand for
shorter hours of labour; but how is the increased
spare time to be employed ? Many a toiler looks
with envy upon the extravagant luxury of the
wealthy, and cries, not unnaturally, “ What right
have you to enjoy all this, while I can hardly
procure the necessaries of life ? ” But there is a
matter in which I could wish the working classes
would envy the wealthy even more than they might
reasonably do their physical luxury—namely, their
education. There is to me something unanswerable
in the cry which the workman might raise against
the wealthy—“ What right have you to be educated,
while I am ignorant ? ” Far more unanswerable
than the cry—“What right have you to be rich
while I am poor ? ” I could wish a cry for educa
tion might arise from the toilers as the cry for bread
went up in the forties. It is the one thing which
would render an increase of leisure really valuable
to the workers—which would enable them to guide
themselves, and assist society through the dangerous
storms which seem surely gathering in the near
future. Leisure employed in education, in self
�18
SOCIALISM :
improvement, seems to me the only means by which
the difference in character between various forms of
labour can be equalised. This appears a point on
which the labourers with the head can practically
assist those with the hand. Let the two again
unite for that mutual assistance which is so
necessary, if between them they are to reorganise
society into one vast guild of labour.
If we pass for a moment from the possibilities of
the present to those of a distant future, we might
conceive the labourers with the hand to attain such
a degree of education that workers of both kinds
might be fused together. The same man might
labour with his pen in the morning and with his
shovel after mid-day. That, I think, would be the
ideal existence in which society, as an entire body,
would progress at the greatest possible rate. I have
endeavoured, then, to lay before you what I under
stand by labour; how all true labour is equally
honourable and deserving of an equal wage. If
many of the anomalies, much of the misery of our
present state of society would disappear, were it
organized on a socialistic or labour basis, it then
becomes necessary to consider in what manner the
labour basis differs from, and is opposed to, the
present basis of wealth.
In order to illustrate what the present basis of
wealth means, let me put to you a hypothetical case.
Let us suppose three men on an island separated
from the rest of the world. We may also suppose
there to be a sufficient supply of seed and ploughs,
and generally of agricultural necessaries. If now,
one of the three men were to assert that the
island, the seed, and the ploughs belonged to him,
and his two comrades for some reason— or want of
reason—accepted his assertion, let us trace what
�IN THEORY AND PRACTICE.
19
would follow. Obviously, he would have an entire
monopoly of all the means of sustaining life on the
island. He could part with them at whatever rate
he pleased, and could insist upon the produce ot
all the labour, which it would be possible to
extract from the two men, in return for supplying
them with the barest necessities of existence. He
would naturally do nothing; they would till the
ground with his implements, and sow his seed and
store it in his barn. After this he might employ them
in work tending to increase his luxuries, in providing
him with as fine a house and as gorgeous furniture
as they were capable of producing. He would
probably allow them to build themselves shanties as
protection from the weather, and grant them
sufficient food to sustain life. All their time, after
providing these necessaries for themselves, would
be devoted to his service. He would be landlord and
capitalist, having a complete monopoly of wealth^
He could practically treat the other two men as
slaves. Let us somewhat extend our example, and
suppose this relation to hold between the one
man and a considerable number of men on the
island. Then it might be really advantageous
for all the people on the island if the one man
directed their labour. We may suppose him to be a
practical farmer, who thoroughly understood his
business, so, by his directing the others, the greatest
amount possible would be produced from the land.
As such a director of farming operations, he would
be a labourer with the head, and worthy as any man
under him to receive his hire. He would have as great
a claim as any one he directed to the necessaries
of life produced by the labourers with the hand. In
a socialistic scheme he would still remain director ;
he would still receive his share of the produce, and
�20
SOCIALISM :
the result of the labour of the community would be
divided according to the labour of its members. On
the other hand, if our farm-director were owner ot
all things on the island, he might demand not only
the share due to him for his labour of the head, but
also that all the labour of the other inhabitants
should be directed to improving his condition rather
than their own. After providing for themselves the
bare necessities of life, the other islanders might be
called upon to spend all the rest of their time in
ministering to his luxury. He could demand this
because he would have a monopoly of all the land
and all the wealth of the island; such a state of
affairs on the island would be an individualism or a
society based upon wealth. I think this example
will show clearly the difference between a society
based upon labour and one based upon wealth.
Commonplace as the illustration may seem, it is
one which can be extended, and yet rarely is
extended to the state of affairs we find in our own
country. We have but to replace our island-land
owner and capitalist by a number of landowners and
capitalists. These will have a monopoly of land and
of wealth. They can virtually force the labouring
classes, who have neither land nor capital, to
administer to their luxury in return for the more
needful supports of life. The limit of comfort to
which they can reduce the labouring classes depends
on the following considerations, which, of course,
vary from time to time:—First, their own self
interest in keeping at least a sufficient supply of
labour in such decent health and strength that it
can satisfy their wants; secondly, their fear that too
great pinching may lead to a forcible revolution;
and, thirdly, a sort of feeling—arising partly per
haps from religion, partly perhaps from purely
�IN THEORY AND PRACTICE.
21
mechanical sympathy—of dislike at the sight of
suffering.
The greater demand there is for luxury on the part
of the wealthy, the smaller is the time that the
labouring classes can devote to the improvement of
their own condition, the increase of their own com
fort. Let us take a possible case, which may not
be the absolute truth, but which will exemplify the
law we have stated. Suppose that the labouring
classes work eight hours a day. Now, these eight
hours are not only spent in producing the absolute
necessities of existence, and the degree of comfort
in which our toilers live, but in producing also all
the luxuries enjoyed by the rich. Let us suppose,
for example, that five hours suffice to sow and to
till, and to weave and to carry and fetch—shortly,
to produce the food-supply of the country, and the
average comfort which the labourer enjoys as to
house and raiment. What, then, becomes of the
other three hours’ work ? It is consumed in making
luxuries of all kinds for the wealthy, fine houses,
rich furniture, dainty food, and so forth. These
three hours are spent, not in improving the condition
of the labourer’s own class, not in building themselves
better dwellings or weaving themselves better
clothes, nor, on the other hand, are they spent in
public works for the benefit of the whole comm unity
but solely in supplying luxuries for wealthy indi
viduals. The wealthy can demand these luxuries
because they possess a monopoly of land and of
capital, shortly, of the means of subsistence. This
monopoly of the means of subsistence makes them
in fact, if not in name, slave-owners. Such is the
result of the individualistic as opposed to the
socialistic system. We see now why the houses of
the poor . are deplorable—namely, because that
�22
SOCIALISM :
labour which should be devoted to improving them
is consumed in supplying the luxuries of the rich.
We may state it then, as a general law of a society
based upon wealth—that the misery of the labouring
classes is directly proportional to the luxury of the
wealthy. This law is a very old one indeed; the
only strange thing is, that it is every day forgotten.
Having noted, then, wherein the evil of the social
system based upon wealth lies, we have lastly to
consider how far, and by what means, it is possible
to remedy it.
The only true method of investigating a question
of this kind is, I feel sure, the historical one. Let
us ask ourselves how in past ages one state of society
has been replaced by another, and then, if possible,
apply the general law to the present time.
Now, there are a considerable number of socialistic
teachers—I will not call them false Socialists—who
are never weary of crying out that our present state
in society is extremely unjust, and that it must be
destroyed. They are perpetually telling the labour
ing classes that the rich unjustly tyrannize over
them, and that this tyranny must be thrown off.
According to these teachers, it would seem as if the
rich had absolutely entered into a conspiracy to
defraud the poor. Now, although I call myself a
Socialist, I must tell you plainly that I consider such
teaching not only very foolish, but extremely harm
ful. It can arise only from men who are ignorant,
or from men who seek to win popularity from the
working-classes by appealing to their baser passions.
So far from aiding true Socialism, it stirs up class
hatred, and instead of bringing classes together, it
raises a barrier of bitterness and hostility between
them. It is idle to talk of a conspiracy of the rich
against the poor, of one class against another. A
�IN THEORY AND PRACTICE.
23
man is born into his class, and into the traditions of
his class. He is not responsible for his birth,
whether it be to wealth or to labour. He is born to
certain luxuries, and he is never taught to consider
them as other than his natural due; he does as his
class does, and as his fathers have done before him.
His fault is not one of malice, but of ignorance.
He does not know how his luxuries directly increase
the misery of the poor, because no one has ever
brought it home to him. Although a slave-owner
he is an unconscious slave-owner. Shortly, he wants
educating ; not educating quite in the same sense as
the labouring classes want educating, he probably
has book-learning enough. He wants teaching that
there is a higher social morality than the morality
of a society based upon wealth. Namely, he must
be taught that mere ownership has no social value
at all—that the sole thing of social value is labour,
labour of head or labour of hand : and that in
dividual ownership of wealth has arisen in the
past out of a very crude and insufficient method
of representing such labour. The education of
the so-called upper or wealth-owning classes is
thus an imperative necessity.
They must be
taught a new morality. Here, again, is a point
on which we see the need of a union between
the educative and hand-working classes. The
labourers with the head must come to the assist
ance of the labourers with the hand by educating the
wealthy. Do not think this is a visionary project;
two great Englishmen at least, John Ruskin and
William Morris, are labouring at this task; they are
endeavouring to teach the capitalistic classes that
the morality of a society based upon wealth is a
mere immorality.
But you will tell me that education is a very long
�24
SOCIALISM:
process, and that meantime the poor are suffering,
and must continue to suffer. Are not the labouring
classes unjustly treated, and have they not a right
to something better ? Shortly, ought they not to
enforce that right ? Pardon me, if I tell you plainly
that I do not understand what such abstract
‘justice ’ or ‘right’ means. I understand that the
comfort of the labouring classes is far below what
it would be if society were constituted on the
basis of labour. I believe that on such a basis
there would be less misery in the world, and there
fore it is a result to be aimed at. But because this
is a result which all men should strive for, it does
not follow that we gain anything by calling it a
‘right.’ A ‘right’ suggests something which a
man may take by force, if he cannot obtain it other
wise. It suggests that the labouring classes should
revolt against the capitalistic classes and seize what
is their ‘ right.’
Let us consider for a moment what is the mean
ing of such a revolt. I shall again take history as
our teacher. History shows us that whenever the
misery of the labouring classes reaches a certain
limit they always do break into open rebellion. It
is the origin, more or less, of all revolutions
throughout the course of time. But history teaches
us just as surely that such revolutions are accom
panied by intense misery both for the labouring and
wealthy classes. If this infliction of misery had
ever resulted in the reconstruction of society we
might even hope for good from a revolution, but we
invariably find that something like the old system
springs again out of the chaos, and the same old
distinction of classes, the same old degra
dation of labour is sure to reappear. That is
precisely the teaching of the Paris Commune or
�IN THEORY AND PRACTICE.
2$
again of the Anabaptist Kingdom of God in
Munster. Apart from this the labourers with the
hand will never be permanently successful in a
revolution, unless they have the labourers with
the head with them; they will want organiza
tion, they will want discipline, and this must fail
unless education stands by them. Now, the
labourers with the head have usually deserted the
labourers with the hand when the latter rise in
revolt, because they are students of history and
they know too well from history that revolution has
rarely permanently benefited the revolting classes.
You may accept it as a primary law of history, that
no great change ever occurs with a leap, no great social
reconstruction, which will permanently benefit any
class of the community, is ever brought about by a
revolution. It is the result of a gradual growth, a
progressive change, what we term an evolution. This
is as much a law of history as of nature. Try as
you will, you cannot make a man out of a child in a
day, you must wait and let him grow, and gradually
educate him and replace his childish ideas by the
thoughts of a man. Precisely so you must treat
society; you must gradually change it, educate it,
if you want a permanent imprbvement in its nature.
Feeling, as I do, the extreme misery which is brought
about by the present state of society based upon
wealth, I should say to the working-classes, ‘ Revolt,’
if history did not teach me only too surely, that
revolution would fail of its object. All progress
towards a better state of things must be gradual.
Progress proceeds by evolution, not by revolution.
For this reason I would warn you against socialistic
teachers who talk loudly of ‘ right ’ and ‘justice
who seek to stir up class against class. Such teach
ing merely tends towards revolution ; and revolution
�26
SOCIALISM :
js not justifiable, because it is never successful. It
never achieves its object. Such teachers are not
true socialists, because they have not studied history; because their teaching really impedes our
progress towards socialism. We might even take
an example from our island with its landlord
capitalist tyrannizing over the other inhabitants.
We have supposed him to be a practical farmer
capable of directing the labours of the others. Now,
suppose the inhabitants were to rise in revolt and
throw him into the sea, what would happen ? Why,
the very next year they would not know what to sow
or how to sow it; their agricultural operations would
fail, and there would very soon be a famine on the
island, which would be far worse than the old tyranny.
Something very similar would occur in this country
if the labouring classes were to throw all our
capitalists into the sea. There would be no one
capable of directing the factories or the complex
operations of trade and commerce; these would all
collapse, and there would very soon be a famine in
this island also. You must bring your capitalist to
see that he is only a labourer, a labourer with the
head, and deserves wage accordingly. You can
only do this by two methods. The first is to educate
him to a higher morality, the second is to restrict
him by the law of the land. Now, the law of the
land is nothing more or less than the morality of
the ruling class, and so long as political power is in
the hands of the capitalists, and these are ‘ uneduc
ated,’they are unlikely to restrict their own profits
If, then, my view that we can only approach
socialism by a gradual change is correct, we have
before us two obvious lines of conduct which we
may pursue at the same time. The first, and I am
inclined to think the more important, is the educa-
�.
IN THEORY AND PRACTICE.
27
tion of the wealthy classes; they must be taught
from childhood up that the only moral form of
society is a society based upon labour, they must be
taught always to bear in mind the great law—that
the misery of the poor is ever directly proportional
to the luxury of the rich. This first object ought to
be essentially the duty of the labourers with the
head. Let the labourer with the hand ever regard
himself as working in concert with the labourer with
the head—the two are in truth but members of one
large guild, the guild of labour, upon which basis
society has to be reconstructed. The second line of
conduct, which is practically open to all true
Socialists, is the attainment of political power;
wealth must cease to be the governing power in
this country, it must be replaced by labour. The
educative classes and the handworkers must rule
the country; only so will it be possible to replace
the wealth basis by the labour basis. The first step
in this direction must necessarily be the granting
of the franchise to all hand-workers. This is a very
practical and definite aim to work for. Now, I have
already hinted that I consider both great political
parties really to represent wealth. Hence I do not
believe that any true Socialist is either Liberal or
Conservative, but at present it would be idle to think
of returning socialistic members to Parliament
*
Socialists will best forward their aims at present by
supporting that party which is likely to increase the
franchise. So that to be a true Socialist at present
means, I think, to support the ‘ Liberal ’ Govern
ment. This support is not given because we are
* This was written in 188L The extension of the
franchise, incomplete as it is, has since considerably in
creased the possibility of returning socialistic members
for at least one or two towns.
�28
SOCIALISM :
‘ Liberals,’ but because, by it, we can best aid the
cause of Socialism. But with regard to the fran
chise, there is a point which I cannot too strongly
insist upon. If the complete enfranchisement of
the hand-worker is to forward the socialistic cause
he must be educated so as to use it for that purpose,
Now, we have laid it down as a canon of Socialism
that all labour is equally honourable; in a society
based upon labour there can be no distinction of
class. Thus, the true Socialist must be superior
to class-interests. He must look beyond his own
class to the wants and habits of society at large.
Hence, if the franchise is to be really profitable, the
hand-worker must be educated to see beyond the
narrow bounds of his own class. He must be
taught to look upon society as a whole, and respect
the labour of all its varied branches. He must
endeavour to grasp the wants and habits of other
forms of labour than his own, whether it be labour of
the head or of the hand. He must recognize to the
full that all labour is equally honourable, and has
equal claims on society at large. The shoemaker
does not despise the labour of the blacksmith, but he
must be quite sure that the labour of the school
master, of the astronomer, and of the man who
works with his brains, is equally valuable to the com
munity. Here, again, we see how the labourer with
the head can come to the assistance of the labourer
with the hand. In order that the franchise may be
practically of value to the artisan, he must grasp how
to use it for broader purposes than mere class aims.
To do this he requires to educate himself. I repeat
that I should like to hear a cry go up from the
hand-workers for education and leisure for education,
even as it went up forty years ago for bread. For
the mind is of equal importance with the stomach
�IN THEORY AND PRACTICE.
29
and needs its bread also. Apart from the franchise,
there is another direction in which, I think, practi
cal steps might be taken, namely, to obtain for
trades-unions, or rather, as I should prefer to call
them, labour-guilds—a share or influence in munici
pal government. Let there be a labour-guild
influence in every parish, and on every vestry. As
I have said before, I cannot conceive that the
housing of the poor would be what it is if the trades
unions had been represented in the government of
London. Such a representation would be the first
approach to a communal organization based upon
labour, and ultimately to a society on the same basis.
You can hardly support your trades-unions too
energetically, and you have in this respect taught
the labourers with the head a lesson. These
labourers with the head are just beginning to form
their labour-guilds too—guilds of teachers and guilds
of writers—and it is to these labour guilds, and to
your trades-unions that we must look for much use
ful work in the future.
These surely are practical aims enough for the
’ present, but I may perhaps be allowed to point out
to you what direction I think legislative action
should take, supposing the franchise granted to all
hand-workers. As I have endeavoured to show,
any sudden change would be extremely dangerous ;
it would upset our old social arrangements, and
would not give us any stable new institutions. It
would embitter class against class, and not destroy
class altogether. We must endeavour to pass
gradually from the old to the new state; from the
state in which wealth is the social basis to one in
which labour is the sole element by which we judge
men. Now, in order that wealth should cease
to be mistress, her monopoly of the means of sub
�30
SOCIALISM :
sistence must be destroyed. In other words, land
and capital must cease to be in the hands of in
dividuals.
We must have nationalization of
the land and nationalization of capital. Every
Socialist is a land-nationalizer and a capital-nationalizer.
It will be sufficient now to consider the first
problem, the nationalization of the land. Mr.
George says, take the land and give no compensation.
That |is what I term a revolutionary measure; it
attempts to destroy and reconstruct in a moment.
If history teaches us anything, it tells us that all
such revolutionary measures fail; they bring more
misery than they accomplish good.
Hence,
although I am a land-nationalizer—as every Social
ist must be—I do not believe in Mr. George’s cry of
‘ No compensation.’ Then we have another set ot
land-nationalizers, who would buy the landlords
out. Let us see what this means. The landlords
would be given, in return for their lands, a large
sum of money, which would have to be borrowed by
the nation, and the interests on which would
increase for ever the taxes of the country. In other
words, we should be perpetuating the wealth of the
landlords and their claims to be permanently
supported by the classes that labour. That is not a
socialistic remedy. It would seem, at first sight as
if there were no alternative—either compensation
or no compensation. Yet I think there is a third
course, if we would only try to legislate for the
future as well as for the present. Suppose a bill were
passed to convert all freehold in land into a lease
hold, say, of 8oto ioo years, from the nation.' Here
there would be no question of compensation, and
little real injury to the present landowner, because
the difference between freehold and a hundred
�IN THEORY AND PRACTICE.
31
years’ leasehold (at least in towns) is comparatively
small. At the end of a hundred years the nation
would be in possession of all land without having
paid a penny for it, and without violently breaking
up the present social arrangements. In less than
100 years with the land slipping from their fingers
the children of our present landowners would have
learnt that, if they want to live, they must labour.
That would be a great step to true socialism. Pre
cisely as I propose to treat the land I would treat
most forms of capital. With the land, of course,
mines and factories would necessarily pass into the
hands of the nation. Railways would have to be
dealt with in the same fashion. The present com
panies would have a hundred years’ lease instead of
a perpetuity of their property.
These are merely suggestions of how it might be
possible to pass to a stable form of society based
upon labour—to a true socialism. The change
would be stable because it would be gradual; the
state would be socialistic because it would be based
upon labour; while wealth, in its two important
forms—land and capital—would belong alone to the
nation.
Some of you may cry out in astonishment, “ But
what is the use of working for such a socialism, we
shall never live to see it, we shall never enjoy its
happiness.” Quite true, I reply, but there is a
nobler calling than working for ourselves, there is a
higher happiness than self-enjoyment—namely, the
feeling that our labour will have rendered posterity,
will have rendered our children free from the misery
through which we ourselves have had to struggle;
the feeling that our work in life has left the world a
more joyous dwelling-place for mankind than we
found it. The little streak of improvement which
�32
SOCIALISM ; IN THEORY AND IN PRACTICE
each man may leave behind him—the only im
mortality ot which mankind can be sure—is a far
nobler result of labour, whether of hand or of head,
than three-score years of unlimited personal happi
ness.
�
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 & 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
Socialism in theory and practice : a lecture delivered to a working class audience
Description
An account of the resource
Edition: 2nd ed.
Place of publication: London
Collation: 32 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: Note to Second Edition dated March 6th 1887. Lecture first delivered early 1884.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Pearson, Karl
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
W. Reeves
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[1887?]
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
T468
Subject
The topic of the resource
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 (Socialism in theory and practice : a lecture delivered to a working class audience), 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
Addresses
Socialism
Speeches
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/66b8fad5d0f378b8e65a8650cc351f70.pdf?Expires=1779926400&Signature=Sgi9qlCOcBM6IoFv7E%7EsId5PFLIB3IKCNJOYJ6VdVpyepO-l4FDRb5XH5It1Iv5N3eQX7Dv718EK3R9HumyldX1jGGtWaGe35mQ6BnTKRjMAsQnIAiaHU98fgD4uVXyJg%7EI%7EVWZJDAIB5GxOH9hsAbHIA%7Eeso8qmdqZrnxZadPfzUCB5YWH4wEatZ3PGMOqJBL0pu8DT6YPaNUu3ddOJoeVj6qoRiXGikIbRx6u9DHr-ixfCVxfVQpboeDt9i088EKOi9W-kRytNbRS4N9hrU3DOMdHDu9YejjSE6%7E4RBuLcQe9KCVVHTZtupGkCjh-oZLH1yAd5iQzV1nZXJpX6ig__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
dec8b8b413e3a359d4f26cf6435cd109
PDF Text
Text
PRICE QNE PENNY.]
[SEVENTIETH THOUSAND.
WHAT SHALL I DO
WITH MY VOTE?
A Few Plain Words to the New Voters.
BY
ERNEST PARKE.
■4-
The Right Hon. JOHN BRIGHT writes: “I have read your pamphlet, which
■contains much that is good. It is not easy to write as briefly and as simply as
is needed for the instruction of a large portion of the new voters ; but they will
understand much that you have written for them.”
Mr JOSEPH ARCH writes t “I have read your pamphlet very carefully. It
contains some very good advice to the new electors. Any one contesting a
county division would do well to widely circulate your pamphlet.”
-------- ♦--------
Princes and lords may flourish or may fade;
A breath can make them, as a breath has made.
But a bold pe santry, their country’s pride,
When once destroyed, can never be supplied.
The Deserted Village
--------- *--------
London
W. Reeves, 185 Fleet St., E.C.; The Cobden Club ; or, The Author.
Birmingham: The National Liberal Federation, Colmore Row.
Manchester: The National Reform Union, 46, Brown Street.
Liverpool: The Financial Reform Association, 18, Hackins Hey.
All Booksellers in town and country.
�JRead these Facts
-------- ~0--------------
There are about 520 members of the House of Lords.
490 of them are Landowners, owning 15,213,000 acres, and
the rental is at least .£12,750,000.
They draw out of the national moneys for salaries, pensions,
etc., over £600,000 a year, of which the Royal princes take
£104,642, the Bishops £165,771, and other peers the rest.
Since 1850, the peers and their relations have had over
£100,000,000 out of the taxes.
If you want to know what they have done for it, look at
page 8.
The annual income of the bishops and parsons of the Church
of England is about £6,000,000.
The greater part of this belongs to the whole nation, and
might go to pay for the schooling of the children.
In about 120 years over 8,000,000 acres of common lands
have been enclosed.
Taxes on food and other goods brought into a country arepaid, not by the foreigner who sends them, but by the people
who buy them, because taxes make the goods dearer. It is
not the Chinaman, but the Englishman who pays the tax on
our tea.
If a tax were put on corn, every man who bought a loaf
would help to pay it and the benefit would go into the land
lords’ pockets.
If Tories deny this, read to them what Sir Stafford Northcote,
their leader, lately wrote, (see page 12).
�A TALK ON THE QUESTIONS OF THE DAY.
THE VOTE.
At last, after many years of waiting and hoping, you have the
vote, and you will be able to use it most likely this autumn. Up
till now you have been of very little account in politics. No one
cared what you thought because you had no power. But that is
all changed, and as your class is now very powerful, many people
will be telling you not only what to do, but what to think. But
you will be wise to think for yourselves, and not take your
opinions second-hand from anybody.
IT IS SECRET.
The first thing you should remember about the vote is that it
is quite secret, and no one can know how you have voted unless
you tell him. If any persons say that they can find out, it is not
true, and they are merely trying to make you vote for somebody
whom they think you dare not vote against. If you don’t say
how you vote, no one else can. This way of voting secretly, or
by Ballot, was made law by the Liberals in 1872, though the
House of Lords did all they could to prevent it. They were
afraid that the farmers would vote against their landlords some
times instead of voting for them. Many of you, I dare say, know
cases where, years ago, farmers have been turned out of their
farms for voting against the landlord or his friends; but that
cannot happen now, unless the farmer tells somebody how he
voted. Some years past the Marquis of Exeter, a great Tory
landowner, since dead, ordered all his tenants who were widows
to get married again or else leave their farms. . The women had
no votes, and he wanted only men as tenants, so that he could
make them vote as he liked. The Ballot has put a stop to doings
of that sort, and that is the chief reason why the House of Lords
opposed it so long.
WHOM WILL YOU VOTE FOR?
Feeling now quite sure that the vote is secret, the next thing
is, to whom will you give it ? It seems natural that you should
support that party which has for so many years tried to get you
the franchise. You know that the men who have struggled to
fet you your rights are Liberals. They have worked for you in
'arliament and out of Parliament. They have shown themselves
to be your friends before you had any power, and they are still
more likely to keep friends now you have got it The Tories,
�4
till a very few months back, always said you were not fit to have
the franchise because you were not educated. Then the Liberals
passed the Education Act in 1870, which gives every child in the
land an education, and soon we hope to make the schools free,
because it is for the good of all that every child should be educated’
The Tories thus lost this excuse, and then they took to saying
that you did not care anything about the vote, and would n®t
know what to do with it when you had got it. Last of all,
when they found it was of no use trying to keep it from you, they
said they had been in favour of your having it all along. They
became afraid you would vote against them, and so they are now
trying to make you believe they have always been your friends.
I don’t think you will be deceived so easily. You will most
likely agree with me that these facts form very good reasons why
you should trust your votes to the Liberals. But there are very
many other reasons.
ARE YOU CONTENTED?
A short time ago Sir Stafford Northcote, the leading Con
servative in the House of Commons, said he was afraid people
would be going about telling you that you had wrongs to be
righted and ends to gain, and that you were as good as your
betters. It is plain that he does not think so. He seems to
believe that you are quite happy and contented. If you are, it
will be of no use any one telling you otherwise. But if you are
not, if you think the laws, as they concern you, want altering,
then Liberals and Radicals mean, if you will help them, to get
the laws altered so that they may be just towards you and favour
you as much as others. Your vote will enable you to do this.
Up till now you have otly had to obey the laws ; now you can
help to make them as well as obey them.
THE LAND LAWS.
The Land Laws will have most interest for you, because they
affect your means of getting a living. If they are not good laws
as they stand now, farming must be bad, and you cannot get
better wages. Now, Liberals and Radicals believe that our
present Land Laws need altering, for they partly account for
there being so many millions of acres of land not being tilled
now. The result is that wages are low and thousands of labourers
have left the land, and either gone into the towns to try to get a
living, or else gone to America and other countries where men
are better paid for working on the soil. Mr. Chamberlain, M.P.,
says it is reckoned that there are about 800,000 fewer persons
living on the land in England now than fifteen years ago. Think
of that! It is the same as if two thousand villages, each with
400 people in, were all empty and the people gone away—God
knows where. I can tell you of a case in my native county
arwickshire—which will show you one way how this has
come about. A landlord there has about 3,000 acres, and besides
that he is a rich man. When times got bad, about 1875, his
�5
tenants asked him to reduce their rent. He refused, and they
left their farms. He had plenty of money, and it did not matter
to him if the farms were not taken. But what became of the
labourers on this estate ? They had to work or starve, and as
there was no work for them there, they had to go wherever they
could get it. I dare say most of you can call to mind cases like
this one. This landlord, who never lifted his finger to work,
had the power under the present law to send scores of hard
working farmers and labourers out of their homes, and
besides that the land produced no food, and the other rate
payers in the parish had to pay the rates that this land should
have paid. This is one way in which the law wants altering. If
the land will produce enough for the farmer and the labourer—
the men who really work—it ought to be farmed to grow food
for the nation. The landlord—the man who does not work—
can take his share out of the land after the other two have got
their living, but he should not be allowed to let the land lie idle
and starve the labourer because he cannot get as much rent as
he wants. He cannot be allowed to act like a dog in a manger,
who won’t eat the bait of corn himself, or let the horse eat it.
When a ship is in a storm, the passengers don’t throw the captain
and the crew overboard, but they pitch the useless lumber out.
So, when farming is bad, either through bad laws, bad seasons, or
bad prices, the farmer and the labourer should justly be the last
to suffer, and the rich, do-nothing landlord should feel the pinch
first. One good way to effect this is that suggested by Joseph
Arch—make landlords let their farms by compelling them to
pay rates, whether, empty or not. They would be glad to let
them then, if only to get rent enough for the rates.
THE DEAD MAN'S CLUTCH.
Other laws which must be done away with are the laws which
permit settlement and entail. These allow a landowner to tie
up his land for three generations, so that his son and his son’s
son do not own the land to do what they like with, but only
receive the rents as long as they live. The result of these laws
is that the landlord is not ©ften willing to spend any money
to improve the land, because all he cares about is to get as
much rent as he can as long as he lives, and if the farmer
makes the soil bear better, the landlord will only raise the
rent. Consequently the land is not tilled nearly so well as it
should be, and it does not find work for so many labourers as
it ought to. These laws the Liberals and Radicals will try to
do away with, and if you help them, they will certainly do it.
THE GAME LAWS.
In the same way, we must do away with the game laws. The
game feeds on the farmer’s crops, and as he keeps the game,
it ought to belong to him—if it belongs to anybody. I wonder
how many thousand English labourers have been sent to prison
for disturbing the sleep of those sacred rabbits and hares ! Land
�6
lords and parsons sit on the bench and try the cases, and they
order men to pay heavy fines or to go to prison, without ever
thinking of how great a temptation it is to a poor man to kill a
rabbit for his children’s dinner. But the game has been preserved
long enough. We must now make some laws to preserve the
labourers.
ABOUT ALLOTMENTS.
The law as to allotments is the one in which you will, perhaps,
feel most interest. In many parishes there have been allotments
for years which have been let out to a favored few, often at rents
much higher than were paid by the farmer on the other side of
the hedge, and when one of the labourers offended the parson or
the squire, the allotment was taken from him. In 1882, however,
as you may know, the Allotments Extension Act was passsed by
Parliament. Mr. Howard Evans, who has for many years worked
hard for the labourer’s rights, and whose name is well-known to
every reader of the Labourer's Chronicle, collected the facts and
figures for this Act of Parliament; and Mr. Jesse Collings, M.P.,
whose political life has also been mainly given up to the good of
the labourer, got it passed into law. By this Act it is ordered
that all land left for charity shall be let to labourers in allotments
if they ask for it, at the same rent as the farmers round about
pay. As Mr. Collings made the Bill, if a labourer could not get
the charity land, he was to apply to the judge of the nearest
County Court, who would inquire into the reason why he was
not allowed to have it, and the matter would soon have been put
right. But when the House of Lords examined the Bill, they
ordered that the labourers had to apply to the Charity Commis
sioners in London, instead of the County Court, which meant in
most cases they could not get the land at all if any difficulty arose.
To help labourers who were in this trouble, Mr. Collings started a
society for which a lot of Liberal gentlemen find the money, and
now any labourer who cannot get the people who manage the
Charity lands to let it out in allotments, should write to the
Secretary, Allotments Extension Association, Birmingham, and
he will advise and help him. But this is another law which must
be altered so that all Charity land shall be let out to labourers
who requre it If you show that you mean to have this done,
the law will be changed very soon. Mr. Collings is trying to get
another bill passed, called the Yeomen’s and Small Holdings Bill,
which will make it much easier for labourers to get allotments
•md plots of their own. But if you want good laws like this to
be passed, ask the men who come to you to be sent to Parliament
whether they will vote for such bills, and then you will know
what to do when you hear their answer. The Liberals and
"Radicals mean to get the people back on the land again, and that
the labourer shall have a bit of land to farm for himself, so that
he will have something to look forward to in his old age besides
the workhouse.
�7
TAKING THE PEOPLE'S COMMONS.
They alfeo mean to stop landlords putting fences round com
mon lands, which do not belong to them, but which belong to
the people of the parish. Landlords are very fond of enclosing
land like this, and often say they do it so that the land may
grow something instead of lying idle. But that is no reason why
they should farm it for their own good. Why not let it out in
allotments to labourers, and let the rent go to the good of the
parish instead of into the pockets of the landlords ? Mr. Jesse
Collings is going to try to pass a Bill making landlords who have
fenced in land that does not belong to them in the last fifty years
give it up again. In the last 120 years about eight millions of
acres, or land equal to one-third part of all the workable land in
England, have been enclosed by landlords. Parliament was, and
is now, full of landlords ; and they can pass Acts which favour
their own class very easily. For instance, when a fstrmer becomes
bankrupt, the landlord can send the bailiffs and seize his cattle
and goods for rent, but other people to whom he owes money
have to take their chance of getting paid, and often lose their
money because the landlord has taken all the farmer has got.
Why should not the farmer’s goods be sold and the money divided
fairly amongst those to whom he owes debts ?
LAWS MADE BY LANDLORDS FOR LANDLORDS.
But there are many ways besides this in which the lords and
landlords in Parliament have made laws to suit themselves. When
a man dies and leaves a lot of money, the people who come into
it have to pay a heavy tax. But, if a landlord leaves a lot of
land instead of money, those who come after him hardly pay
anything for tax. Do you think this is fair ? Then, again, the great
squires and lords often do not pay as much for rates as they
ought to. The reason of this is because they are so rich and
powerful that the people who charge them dare not charge them
their full share. I could name six or more of our noblemen, all
of them with over £50,000 a year, who pay much less rates for
their parks than their tenants do for their farms, and they
pay nothing at all for their immense palaces. It would seem
fairer if these very rich landlords were to pay rather more
instead of less, than poorer folks. But there is a worse case
than all these of how they have put their taxes on to the
backs of the common people. About two hundred years ago,
in 1660, when that immoral and base king, Charles II., came
to the throne, the nobles stopped paying him the rents for their
lands which they had always paid to the Government, and instead
they imposed Excise and Customs duties. This meant that they
taxed beer and other things that the people used, and thus the
people paid to the Crown the taxes which the land had always
paid. Then, in 1692, as the taxes did not bring in enough money,
the nobles agreed to pay 4s. out of every pound they received as
rent, but when land got worth more and rents rose they did not
�8
pay any m6re taxes; and the result is that now, instead of the
landlords paying about thirty-four million pounds in taxes for
their land, they only pay a little more than one million. They
have made the poor pay the biggest part by taxing the things
that are used most—such as tea, tobacco, and beer. Here are
some of the taxes which the poor pay though most of them do
not know it. Out of every shilling they pay
For cocoa, l|d. is for tax;
For coffee, l|d. is for tax;
For currants and raisins, 2|d. is for tax;
For tea, 4|d. is for tax.
For every 8d. spent in tobacco 2|d. is for tax, and |d. for
tobacco. Taxes make a shillingsworth of spirits cost 4s. 4|d.
The tax on a shillingsworth of champagne (which poor men
don’t buy) is £cL
TAXING THE POOR.
I will give you an instance of how the poor were taxed. This
case was brought before Parliament in 1842. William Gladstone,
a labourer, earned 11s. a week, and spent 7s. 7d. on food, as
follows :— 1 ounce of tea, 2 ounces of coffee, 8 ounces of sugar,
8 ounces of meat, 8 pounds of flour, seven pints of ale, and a
quartern of brandy.
s. d.
The real cost of these was .................. 2 4^
The taxes on these were
.................. 5 2|
7 7
Thus out of the £28 a year that this poor man earned, £18
went in taxes. A man who had £10,000 a year ought, at the same
rate, to have paid about £4,700 a year in taxes. Instead of that
he paid not more than about £500—that is the poor man paid
nearly ten times as much as the rich man, according to his means.
Since that day the poor man’s taxes have been lightened—chiefly
by Mr. Gladstone and the Liberals—but there is still plenty of
room for change, for even now the poor man pays a good deal
more than the rich man, considering how little he has to pay
with. Liberals hope to reform this, and make the laws so that
rich and poor pay each according to their means.
THE HOUSE OF LORDS.
You will remember that last autumn, when meetings were
being held all over the country to get the Franchise Bill passed
so that you can have the vote, a great deal was said against the
House of Lords. They had refused to pass the Bill. Everybody
expected they would not pass it, because they have always de
layed or refused to pass every Bill of importance that the
Liberals in the House of Commons have brought in for the
good of the people. Before 1-832 the Lords usedto govern the
country how they liked, without taking much notice of what -+-he
people who paid the taxes wanted. Nobody but wealthy
�9
*u-rdt, could sit in Parliament, and the House of Lords really chosethe greater part of the House of Commons. But in 1832 the
Liberals passed the great Reform Bill, after nearly two years’'
struggling with the Lords and the King. The Peers agreed to it
at last, because there had been riots all over the country, and
they could see, if they did not, we should have civil war inEngland. They did not know whether the soldiers would fight
against the people, or side with them; so, in their fear, they
passed the Bill. By this Bill large towns like Manchester, Leeds
and Birmingham were allowed to send members to Parliament,
and little villages of a few hundred people, and, perhaps, with
only a dozen electors who were in the pay of some lord, stopped*
sending members. This was the beginning of that great reform
which has brought it about that now every man in the country
who has a house has a vote.
TKH4T THE LORDS HAVE DONE.
It is easy to see that the more power the people got, the less
was left to the lords, but they have struggled hard to keep their
wrongful power. They have always opposed bills to make elec
tions cheap and stop bribery, because they were rich and could
afford to bribe. They opposed the Ballot because it prevents
them knowing how a man votes, and so they cannot threaten to
turn him out of his farm or cottage if he does not vote as they
want. They refused to do away with cruel laws which punishedpeople severely because they were Roman Catholics or Jews, or
because they went to chapel instead of to church. They, of
course, opposed the first efforts that were made to give the poor
man’s child a cheap education, partly because they were afraid
of the poor knowing how the lords have treated them for hun
dreds of years, and partly because there would be many other
people to teach the children besides the church parson. Then
they opposed the Liberals taking the taxes off paper, because
they knew when paper was cheaper the poor would be able tobuy newspapers for a penny or a halfpenny, and these would
educate the workman and tell him of his rights and his power.
They did all they could to prevent people in the towns from,
having town councils to manage their affairs for them.
HOW THE LORDS HAVE RULED IRELAND.
In Ireland they have been far more powerful than they have
here, and the result is seen in the dreadful condition of that un
happy country. For years the Lords refused to pass every Bill
which the Liberals proposed for the good of the Irish people;
and, as the English did not care quite so much as when theLords refused English Bills, the reforms were much longer
delayed. The greater nrnnber of the farmers there only have small
plots of land. They build their own houses of mud, and make
all the fences and hovels on the land at their own expense, but
when they cannot pay the high rents to their landlords they are
turned out on to the roadside to beg or die. I could tell you of
�10
cases where as many as seven hundred men, women and
children—some of them sick and ill—have been turned out of
their homes in one day because the landlord wanted to knock
down their houses and turn the land into sheep-farms. This sort
of treatment has been going on for hundreds of years, and the
Lords refused to alter the laws which allowed it, although some
Irish landlords themselves said they were most unjust. It is no
wonder that landlords get shot, and Fenians come over here and
make disturbances. It is almost certain that if we had had no
House of Lords, we should have had no Fenians. The high rents
and bad laws in Ireland will also explain why Irishmen come over
for harvest time and do work which Englishmen might do.
Always remember that our House of Lords, by refusing to pass
better laws for Ireland, has made that country so that millions of
the people have left it and come here to live or gone to America.
Mr. Gladstone and the Liberals overcame the Lords in 1881, and
passed a Land Act in spite of them. Ireland is much quieter
now, and when we have given the Irish full justice it is to be
hoped that they will live at peace with us. We must let them
know it is not the English people but the English lords who
have refused them j'ustice. Our lords own immense estates over
there, but most of them spend the money in London and abroad
which their Irish tenants pay. This helps to make Irish trade
bad and the people more discontented.
HARSH AND CRUEL TO THE POOR.
Then, again, the Lords have always been in favor of punishing
the poor severely. How the squires send men to prison for
making a rabbit run away you already know. But that is mercy
itself to what the Lords allowed by the laws. In 1810 it was
lawful to hang a man for stealing half-a-crown’s worth of goods,
and the Lords refused to alter the law although the House of
Commons wanted to. Between 1810 and 1845 it was reckoned
that 1,400 people were hanged for doing what, if they did it now,
they would only be sent to prison for. But the Lords refused
for years to alter the law, although often asked to do so. These
noblemen were rich and well fed, and did not know, or care,
what a temptation it is to a poor and hungry man to steal a loaf.
I wonder how many poor people have been sent to prison for
months for stealing a turnip not worth a farthing ? Of course it
is wrong to steal a turnip, but often a man’s character has been
taken away for life because he took some such trifling thing.
When rich men do worse things (for only very poor people steal
turnips) they generally have a chance to get off by paying. For
instance, in January last (1885) a married clergyman in Lincoln
shire committed shocking assaults on two little girls. He was
only fined £20 and lost his situation. If a poor man had done
such a thing, he would certainly have had a long time in prison,
and most likely would have been sent to penal servitude for ten
or fifteen years, and his family would have gone to the work
�11
house. So, when a noble lord, not long since, assaulted a servant,
instead of being sent to prison and hard labour like any other
man, they arranged it so that he hardly suffered at all.
THE LORDS, THE LAND, AND THE LABOURERS.
But you will feel most interest in regard to what the Lords have
done about the land and the labourers. Every effort that has
been made to get justice for the farmer has always been opposed
by the Lords, although they pretend to be his friends. You
know that when tenants leave their farms, however mutch they
may have improved them, their landlords were not bound to give
them any money to pay them back what they had spent in making
the sheds better, or in manuring the land, or doing other things
that improve the farm for all time. The House of Lords have
always opposed any attempt to protect the property of the tenants
from greedy landlords. In just the same way they tried to defeat
the Bill giving the farmers the right to kill hares and rabbits.
How they have passed Bills enclosing immense quantities of
common land, and how they spoiled the Bill giving you the right
to have charity lands cut up into allotments, I have already told
you. In Ireland they refused to cottage allotments the same fair
treatment which the law gave to large farms. Then the workmen
in towns have suffered from the action of these noblemen just as
badly. They refused to women and children working in coal
mines the protection from hard masters and long hours, which
Liberals tried to get for them in 1842. Many of the lords are
owners of coal-pits, from which they get immense incomes, and
they did all they could to keep women and children at work in
them for long hours because their labour is cheaper than men’s.
They also tried to spoil the Employer’s Liability Act, which gives
a workman or his widow a claim against his employer if he is
hurt or killed through his master’s or the foreman’s carelessness.
In fact, the House of Lords has always opposed every Bill
intended to do good to the working classes or make them more
free. These noblemen sit in the House of Lords because they
are the eldest sons of their fathers, and not because the people
elected them. That may have been a very good reason many
years ago,
BUT IT WONT DO NOW.
No matter whether the Liberals or the Conservatives are in
power in the House of Commons, the House of Lords is always
Tory, and no one will say it is fair that the Liberals who have
been elected by the peeple to govern them should have all their
work delayed or spoiled by a lot of rich landlords who are elected
by nobody. Even if a peer goes to prison, as some do sometimes,
he can go back and make laws for us or spoil other men’s good
work. The People’s League, whose offices are at 14, Bucking
ham Street, Strand, London, has been formed to spread the truth
about the Lords amongst the voters, and you may be sure that
when their evil deeds are more generally known by the voters,
�12
the House of Lords will be either changed or done away with.
The People’s League, before it had been started three months,
had over 100,000 members, and it is still growing rapidly; so
you see very great numbers of your fellow workmen have made
11 p their minds that we can do better without the House of Lords
than with it, and I hope you will think so too.
WANTING TO TAX THE LOAF.
There is one change which a good many Tory landlords and
others want to make. They would like to put a tax on all corn
that comes into the country—that is, they want to tax the loaf.
But you will find that nearly all the people who want to do this
are landlords or their friends. They will tell you that if a small
tax is put on the corn you will have more work and more money.
It is not true, and I will tell you why. The landlord would get
a lot more rent, but will you be willing to pay more for your
bread that rich men may still be richer ? There used to be a tax
on bread. Between the years 1815 and 1846 bread was always
taxed, and what was the state of the people at that time ? Far
worse than it is now. Landlords were better off, but the working
men were starving. Farmers were ruined by thousands. The
workhouses were full; thousands of families had no food, no
clothing, nothing; there were riots in many places, women sold
their we'dding rings for bread, people boiled nettles for food and
ate bad flesh. At this time there were only half as many people
in G-reat Britain as there are now. Do you want these dreadful
sufferings over again ? They were the result of a tax on bread,
which benefits nobody but the landlords. Your wages are very
much higher even now than they were then. Joseph Arch has
written a book which shows up the shocking state of the country
at that time but folks who want to tax your bread don’t tell you
of these things. They say to you, “ What is the use of cheap
bread if you have no money to buy it with ?” They mean you
to understand that if bread was dearer you would have more
money. It is false. Bad as trade is now, it was far worse when
bread was taxed, and would be still worse if we were so foolish
as to allow it to be taxed again. The real change that wants to
be made i-s to alter the land laws so that the soil may be freely
tilled. There would be plenty of work then, and very much
more corn grown at home than there is now.
HOW TO MEET A TORY DODGE.
In the month of April (1885) Sir Stafford Northcote, the
Conservative leader in the House of Commons, wrote—“As
regards the future, I am distinctly of opinion that a return to a
protective duty on corn would be impossible, and that the idea
that a Conservative Government would attempt to impose one is
groundless.” Lord Salisbury a few days afterwards expressed the
same opinion. When a Tory comes to you trying to make you
believe that a tax on corn would raise your wages, show him this
sentence of Sir Stafford Northcote’s, and ask him why he is so
�13
dishonest as to recommend a plan that his own leaders will not
carry out and declare to be impossible.
THE CHURCH.
Now there is the question of the State Church. You know
that the Church of England, which does not include nearly half
the nation, uses for itself alone money which was meant just as
much for the poor as for the parsons. The Church is thus very
wealthy and powerful, and though the parsons are often good
and kind men, in many cases they use their power against the
poor who go to chapel, or who don’t send their children to the
church school, and they forget these poor people when the time
comes round for giving out blankets and coal. Sometimes
these parsons are magistrates and I have known some who have
been very severe in sending men to prison for poaching. When
they are on the Boards of Guardians, they often forget what
their Great Master told them about being kind and merciful.
Well, the Radicals are working to put an end to the special
power which the State gives to the Church of England, and they
wish to have the enormous wealth of the Church spent for the
good of all the people. For instance, it might be used in paying
for the schooling of the children. It was meant for all the
people years ago, and it ought to belong to all the people now,
instead of to only a part. These parsons are usually great friends
of the squires and the landlords. They taught you at school and
at Sunday school to be contented in that state of life into which
it shall please God to call you. You have learnt since that it is
a good thing for a man to better himself when he can. It is easy
to see why the parsons have taught you to be contented, for, as a
rule, they want the laws to stop as they are, instead of being
made better. The parsons and the bishops have always done
their best to prevent changes being made for the good of the
people. They often say the State church is the poor man’s
church, but if that is so, it is a strange thing the bishops and
most of the parsons always oppose laws meant to give poor men
their rights. The laws ought not to favour one church more
than another, and we must do away with the State church, so
that church and chapel will be on the same footing.
VOTE FOR PEACE AND AGAINST WAR.
Lastly, always vote for peace. No lasting good comes to
working men or anyone else from war, which wastes our taxes
and sheds the blood of our fellow men, and all for no real good.
Often wars are made by our rulers without the people being
asked, but the people have to find the money and the men,
although often they don’t agree with the objects for which war
is being made. War makes trade bad and wages low. Nothing
but misery and sorrow comes from it. It may be to the advan
tage of lords and gentlemen who are officers to fight and get
higher rank, but it can never be to the good of working men to
make war except to defend ourselves whaa attacked, and that
�14
we shall be always sure to do. It will help you to understand
what a curse war is when I tell you that out of every pound we
now pay in taxes 16s. 3^cL goes for war, war debt, or war prepa
rations and 3s. 8jd. for all other purposes of government.
WEIGH THESE CLOSING WORDS WELL.
. I have tried to show you some of the objects which you may
like to strive for. If you set your mind upon getting them, you
Can do it, for there are thousands and thousands of your brothers
and relations in the towns who are bent on getting the laws and
changes I have set before you. But how are you to do it ? By
acting together; and, if possible, through your Union. Taken
one at a time, your votes are worth very little : taken altogether,
there are no just and right things you cannot accomplish in timeby means of your votes. But you must not think these objects
can be gained without long and hard work. You must show the
men who want to be your Members of Parliament that you mean
to have these things, and tell them that if they won’t vote for
what you want, you won’t vote for them. We send men to Par
liament to do as we want, not to do as they like, and we must
make them understand it. The Liberals in town and country
everywhere will help you to improve your condition; they will
aid you in gaining whatever is rightly yours. Stand shoulder to
shoulder ; work steadily with your mates for the same just ends,
and there is no class in this country which is strong enough to
deny you your rights when right is on your side.
ERNEST PARKE.
103, Camberwell Grove, London, S.E.
�15
Bow the Lords and Bishops have Voted.
Some Samples oe Hereditary Legislation.
1807—Rejected Bill appointing a Committee of Council for Education.
1810—Rejected Bill abolishing Punishment of Death for stealing
goods value 5s. Seven bishops voted against the Bill. None for it.
More than 200 crimes then Capital.
1825—Rejected Catholic Relief Bill.
1829—Disfranchised 40s. Freeholders in Ireland.
1831— Rejected Reform Bill. 21 bishops assisted. Great riots.
1832— Mutilated Reform Bill in Committee. Renewed riots. Runon the Bank of England. Country on the brink of Revolution.
Refused to open Universities to Dissenters.
1833— Compelled withdrawal of Irish Education Bill.
1833- 57—Denied civil and political rights to Jews. 20 bishops
assisted. Rejected the Commons’ Bill seven times.
1834—Refused to allow more than 20 persons to meet for worship
in private house. Three times rejected Tithe Abatement Bill; also
Bill for legalising marriages in Dissenting chapels.
1836—Ordered banns of Dissenters’ marriages to be read before
Boards of Guardians. Mangled Municipal Reform Act.
1838—Refused to mothers the custody of infants during separation
caused by fault of father.
1839— Continued death penalty for sheep-stealing. RejectedNational Education Bill.
1842—Refused to give women and children working in mines the
full relief of the Commons’ Mines Regulation Bill. Prevented protec
tion of miners for 30 years.
1845—Refused compensation to the Irish tenants, and so for 25 years.
1858—Refused church rates abolition, and for next 11 years; 24
bishops in the majority.
1860—Rejected Bill taking tax off paper, which meant cheap press..
1868— Threw out Irish Church Disestablishment resolutions. Emas
culated Artisans’ Dwellings Bill.
1867-70—Thrice refused University Tests Abolition.
1869— Mutilated Irish Church Bill. Refused to allow Life Peerages.
1870—Mangled Irish Land Act.
1871—Rejected Army Purchase Bill. Threw out Ballot Bill and
next year made secrecy optional.
1873-6-7-9—Refused to amend Burial Laws.
1879 and since—Refused to legalise marriage with a deceased wife’s
sister.
1880—Rejected Compensation for Disturbance Bill. Ireland became
in a state of anarchy. Threw out Irish Registration of Voters Bill.
1882—Made Allotments Extension Act unworkable.
1883—Maintained Trap Pigeon Shooting. (No Bishops attended tovote.) Spoiled English Agricultural Holdings Bill, but retreated.
1884— « Hung up ” the County Franchise Bill.
After reading the above, do you net think that the House of
Commons was right when, in 1649, it resolved that the House of
Lords “ was useless, dangerous, and ought to be abolished ?”
�ALL THE NEW VOTERS
Should Read
The English Labourers’
CHRONICLE.
THE
1
Organ of the National Agricultural
Labourers’ Union.
ORDER OF ANY NEWSAGENT.
SOLD IN EVERY COUNTY.
Full of Interest for Workers and Voters.
The CHRONICLE contains—
News and Political Articles,
by Well-known Writers,
AFFECTING THE
WELFARE AND WAGES
OF THE LABOURERS.
ONE PENNY WEEKLY
�
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 & 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 shall I do with my vote? : a few plain words to the new voters
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Parke, Ernest
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 15, [1] p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: Date of publication from internal evidence (list of House of Lords votes ends with date of 1884, and text refers twice to 1885). Advertisement for the English Labourers' Chronicle on unnumbered page at the end.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
W. Reeves
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
T469
Subject
The topic of the resource
Socialism
Politics
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (What shall I do with my vote? : a few plain words to the new voters), identified by </span><span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span><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
Great Britain-Parliament
Great Britain-Parliament-House of Lords
Great Britain-Politics and Government-1837-1901
Land tax
Politics-Britain
Socialism
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/c0d3b7870d82d944a4f6963d068d3813.pdf?Expires=1779926400&Signature=sI9mail-o4cY8a6ncKRpPTeVTme322uJnGfF-x2OgQfii91Eue-ohWo0t5APwGZ6mgXmpG34CaehdvZnwrzKQjn6eBVNZURzPID-2FlQ1RHH9HFwmkZ1Ts5YWNKqHE962FwYVqldvluuTHZPH2Vqo-s%7EeVvFmWJlpz9k34CNjKJVfaaLkkygOCtsANvmizy8J4haBScz7zFwBtzJVIeVDqo9C%7EqEHNeMNYt5sgwtvYNhE5VDspBkdIzEF-VwYTyXV0ajXzAFspKIhFCCcPj4rYjK%7E7oLFt92ywDMrjK7IOdDThQF65SsatNsnnTW2YRAO1OrFyItJjOPDpObnrfeMQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
8c3752733b4a2938ba64f8b53512b731
PDF Text
Text
Price One Penny.
THE
Australian Labour Market.
STARTLING DISCLOSURES.
By JOHN
NEW
SOUTH
WALES
NORTON,
LABOUR
DELEGATE.
Distress and Destitution in New
South Wales.
Pauper Relief Works & Soup Kitchens.
BOGUS “EMIGRANTS’
INFORMATION OFFICE.”
LONDON: THE MODERN PRESS, 13, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C
1886
�All who are interested. in Socialism
should, read.
THE FOLLOWING PUBLICATIONS , OF
THE MODERN PRESS, 13, Paternoster Row, London, E.C.
Which will be sent post free at the published prices on receipt of
an order amounting to one shilling or more.
(The Publications of the Modern Press can be obtained from W. L.
Rosenberg, 261, East Tenth Street, New York City.)
Woman, in the Past, Present and Future.
By
August ' Bebel, Deputy in the Reichstag. Translated from the
German by H. B. Adams Walther. Demy 8-vo., cloth, price 5s.
This work by the best known of the German Socialists aims at showing that the
social condition of women can be permanently improved only by the solution of the
whole social problem,
The Co-operative Commonwealth: an Exposition
of Modern Socialism. By Laurence Gronlund, of Philadelphia.
Demy 8-vo., paper cover, is.
This book supplies the want, frequently complained of, of definite proposals for the
administration of a Socialistic State. Mr. Gronlund has reconciled the teaching of
Marx with the influence of Carlyle in the constructive part of his work, which is
specially recommended to English Socialists.
Socialism made Plain.
The social and political
manifesto of the Social-Democratic Federation issued in June 1883 ;
with “The Unemployed,” a Manifesto issued after the “ Riots in
the West End” on 8th February, 1886. Sixty-first thousand.
Crown 8-vo., paper cover, price id.
“JUSTICE,” the Organ of the Social Democracy. Every
Saturday, one penny.
Socialist Rhymes
from Justice.
By J. L. Joynes.
Reprinted chiefly
Demy 8-vo., price id.
Summary of the Principles of Socialism.
By
H. M. Hyndman and William Morris. Second edition, 64-pp.
crown 8-vo., in wrapper designed by Wm. Morris, price 4d.
This gives an account of the growth of capitalist production, and concludes with a
statement of the demands of English Socialists for the immediate future.
Herbert Spencer on Socialism. By Frank Fairman.
16-pp. crown 8-vo., price id.
The Working Man’s Programme (Arbeiter Programm). By Ferdinand Lassalle. Translated from the German
by Edward Peters. Crown 8-vo., paper cover, price 6d.
The Robbery of the Poor.
By W. H. P. Campbell.
Demy 8-vo., paper cover, price 6d.
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.
The most eloquent and noble appeal to the generous emotions ever penned by a
scientific man. Its author has just suffered five years’ imprisonment at the hands of the
French Republic for advocating the cause of the workers
�I
PREFACE.
VER since November 1883, when the facts of the destitution in
E London and other large towns in the United Kingdom began to
assert themselves in a way which compelled attention, Emigration has
been put forward as a satisfactory remedy by the ruling classes and
philanthropists, as well as by persons pecuniarily interested in the trans
portation of workmen to the Colonies. Some of the advocates of
State-assisted Emigration have been shown to be emigration agents in
disguise who receive a commission of so much a head for each person
they induce to leave these shores. Others are well-known to be in the pay
of land syndicates or railway companies possessed of thousands of acres
which are utterly valueless until labour has been planted on them.
The Social-Democratic Federation has never ceased to denounce the
misrepresentation and imposture which has led too many of our fellows
to cross the ocean only to find that in newer countries the capitalist
system of society condemns the worker to the same horrors as it pro
duces at home.
When the Government Emigrants’ Information Office was first
talked of, the Social-Democratic Federation again pointed out that it
could be of little advantage to the workers inasmuch as it would be
controlled and supplied with information both here and in the Colonies
by representatives of the classes who in England are interested in
relieving social pressure by exiling the poor, and who in our dependencies
favour immigration as an effective means .of overstocking the labour
market and reducing wages.
Every point of these contentions is amply proved in the following
pages which I have persuaded Mr. John Norton to allow me to publish.
He is not a Social-Democrat nor particularly interested as I am in the
welfare of the unemployed in Great Britain. But as the accredited
delegate of the labour population of New South Wales he is bound to
defend their interests which, as is amply proved by Mr. Norton’s state
ments, are threatened by the reckless misrepresentations of the Emigration
Office. I venture to suggest that members of workmen’s clubs and
political associations all over the country would do well to send resolu
tions to the Government demanding that public money should not be
expended in attempts to draw off public attention from the Social
Question at home by transporting the victims to our Colonies and
in supplying cheap labour to make the fortunes of employers at the
Antipodes.
H. H. Champion.
Secretaries of Workmen’s Clubs or Labour Organisations who would
like to hear an address by Mr. Norton on “ Australia as a Field for
Emigration” should communicate with him at 166, Westminster Bridge
Road, London.
�THE AUSTRALIAN LABOUR MARKET.
R. JOHN NORTON, the New South Wales Labour Dele
gate, now on a mission to this country in connection with the
industrial crisis at present existing in that Colony, having, in
a letter to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, denounced
the information circulated by the new Government Emigrants’ Informa
tion Office as “ glaringly inaccurate, and entirely misleading,” received
the following letter from that Department:—
“ Emigrants’ Information Office,
31, Broadway, Westminster, S.W.
“ John Norton, Esq.,
16th October, 1886.
“ Sir,—The Managing Committee of this Office have noticed a letter
signed by you, and printed in the Daily News, to the effect that the in
formation which they have issued about the labour market of New
South Wales is ‘ glaringly inaccurate, and entirely misleading.’
“ Their only object being to ascertain and make known to the public
the actual facts as to the prospects of labourers in the British Colonies,
they would be glad to learn the grounds of your criticism, and in what
respects the information in question is inaccurate and misleading.
“ If you care to call at their office, and will make an appointment, I
shall be glad to see you, and may add that any periodical reports issued
by trade societies in Australia would be acceptable.
“ Faithfully yours,
(Signed)
C. P. Lucas.”
To which Mr. Norton has replied as follows:—
“ 166, Westminster Bridge Road, S.E.,
October ¿.yrd, 1886.
“To the Managing Committee of the
Government Emigrants’ Information Office.
“ Gentlemen,—In reply to your communication ofthe 16th inst. I beg
leave to say that the grounds upon which I base the statement contained
in my letter to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, ‘ that the infor
mation recently issued by the Government. Emigrants’ Information
Office concerning the labour market of New South Wales is glaringly
maccurate, and entirely misleading,’ are the following :—
ssssssss•••
'.XVixWxW'
�5
(a) On page 8 of the penny Colonisation Circular of New South
Wales, sold by you, it is stated—‘ In New South Wales men accustomed
to agricultural or pastoral work can readily obtain employment in any
■ part of the country districts at remunerative wages.'
(b) On pages 9 and 10 of the same Circular you give a list of what
purports to be the average rate of wages earned in the majority of
skilled handicrafts in 1884 ; and on page 19 say, ‘ New South Wales,
as compared with other, and even with the neighbouring colonies, pos
sesses special advantages and attractions for the agricultural settler.’
(c) In the general broadsheet circular issued by you on the nth inst.,
and entitled, ‘ General Information for Intending Emigrants to Canada,
the Australasian, and South African Colonies,’ under the heading of
‘Present Demand for Labour,’ the following statement appears
‘ New
South Wales. There is some opening for persons connected with the
building trades, for railway and agricultural labourers.’
I consider the whole of these statements not only ‘ glaringly inaccu
rate, and entirely misleading,’ but positive misrepresentations of the real
state of the labour market in New South Wales at the present time,
which are all the more unwarrantable that they are made in the face of
the following most full and clear evidence to the contrary. ’
AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS.
The Sydney Globe newspaper of the 26th of July last states—* The
stagnation in business resulting from the deadlock in the Western dis
trict has at length attracted the attention of the Sydney Mercantile body.
Work on the stations and homesteads of the Saltbush has ceased ; the
contractors’ parties of tank sinkers and mechanics and waggoners have
been dispersed, and are wandering over the country penniless. Sheep
stations where 30 or 40 hands had been employed are now worked by
7 or 8 hands. The country towns feel the stoppage of circulation, and
in Sydney the pinch is felt in the return of bills unpaid instead of the
good remittances and fresh orders which came by every post while the
industry of the interior was maintained.’
On the 30th of the same month the Globe, in drawing attention to the
deplorable condition of the agricultural portion of the population of
New South Wales, and to the fact that they could not compete against
the wheat which was being landed in Sydney from Bombay at 4s. ¿d.
per bushel, observes: ‘ With his hundred acres, his hut, his children
dressed in flour-bags, his crop mortgaged before it is ripe, his utter
hopelessness of any fair or satisfactory progress, or of emancipation
from the debt which was bound around his neck on the day he settled
on the soil, is not the settler ground almost to death in the cruel mill of
competition ? ’
To that part of Statement No. 2, where you say that, ‘ New South
Wales, as compared with other, and even the neighbouring colonies,
possesses special advantages and attractions for the agricultural settler,’
I take exception ; and likewise to your remark that ‘ more than onethird of the population of New South Wales is resident in Sydney and
its suburbs, consequently, the remainder of the colony is comparatively
thinly populated.’ The first of these two statements is inaccurate, and
the second is misleading. New South Wales does not possess any
‘ special advantages and attractions for the agricultural settler ’ over
Victoria. Her bad land laws, together with the droughts and outside
r
�6
j
,
competition, combine to make it difficult for the small farmers and
settlers to live on the land, and to drive them into the towns. This is why
one-third of the whole population is, unfortunately, to be found in
Sydney and its suburbs. The area of New South Wales is 310,938
square miles, or 199,000,000 acres ; that of Victoria 87,884 square miles,
or 56,245,760 acres. Notwithstanding her vast area, New South Wales
has a somewhat smaller population than Victoria, and has only 852,017
acres under cultivation ; whereas Victoria, although nearly three-and-ahalf times smaller, has no less than 2,323,496 acres under cultivation,
i.e., 1,471,479 acres more than the mother colony, which has twice the
age of Victoria. In 1884 Victoria produced 10,967,088 more bushels of
wheat, oats, and barley than New South Wales. These few significant
figures do not, I think, indicate that New South Wales possesses, at
present, any ‘ special advantages and attractions for the agricultural
settler ’ over her Victorian neighbour, at least.
ARTISANS AND MECHANICS.
Since my arrival in this country I have received reports from nearly
every handicraft exercised in the Colony, which shows that almost every
branch of industry, and especially the building trade, is in a terribly
depressed state, as the following summary shows.
CARPENTERS and JOINERS.—Mr. Francis Willes, Secretary,
N.S.W. Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners, in a letter
dated Sydney, June nth says: ‘the state of this trade is very dull, a
great number being out of work.’ A report from Mr. J. C. Simpson,
Secretary, Sydney Progressive Society of Carpenters and Joiners, dated
June 9th, states : ‘This society is of opinion that state-assisted immi
gration should cease ; and we would warn all mechanics from coming
to this colony, as trade is very bad and may remain so for some con
siderable time yet.’ These reports are more than confirmed by the
Sydney press, which shows that instead of improving, this trade has
become still worse. The Sydney Morning Herald of the 19th of August,
states: ‘ For some considerable time past the building trade has been
unusually slack, and, in consequence, many carpenters and joiners have
been thrown out of employment, so much so that about a fortnight ago
it was deemed necessary to call a meeting of the unemployed carpenters
and joiners to consider what was to be done. At the meeting a
committee was appointed to wait upon the Hon. the Minister for Works
to ascertain if any Government works could be commenced to absorb
the unemployed labour. After considerable agitation and many inter
views it was announced that employment would be found for fifty
carpenters and joiners under the Railway Department, but upwards of
300 have given in their names as out of work and needing employment.
The fifty men required were drafted out on Monday, but the list of
names requiring work had considerably increased, and on Tuesday after
noon it was decided to hold another meeting at the usual place, the
statue at the top of King Street. At the time of meeting between 300
and 400 persons had assembled. Mr. Thomas Symons, Secretary of
the Trades and Labour Council addressed the meeting. It was decided
to appoint a Committee to again interview the Minister for Works, to
endeavour to urge upon him the necessity of opening up other public
works, so that work can be obtained by the unemployed carpenters and
joiners. It was stated that many of the unemployed had been from two
�7
to four months out of work, and consequently, much distress prevailed
amongst them.’ The Sydney Globe, of the 21st of August states, ‘ Mr.
O’Sullivan, M.L.A., to-day introduced a deputation of unemployed
Carpenters to the Minister for Works, requesting him to give them work.
Mr. Thomas Symons, having stated the case of the men, showing that
there were still, nearly 400 carpenters out of work and in distress ; Mr.
Lyne, the Minister for Works, said that he had already strained his
department, to find work for fifty of their number, and he could not find
work for more till some of the railway lines were adopted. They would
then get work on the permanent way and bridges. Till then he would
endeavour to get them employment at roadmaking.’
STONEMASONS.—Numbers of the hands in this trade are out of
work, which is largely owing to the extensive importation of dressed
stone from Victoria and elsewhere ; in consequence of which the Sydney
Globe, of the 24th August last, states: ‘ that the Government has pro
mised to use native stone wherever possible, and to place a duty on the
imported stone.’
BRICKMAKERS.—Messrs. A. Boot, President, and J. Cook, Secre
tary, of the N.S.W. Brickmakers, Brickmakers’ Labourers, and Pipe
makers’ Union, state: ‘so far as the Labour market in our trade is
concerned, we are sorry to say that it is now very much overstocked,
hundreds of our men are now walking about the streets of Sydney.’
Most of the brickyards in the Colony work eight hours per day, but the
larger yards having refused to recognise the eight hours’ principle, the
brickmakers there have gone on strike, their action being supported by
all the other trades. It is hoped by the reduction of the hours of labour
of those employed, the over production will cease, and work will be
provided for the unemployed brickmakers. Large quantities of bricks
are being offered at £■$ per thousand.
Thus it will be seen that your statements that ‘ there are some
openings in the building trades and for railway and agricultural
labourers ’ is glaringly inaccurate. A precisely similar state of things
exists inmost of the other leading trades included in your list of average
wages, as a cursory glance at their condition will suffice to prove.
IRON TRADE.—A Special Committee of the New South Wales
Engineering Association appointed to inquire into the state of the iron
trade in the colony reported on the 30th of June last to the effect that
the trade throughout all its branches was in a thoroughly depressed
state ; and ‘ that there. was not a single factory which employed more
than one tenth of the workmen which the establishment was capable of
accommodating, to say nothing of the vast amount of expensive plant
lying idle, whilst a large number of firms had had to stop their engines,
there not being work enough to keep even the apprentices employed.’
In a report dated Lithgow, N.S.W., July 24th, Mr. H. S. Jones, Secre
tary of the Eskbank Ironworkers, reports that the puddlers, heaters,
shinglers, rollers and other hands at the Eskbank Works are only
working half-time, and that a large blast furnace, which was at work
four years ago, has since had to be blown out and pulled down for want of
work. There were formerly eight puddling furnaces at work here, but,
owing to the collapse of the iron trade, some of them have been pulled
down and the plates broken up. Mr. Jones concludes his report as
follows ;—‘ To any ironworkers who are thinking of coming out to this
■colony in the hope of obtaining employment in their trade, we would
�8
say be warned, be careful, we cannot hold out any hope of work whatso
ever.’
Another report from the New South Wales Friendly Society of
Ironmoulders, and signed by A. Hollis, President, W. Walker, Check
Steward, W. Jones, Secretary, and by all the members of the General
Committee of the Society, shows that a similar state of things exists in
the other provincial ironworks ; and it is stated that the Fitzroy Iron
works at Mittagong, are likely to be shut down this year for want of
work.
COACH MAKERS.—In a report dated Sydney, June gth, Mr. T.
Halliday, Secretary of the New South Wales Coachmakers’ Society,
says : ‘ This trade is at present in a very depressed state, one firm alone
having discharged thirty hands, and the greater number of factories are
only working half-time.’ This report is confirmed by the Sydney Globe
of August 28th, according to which a conference of the employers and
employed, in the coachmaking trade, met at the Foresters’ Hall, Sydney,
on the 27th of August, to consider the present depression. The same
paper stated that large numbers of men were out of work, and that the
trade was rapidly declining to utter ruin, hardly any of the factories
being more than mere repairing shops, and that such depression had
not been known for thirty years.
THE SADDLE, HARNESS, AND COLLAR MAKERS’Society of
New South Wales in a report dated Sydney, June 14th, and signed by
J. Cronin, President, W. S. Harper, Treasurer, and G. Stuart, Secre
tary, states: ‘ This particular trade is now and, in fact, has been for a
number of years past in a very depressed condition, owing mainly to
the great importations free of duty from England, the Continent of
Europe and elsewhere, which have the effect of glutting the markets
here, and underselling and driving the local manufacturers out of the
market, except in a few cases where the article cannot be imported.
The long-continued drought has played havoc, financially, with the
farmers and pastoralists of the colony who are the classes from whom
we derive the most support.’
BOOT AND SHOE MAKERS.—Mr. W. P. White, Secretary of the
New South Wales Amalgamated Operative Boot Trade Union writing
under date June 14th observes: ‘ During from four to six weeks of the
year men of this trade are idle from want of continuous employment,
and many hands are paid off in the various factories ; but this year it
has been greater than previously. The men are willing to leave the
trade when they can get a chance of turning their attention to other
things.’ This account is corroborated by an official report on the state
of this trade published in the Sydney Globe of the 24th of August last
under the heading ‘ Alarming Depression in the Boot Trade,’ in which
is given an account of the state of trade from no less than thirty of the
managers or proprietors of different boot and shoe factories in and
around Sydney. For obvious reasons the employers did not wish their
real names to appear in this ominous report, so their names were sup
pressed, and indicated by consecutive numbers. The following is a
summary of this report:—
No. 1. Very slack : closes on Friday until noon on Monday; has
done so for the last seven weeks.
No. 2. Very slack: closed from Thursday to Monday during the
last five weeks.
�9
No. 3. One of the largest m the colony. Has discharged a great
number of hands ; those retained work only seven hours per day for five
days, and are generally paid at 11 o’clock on Saturdays.
No. 4. Men engaged have not averaged two days per week for the
last six weeks.
No. 5. Discharged half the hands nine weeks ago; those retained
Work irregularly.
No. 6. Trade falling off ; factory closed two days last week.
No. 7. Usually employed ten makers and a number of finishers ; now
employ only two makers, whose average is not more than two days per
week for the last five weeks.
No. 8. Usually employed four makers and two finishers. This
factory closed for a week, then re-opened with one maker and one
finisher, the remainder being discharged.
No. 9. No cause for complaint.
No. 10. Has discharged one-third of employés ; those retained average
Only three days per week.
No. 11. Has been closed for the last twelve weeks, with the exception
Of a few apprentices and one man over them.
Nos. 12 and 13. Have been closed for the last three weeks.
No. 14. Has discharged several hands ; those retained work only at
intervals.
No. 15. Trade so slack that the whole of the employés with the
exception of three women’s workmen, were put off the whole of last
week.
No. 16. Very slack; discharged the majority of workmen; those
retained average two and a half to three days per week.
No. 17. Discharged half of hands five weeks ago; the remainder
working casually.
No. 18. Doing fairly well.
No. 19. Closed for the last five weeks.
No. 20. Very dull.
No. 21. Closed for the last ten weeks.
No. 22. Doing a fair trade.
No. 23. Very slack.
No. 24. The largest factory in the Colony. Closes at 1 o’clock on
Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, and on Friday all
work has to be completed by 11'30 a.m.; pay is issued one hour later;
the factory is then closed until the following Monday. This system has
been in operation for the last three weeks. In this factory some of the
hands who have done exhibition work, that has taken first prizes, are
now making copper toes, and are doing other work usually done by
apprentices and lads.
No. 25. Discharged eighteen hands ; remainder doing limited work.
Most of weekly hands’ wages reduced, some to the extent of ten shillings
per week.
No. 26. Had but one full week during last eight weeks, the average
being three days per week.
No. 27. Trade very dull.
No. 28. Very dull; majority of employés walking about.
No. 29. Firm completely ruined. The whole of the plant was taken
and sold about six weeks ago.
This report further states that there a’re now between 600 and 700
�IO
boot and shoemakers out of work in Sydney alone; and that so deep
and wide spread is the misery amongst them, that numbers of them are
now blacking shoes and selling newspapers in the streets of Sydney, in
order to provide an honest crust for their starving wives and children.
COOPERS.—Messrs. John Strange, President: Henry McPhillips,
Secretary: John Quain, Treasurer, and five members of the Committee
of the N.S.W. Journeymen Coopers’ Society, in a report, dated from
Sydney in June last, after drawing a most gloomy picture of the de
pressed condition of the Coopers’ trade, states : ‘ In conclusion we would
strongly recommend our fellow countrymen in Great Britain and Ireland
to pause and consider before taking the important step of emigrating to
this country, at least, until they receive a more favourable report from
the trade. We hope that this report, will be the means of preventing
much misery and disappointment. There are hundreds here who would
be glad to return to England if they had the chance.’
WHEELWRIGHTS AND BLACKSMITHS.—Messrs W. M’Carty,
President, and G. B. James, Secretary, of the N.S.W. Amalgamated
Society of Wheelwrights and Blacksmiths, state: ‘An almost continuous
depression has existed in our trade for a period of two years, with very
little prospect of improvement. This state of things we attribute to a
recurrence of bad seasons in the pastoral and agricultural districts of
the Colony. The labour market is glutted owing to the influx of immi
grants.’
FARRIERS.—In a report dated Sydney, June nth, Mr. R. F. Bosden,
Secretary of the N.S.W. Journeymen Farriers’ Society, says: ‘The
trade is very brisk from November to April; from April to November it
is very dull. There are plenty of farriers out of work, and numbers of
apprentices finishing their time every week.’
PATTERN MAKERS.—In a letter to the New South Wales Trades
and Labour Council, dated Sydney, June 7th, Mr. E. W. McIntosh,
Secretary of the N.S.W. Branch of the Australasian Pattern Makers’
Society, says: ‘ In reply to your memorandum of the 3rd inst., in refer
ence to the departure of Mr. John Norton as Delegate from the Council
to England, I beg to state, for Mr. Norton’s information, that our trade
has been very dull for nearly two years, during which time very few
pattern makers can boast of constant work. State-assisted immigra
tion is strongljz protested against by our society.’
FURNITURE TRADE.—A report of the N.S.W. United Furniture
Trade Society, dated Sydney, June last, shows that this trade is at a
standstill in consequence of the competition of the Chinese, and the
wholesale importation of furniture from Europe and America.
COAL-MINERS. —Mr. James Curley, General Secretary of the
Hunter River Miners’ Mutual Protective Association, N.S.W., writes in
June last: ‘ Speaking of this (the Newcastle Mining district) it is
literally crammed with labour. The gradual influx of immigrants, from
time to time, has, at last, swamped the mining labour market. The
trade of the district is fully supplied with a surplus of 400 to 500 men.’
Mr. John Owens, Secretary of the Western Branch of the N.S.W.
Coal Miners’ Mutual Protective Association, writing on the 5th June
last, states : ‘ Trade is not brisk on account of their being too many
men. The opinion of this Association is that State-assisted immigration
is very undesirable, as the supply of labour in this district exceeds the
demand.’
�11
According to a report in the Sydney Globe of August 21st, two mines
at Captain’s Flat, Queanbey an, have recently been closed; and the
miners thus thrown out of work—who have not been paid for eight weeks,
—are in a state of semi-destitution. In answer to a petition signed by 100
of these miners, the Minister for Works has promised, if possible, to find
them employment at road making, and to pay them out of the fund for
the maintenance of the unemployed.
The same paper states that the Vale of Clwydd mine has stopped, the
manager having been instructed ‘ to stop work until further. orders.
The proprietors of the. Mount Keira and Mount Kembla collieries, in
the southern district of N.S.W., have recently given notice, to
reduce the miners’ wages after the nth ultimo. The whole of the coal
mining industry is in a very depressed state.
COAL TRIMMERS.—Mr. William Cremor, Secretary of the New
castle Coal Trimmers’ Provident Union, N.S.W., writing under date
June 7th, says : ‘ We have 150 members on the roll, and these are only
working half-time. At no time has the full number been employed.
There are too many workers for the amount of work to be done. The
mines are full, and every trade is more than full}7 supplied with labour.
Newcastle and the mining district could part with, at least, 1,000 men,
and leave but a moderate living for those remaining. In the present
circumstances, State-assisted emigration is a grievous wrong, doubly
inflicted; first, upon those who are already here, and, secondly, upon
those who are brought here. The majority of the new comers merely
gwell the ranks of the unemployed or help to reduce wages by accepting
lower rates, or, if attached to a Union, by further dividing the amount
of work to be done. At present we are making about 30s. per week.’
WHARF LABOURERS.—Mr. T. McKillop, President of the Sydney
Wharf Labourers’ Union, writing from Sydney under date, June nth,
says : ‘ I beg leave to say that the present mode of assisted immigration
is ruinous to the Colonies, as it tends to flood the labour market.’
This is very plain evidence that the New South Wales labour.market
in the above branches is in an absolutely congested state ; and it is the
same in nearly every other branch. Not one of the trades named in
your list of trades and average rates of wages can be said to be
prosperous. Both the agricultural and manufacturing industries in New
South Wales are stagnant. It is true that you make the rates quoted
apply to 1884, and state that they are subject to fluctuations, but the
depression was nearly as bad in 1884 as it is now, and the only fluctuation
has been from bad to worse. Even if the state of things in 1884 had
been appreciably better than it is now, I protest against the data of
1884 being made to apply to 1886, when, as I have shown, every branch
of industry is depressed, and large sections of the New South Wales
working-classes are suffering the acutest distress, many of them being
positively destitute.
GOLD-MINING.—There is a very erroneous and dangerous impres
sion abroad here, which has been fostered by the foolish statements of
persons who should know better, that if an artisan or agricultural
labourer, on arriving in the Colonies, cannot find work at his accus
tomed occupation, he can easily turn his attention to gold-mining.
Apart from the fact that the alluvial diggings, where individuals with
little or no capital formerly managed to gain a livelihood, are. now
exhausted, the more important fact that a man to succeed in mining
�12
must have extensive experience of the most hard and practical kind,
seems to be generally lost sight of here. The days of successful indi
vidual effort in gold-mining have long since passed away ; and what is
required now-a-days is special knowledge, long experience, and, above
all, capital. Mining m the Colonies has now entered on the scientific
stage; and, except in very rare instances, is only successful when pur
sued on an extensive scale, with large capital and under the direction of
experts.
The exciting stories about the wealth of the Kimberley gold fields, are,
for the most part, exaggerations, and even experienced miners should
await further information before joining in the ‘ rush.’ Over and over
again the Australian newspapers have warned the public against
rashly venturing into the Kimberley district, and have pointed out the
hardships and perils to be encountered on the way thither and on the
field itself. Travellers who have returned from Kimberley have warned
diggers not to venture in less numbers than parties of six, with, at least,
a couple of horses a-piece, and supplies for six months. Therefore, no
man should venture unless he has a small capital of between ^200 and
^300, to defray outfit, cost of supplies, expenses of transit by sea, journey
across country, and expenses of return journey in case of failure. Yet
in spite of multiplied warnings, hundreds have recklessly ventured, illequipped, and badly provided, with the result that many of them have
perished either by the spears of the blacks or have been “ bushed,” and
perished miserably of hunger and thirst; while others, who have escaped
these perils, have been unable to return, and have had to gain their
bread by working on the roads, or by sweeping the streets of Derby.
For an agricultural labourer or mechanic to go to the colonies with the
idea of gaining a livelihood, let alone a fortune at gold-mining, is sheer
insanity. There are thousands of experienced European miners and
swarms of Chinese on the spot, who are unable to make a living at it.
Your Publications concerning New South Wales are full of inaccu
racies and misleading statements too numerous to particularise at
greater length. This is not at all astonishing, seeing that you are
issuing old information no longer applicable to the colony. Your
publications appear to have been compiled from books and pamphlets
of the Agent-General, which have been proved over and over again,
both by the working-classes in New South Wales, and by returned
emigrants here in England, to be totally unreliable. The circulation of
such out-of-date and unreliable information appears all the more in
excusable that no effort appears to have been made to revise it. On
behalf of those whom I represent, I have to complain that sources of
the most reliable and complete information concerning the present state
of the Labour Market in New South Wales have been ignored.
Towards the end of last Session, Mr. Burt, the member for Morpeth,
presented three petitions to Parliament against State-assisted-immigration to New South Wales (1) from the Trades’ and Labour Council; (2)
from the Democratic Alliance ; and (3) from the Federated Seamen’s
Union, of that colony. All three of these petitions were nearly identical
in tenor and text; and from one of them 1 quote the second clause :—
‘ That whereas there has been a dearth of employment for skilled
‘ artisans and general labourers during the past few years, the Govern‘ ment has continued to pour into the country shiploads of immigrants
‘ for whom no work could be found. Thousands of skilled artisans,
�* enticed out to this country by fallacious promises of constant employ‘ ment at high wages, have been compelled to accept work as navvies
‘ on the relief works started by the Government of New South
‘ Wales, for the relief of the distress caused by the surplus labour
1 created by the system of State-assisted immigration.
During
‘ the last three or four years the numbers of the unemployed
‘ have increased every year, until this year they may be numbered in
‘ thousands. Last year hundreds of skilled artisans were walking the
‘ streets of Sydney without employment, or food or shelter. They were
' found by hundreds sleeping in the public streets and gardens, until, in
‘ deference to a strong public agitation which took place, the Govern‘ ment was compelled to provide them with temporary shelter, together
‘ with one blanket each, with bread and cheese to keep them from
‘ starving. Relief works had then to be started in order to grapple with
‘ the difficulty. The same state of things has occurred again this year.
‘ Large meetings of the unemployed have been held in Sydney ; the
• Government have been compelled to start relief works anew, and to
‘ establish a Special Government Bureau for dispersing the unemployed
‘ workmen throughout the colony by means of free railway passes which
‘ have been issued in thousands to the unemployed. The men thus
‘ supplied with free railway passes instead of finding employment, have
‘ been compelled to tramp up and down the country in search of work,
‘ suffering greatly from exposure and hunger, and finally forced to accept
‘ work at pauper wages at roadmaking, bush-clearing, stone breaking on
‘ Government Relief Works.’
These petitions, containing such startling information, do not
appear to have been deemed worthy of notice, as you make no
reference to them, although they have been frequently referred
to and quoted in the London and Provincial press.
In like
manner the Official Report of the Third Inter-Colonial Trades’ Union
Congress of Australasia, which met in Sydney in October last year, has
been ignored, although it contains the most full and reliable information
as to the state of the whole Labour Market of all the Australasian
Colonies. But apart from these sources of information—than which
none could be more trustworthy—the statements concerning the depres
sion actually existing in the Labour Market of New South Wales with
which the newspapers of that Colony are full, have not been even noticed
by you. None of the above newspaper extracts, which are taken from the
files of the Sydney papers received by the two last mails, have been pub
lished by you. Neither have my reiterated warnings to intending emigrants,
both in the press, and at public meetings, not to venture to New South
Wales during the present crisis; nor has the statement recently made by
Sir Patrick Jennings, the Premier of the Colony, to the effect that in
consequence of the general depression, the deficit this year would pro
bably amount to ¿"2,000,000 sterling, recommended itself to
your notice.
Had the latest files of the Sydney papers been
consulted such distressing accounts as the following, taken from
the Sydney Globe, of the 23rd of August last, would, perhaps, have in
duced you to considerably modify some of your statements with regard
to New South Wales :
‘THE UNEMPLOYED IN MELBOURNE,
It is now clearly manifest, consist in a great measure, of men
�who have recently arrived in that city from poverty-stricken South
Australia.
On the other hand, the unemployed in Sydney are a
solid substantial fact, and an overwhelming majority of their number
■consists of men who have been identified with Sydney for years.
During the past six months more than 6,000 unemployed
persons have been provided for by the Government either at the
Rookwood, Little Bay, Middle Harbour, Field of Mars, and other
■camps, or by granting them free passes to country districts. The Supply
Bill now brought before Parliament contains the item of £25,000 for the
unemployed, and no amount of sophistry will rub this fact out. The
■expenditure for the unemployed is still going on, and it will probably
total £50,000 before the end is reached. In addition to all this we
have nearly 400 carpenters asking the Minister for Works to give
them work; Coachmakers in destitution and distress ; something
like 5,000 Ironworkers who have only partial employment; while
Saddlemakers, Bootmakers and other indoor workers, are bitterly com
plaining of the hard times and scarcity of work.’
From the same source could have been learned the fact that private charity
is being invoked on every hand to alleviate the widespread misery and
■destitution among the working-classes of New South Wales, and that in
Sydney, as in London,
NIGHT REFUGES AND SOUP KITCHENS.
find more than their legitimate share of hunger and starvation to relieve.
According to the Report presented to the igth Annual Meeting of the
City Night Refuge and Soup Kitchen Charity held in Sydney on the 1st
of last month, when Sir Alfred Stephen, the Lieutenant-Governor of the
Colony, occupied the chair: ‘ It was shown that the number of meals
given away during the past twelve months was 65,685 ; and that shelter
for the night had been afforded in 25,851 instances.’
Unless such information as this is taken into consideration and given
its due weight by you when compiling and authorising the issue of your
■official circulars respecting the state of the labour market of New South
Wales, the utility of such an organisation as that which you control is
utterly destroyed. If such information as I have now placed before you
•can be legitimately ignored, I respectfully submit that the public have
been entirely misled concerning the nature of your functions ; and that
instead of being an organisation for disseminating trustworthy informa
tion concerning Her Majesty’s Colonies, the action of the Government
Emigrants’ Information Office is rather calculated to have the effect of
■shifting the burden of the social evils of this country on to the young
and struggling communities abroad, amongst which, as in the case of
New South Wales, dire distress and deep destitution already exist.
At the very outset of its career the Emigrants’ Information Office
begins by creating doubt as to the thorough reliability of the information
it issues. At the head of all its broad-sheets, hand-books, and pam
phlets it is stated that ‘ this office has been established for the purpose
of supplying intending emigrants with useful and trustworthy informa
tion respecting the British colonies . . . but that the committee of
management cannot undertake to hold themselves responsible for the
absolute correctness of every detail.’ Now this would, perhaps, be all
very well if those portions of the information, the correctness of which
the committee do not undertake to guarantee, were plainly indicated ;
»■V .v'S'"
�i5
but, as it is, the euquirer does not know what is reliable and what is not,
and thus the value of the whole is utterly destroyed. I take it that the,
money of the British taxpayer ought not to be spent in disseminating
one tittle of information calculated to promote emigration that cannot be
relied upon ; and the correctness of the information supplied by this
Government office ought to be guaranteed, or the information not issued
at all.
In the name of the working classes of New South Wales, I have to
enter a most emphatic protest against the careless manner in which the
business of the Government Emigrants’ Information Office is being
carried on. I respectfully suggest that the circulation of the publications
respecting New South Wales, now being issued by you, should be at
once stopped ; and that until they have been thoroughly revised, and made
to give a more correct account of the state of the labour market in that
colony, no further issue of them should be authorised.
I have the honour to be, Gentlemen,
Your obedient Servant,
JOHN NORTON,
New South Wales Labour Delegate.
.A
oxid ai
byJIlhv. ’
51
0 Oxfit jbms
3ilT
i .A .11 wl, .aoJBta botrnU
i.0 1TOJ1
10T fbi /.
i 291'8 HO
; di .lb...
xbbA gninoq
bid 9X11
/. .H y«T
. I 1 Juj/ j
>
iij ai ^¡¡¡T
�Wage-Labour and Capital. From the German of
Karl Marx translated by J. L. Joynes and reprinted from Justice.
New and cheaper edition, Royal 8-vo., price id.
By Edward Carpenter.—Social Progress and Indi
vidual Effort; Desirable Mansions ; and Co-operative Production.
One penny each.
The Man with the Red Flag : Being John Burns’
Speech at the Old Bailey, when tried for Seditious Conspiracy, on
April 9th, 1886. (From the Verbatim Notes of the official short
hand reporter.) With Portrait. Price threepence.
The Socialist Catechism. By J. L. Joynes. Reprinted
with additions from Justice.
Demy 8-vo., price id. 20th thousand.
Socialism and Slavery. By H. M. Hyndman,
(in
reply to Mr. Herbert Spencer’s article on “The Coming Slavery.”)
New Edition, with portrait. 16 pp. Royal 8-vo., price one penny.
The Emigration Fraud Exposed.
By H.
M.
Hyndman. With a Portrait of the Author. Reprinted by per
mission from the Nineteenth
for February, 1885. Crown 8-vo.
price one penny.
What an Eight Hours Bill Means.
By T. Mann
(Amalgamated Engineers). New edition with portrait.
Thousand. Price one penny.
Sixth
Socialism versus Smithism: An open letter from
H. M. Hyndman to Samuel Smith, M.P. for Liverpool.
8-vo. Cheaper edition, price id.
Socialism and the Worker.
Price id.
By F.
A.
Crown
Some.
An explanation in the simplest language of tne main idea of Socialism.
The Chicago Riots and the Class War in the
United States. By H. M. Hyndman. Reprinted
from Time, June, 1886.
Price one penny.
International Trade Union Congress, held at Paris,
August, 1886. Report by Adolphe Smith.
Price Three-Halfpence.
24-pp., Royal 8-vo’.
John E. Williams, and the Early History of
THE SOCIAL-DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION.
trait. Price one penny.
With Por
Opening Address to the Trade Union Congress
at Southport, September, 1885. Delivered by T. R. Threlfall. Royal
8-vo., 16-pp. Price one penny.
An able address from a representative working man on political and social topics.
The Historical Basis of Socialism in England.
By H. M. Hyndman.
Paul, Trench, & Co.
Crown 8-vo., price 8s. 6a
London: Kegan
This is the only Book in the English Language which gives the Historical and
Economical Theories of Organised Socialism. It should be carefully studied by all who
desire to understand why Socialists are enthusiastic for their cause, and confident of
uccess in the near future.
�
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 & 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 Australian labour market: startling disclosures
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Norton, John
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 15, [1] p. ; 23 cm.
Notes: Publisher's list on preliminary page, Other works on socialism listed on unnumbered back page. Title page beneath author has text: 'Distress and destitution in New South Wales - Pauper Relief works & soup kitchens - Bogus 'emigrants' information office'.
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
G4970
Subject
The topic of the resource
Australia
Socialism
Labour
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (The Australian labour market: startling disclosures), identified by </span><span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span><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
Australia
Labour and labouring classes
Poverty
Socialism
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/8899bef81859b5fc9cc65c3c51911504.pdf?Expires=1779926400&Signature=qfnAn5dijRfCx0z19jxEU9AhlVHerKf8K2hRK0WVUgRGceSTsLog9plOdUua1w%7E%7Elnk0xCIVJgkexfwI9X6e5wEmgXdE1jN1cA3mp93MMmKAIw3BEdeA0wZxe8bf1H0DkSoyh5bZJF%7ExJN7rYh1Kb0byckhitc-8iwfj3cqE8-w7NSlaxe39jyNgaD1KE3Jhvu3%7E5a4UZOUBncz73Q5QZYkx6PDzRajWfROLoi4p1LZr4rCoY2GSRdGtrVKLo8LIu8TkGXpkzYUusg75jURGxnQCkONEzlGab0raBpjvBtkVbtBtrprr5v6bPTxMAhlIMWiqhlwWTIKjW2LDPhGXXg__&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 & 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