proper; but we say no; we say he has no so formed is as much fitted to protect the such right if by so doing he is likely to reduce interests of their whole body, as is the the price paid to the other twelve men for their trades-union in the view of the men. labour, or to cause those men to work longer Hence a measure of coercion' would hours than they desire to do. The individual in a trade, as the individual in the nation, must forego his personal liberty for the general good, and has no right to act in such a manner as to be inimical to the general body of his fellow-workmen.' With the strongest possible wish to deal fairly and candidly with the trades-unionists, we must own that it is absolutely staggering to find so loose a statement put forward by them as their defence of a position of so great importance, and against which so many minds instinctively recoil. It is a collection of assumptions throughout. First of all, there is the absolutely unqualified and unguarded assumption, that in a trade, as in the nation, the individual must forego his personal liberty for the general good.' Within certain limits this would not be denied; but the whole question turns on what these limits ought to be. Secondly, it is assumed that the opponent of the trades-union is 'the individual, being as 1 to 12 to the unionists, which no doubt may be the case in particular shops, but cannot be assumed over the country at large, and cannot, therefore, even on unionist principles, justify the coercion of large bodies of workmen. Thirdly, it is assumed that the operations of the union are beneficial to the non-unionist; but this is probably what the non-unionist would deny and repudiate. It is, at the very least, not a fact so generally allowed even among workmen as to be legitimately made the basis of coercive measures. Fourthly, it is assumed that the case of a trade and the case of a nation are parallel. But how utterly do they differ! The nation, in imposing limits on individual freedom, proceeds in a public and constitutional way; discusses the matter openly in a representative assembly, allows the use of petition and remonstrance, and is open to whatever influence of public opinion may be brought to bear upon it. The non-unionist finds himself called to surrender his liberty by a body to which he does not belong, where he is not represented, whose deliberations are close and secret, whose decisions admit neither of remonstrance nor appeal, and on which public opinion beyond its own circle, exerts no influence whatever! But even granting, for the sake of argument, the legitimacy of the plea, let us advert to the analogous course which it suggests for employers, when in defence of their position they are led to form a union or combination. In their view, the combination become quite legitimate in dealing with an employer who did not approve of their course, and join their ranks. Any employer friendly to the claims of the men might thus be constrained, contrary to his judg ment and his feelings, to join his.brotheremployers against them. Or let us suppose that the employers came to the conclusion that, for their own interests, and the interests of society at large, it was desirable that their workmen should forego their personal liberty, in so far as to cease to be members of a trades-union. Suppose they should coerce their workmen into signing a declaration to that effect. How would the workmen relish this call to forego their personal liberty? It is needless to say that such declarations' have been the cause of the keenest feelings in the contests between masters and men, and that to the defeated party, when defeat has come, the necessity of signing them has been the bitterest of all humiliations. The builders of London affirmed, that the declaration they were first asked to sign would rob them of every privilege of freemen, and reduce them to the level of serfs. We are not to be held as approving of the policy of masters in this or in similar cases. We merely indicate that if the plea in question be applicable to the men, it must be held, by parity of reasoning, to cover the masters too. (6.) It seems hardly necessary to enter on a separate discussion of opposition to the introduction of new machinery as one of the grounds which union men have held in disputes with masters. That may surely be regarded now as an abandoned position. Though it be but a very few years since the shoemakers of Northampton struck, in opposition to the use of the sewing-machine in boot-closing, their movement need not excite much criticism; it was but a feeble one, and only partially supported. The intelligence of the working classes, and their capacity of patient thought, enable them now to see how vain the endeavour to oppose useful machinery would be, even if the theoretical considerations against it were stronger than they are. No one dreams of imitating the fury of the Luddites. No one now drinks to the toast of The destroying angel, the labourer's best friend.' The utter abandonment of such positions is at least one mark of progress. Yet, in a theoretical point of view, no one of the six grievances we have discussed presented a stronger primâ facie case against take of the character and bearing of the measures they recommend. We have expressly stated that our present object is to view these measures in the light of the laws of political economy; and the statement we have now made simply sets forth the state of the question when the discussion is confined to the arena of economics. the working man. Not only did the intro- | view which the managers of trades-unions duction of the spinning-jenny, the powerloom, and similar machinery, deprive a host of working people of the only mode of earning a livelihood which they ever had, but it seemed likely so to flood the labour-market for the future, that the few who would get employment would be glad to take it on any terms. Experience has taught us the contrary. Machinery has given such an expansion to British industry, that probably there is no branch of employment where more men are not employed now than were employed before. The number of persons employed in letterpress printing is greater than it was before the steam-press was known. So also more horses are needed for the work of the country than were required before a single locomotive began to snort on our railways. More wheeled vehicles are made than were made in the palmy days of the road; more hotels are required, taking all the country over, than in the times when the traveller had to content himself with eight miles an hour: so wonderful is the impulse which improvements in machinery give to industry, and so rapid is the recovery in a normal and healthy state of things, from violent changes and temporary derangements. Having thus passed under review, one by one, the various restrictions on the free disposal of labour for which trades-unions more or less contend, it will be proper that we now proceed to inquire whether, in accordance with the laws of political economy, the provisions sought to be enforced tend to secure the end which their supporters are trying to attain ? Looked at generally, in their relation to political economy, these regulations resolve themselves into an endeavour to secure a better remuneration for labour, by limiting the number of workers, and the amount of work done by each; in other words, by causing an artificial scarcity of labour. It is believed that, by limiting the number of apprentices, by discouraging overtime and piece work, by maintaining the exclusive privilege of tradesmen who have served an apprenticeship, and by securing a minimum wage for every workman who practises a trade, an artificial scarcity of labour may be maintained. A glut in the labour-market will be prevented; tradesmen well advanced in life will still have a fair chance of employment; the capitalist will be obliged to pay higher wages, and, to enable him to do so, he will have to content himself with smaller profits, or to charge his customers a higher price for the article. We do not wish it to be thought that this is the only In commenting on this scheme, the first thing that claims our notice is its artificial character. It is not natural or self-adjusting, but at almost every point it involves an interference with the natural order of things. This, of course, does not necessarily involve its condemnation, although it must cause it to be looked on with some suspicion. But, for the sake of argument, let us in the mean time admit the beneficial tendency of the scheme in raising the remuneration of labour. Let us admit that a good move has been made on the chess-board towards the accomplishment of this object. But will no deduction fall to be made from the sum of benefit in consequence of the move which the player on the other side may be constrained to make? Will the benefit sought to be obtained by the artificial process we have described not be neutralized by the injury likely to be inflicted on a natural process that would otherwise have operated in the workman's favour? To perceive our meaning, let it be remembered that, when things are going on in a natural way, that which tends to increase the wages of the labourer is competition among employers for his services. The labourer's chance of getting an advance of wages from employer A. is, that employer B. wishes to get him, and is willing to give him more than he is receiving at present from A. If by any means this competition for labourers on the part of employers should be brought to an end, the labourer would be exposed to most serious loss. The natural force would collapse which tends to raise his wages. Suppose, then, that the policy of trades-unions should lead to a great combination of masters, and that the masters should act as one man in questions of wages and other matters, what would become of the influence of competition for the services of men? It would be gone. B. could not now give to a labourer more than A. He is bound by an agreement which prevents him from doing so under heavy penalties. Even when B. is extending his business, and cannot obtain the number of men he requires without great exertions, he cannot offer to give to them more than is offered by A. Members of trades-unions must take this into consideration. They must consider whether the ben efit expected to be derived from the artifi- | the argument is apt to be urged under the cial system which they urge is greater than influence of excited feeling. The profits of the loss accruing from the collapse of the employers, it is said, are enormous. Worknatural; whether the rise of remuneration men are very apt to have their eyes dazzled that may spring from enforcing their regu- by particular cases of great success or rapid lations, even if they could enforce them, is fortune-making on the part of employers, greater than that which might have sprung and to think of these as constituting the from a free competition among employers normal state of things. But this is obviously now driven (according to the supposition) fallacious. Of course there are cases where, into a combination that binds them rigidly through various causes, through a sudden to uniform terms in dealing with their men? rise in the market, through the opening up In the next place, it deserves to be con- of some new channel of trade, or through a sidered whether an artificial scarcity in the happy application of skill and capital, profits supply of labour might not and would not are singularly large, and fortunes are raplead to a similar scarcity in the demand for idly made. But such cases are exceptional labour. It is surely not to be supposed that and rare, and are often balanced by other employers would have the same amount of cases, where, through causes of an opposite work to be done under all conditions of the kind, losses are sustained of equal magnilabour-market. If labour be scarce, high- tude. If it could be made out that the priced, precarious, troublesome, many a workman was entitled to share in the extrapiece of business is sure to be declined ordinary profit in the one case, it would folwhich employers, in other circumstances, low that he was bound to share in the extrawould have gladly undertaken. If great ordinary loss in the other. In regard to difficulty is to be experienced by them in more ordinary cases, we deny that it can be finding men for the work,-if the risk has assumed that the profits of employers are in to be run of such increased demands.by the general excessive. If regard be had to the men, while the work is in progress, as would amount of capital employed, the risks incurabsorb the profit, or even entail a loss,—the red, the skill and trouble involved in carrywork will probably be declined; or, perhaps, ing on the business, it will be found that as efforts will be made to carry it on by other a general rule the profits are not larger than means. The risk and trouble of employing might reasonably be expected. In such a unskilful workmen may be deliberately pre- country as this, the steady operation of ferred to the risk and trouble of employing causes tending to equalize the returns of men whose terms excite dissatisfaction, and business must prevent the excessive profits whose spirit creates the fear of an explo. that are apt to dazzle the imaginations of sion. Efforts may be made, notwithstand-workmen. Profits, like water, must tend to ing the great inconvenience attending the a level. In any case, if the workman has arrangement, to import workmen from for- made a simple contract for service, he is not eign countries. Under the pressure of dif- entitled to claim the privileges of partnership, ficulty, some one's inventive faculty may be much less is he entitled to rank as partner set in motion, and machinery may be in when there is profit to be reaped, and to devented-as, indeed, has been done once and cline its responsibilities when loss has to be again-to do some part of the work. Sup- borne. plies of needed articles may be got from We say that there are natural influences abroad, as cargoes of doors and window- tending to equalize the profits of employers. frames for housework have lately been im- The competition among employers themported from Sweden. Besides all this, it is selves for business is evidently the chief of an invariable law that when the cost of pro- these. Young men especially, pushing into ducing any article is increased, the demand business, and offering their wares to cusfor that article is diminished. When the tomers at tempting prices, are usually willing price is high, customers take less of it than to content themselves with a smaller profit when the price is low. The policy which than those whose business is established. considering, by increasing the cost of And in every case where an unusually high production, must inevitably cause a reduc-profit is known to have been realized, a rush tion of the demand. Te are But, it is said, the profits of capitalists are enormous, and when they find that skilled labour is not readily to be had, they will require to abridge these profits and offer more liberal terms to the workmen. There is a arity in this mode of reasoning which requires all the more to be noticed, because of capital takes place in that direction, causing, in a short time, that very competition by which the rate of profit is speedily equalized. Let it be considered, further, that there is no impassable gulf between the employer and the labourer. An immense proportion of employers, say in the building trades, and in other trades, have risen from the ranks. It would be curious to know the statistics of this proportion, but there are no means of finding them out. But in such a place as Birmingham, it is notorious that many employers were formerly workmen. Now we are far from affirming that such employers carry into their new sphere the sympathies of the old. It is the common complaint that they are the least sympathizing masters of any. The case being altered, that alters the case,' and, as in the instance of a woman who has been a domestic servant, and becomes a mistress, the exacting spirit seems to become worse when, from being the victim, it becomes the exactor. We do not, therefore, say that the interests of workmen derive any great benefit from the fact that so many pass from the ranks of labourers to those of employers. But this fact does take away the right of labourers to inveigh against employers as if they were a natural aristocracy, a hereditary nobility hedged by a divinity which no outsider dare penetrate. Those who have made the change from workmen to employers will not all speak of it with rapture. They have found, many of them, that they would have done better to bear the ills they had, than fly to others that they knew not of. Many a time they have looked back with lurking regret on the days when they drew their weekly wages, and supplied the wants of their families, as regularly, and with as little anxiety, as the sheep in the meadow or the cattle in the field supply the wants of themselves and their offspring. It was a new and very bitter experience of life they entered on, when they grappled with the anxieties of business. Never to know exactly how they stood, to be for ever muddling with bills and credits, perplexed about markets, worried with bad debts, crushed by a losing contract, haunted by the apparition of bankruptcy; to lose their sleep by night and their appetite by day; to have their very home-life embittered by cares and forebodings, and to find in the very sanctuary of God, where they used to enjoy such calm heavenly communion, ten thousand worldly thoughts ever ready to rush in and chill all divine and blest experiences-all this gave them a new light on the pleasures of employers. All men are not fit for the position. They have not education enough, brain enough, nerve enough, quickness and sagacity enough, patience and application enough to sustain its burdens. It should be remembered that a position that demands so much in order that its responsibilites may be satisfactorily met, must have, on the whole, a higher scale of remuneration. Workmen should make up their minds to see employers living on a scale of comfort and elegance L I It remains to be seen whether a part of the increased wages of labour, proposed to be secured through the method of an artificial scarcity, might not be provided for by a larger price being charged for the articles produced. The best way to test this argument is to examine its operation carefully in a particular case. Let us take the case of coal-miners for example. The president of the Miners' National Association, when lately receiving a testimonial from the Scottish miners, urged the shortening of the hours of labour and the keeping down the stock of coals as the best means of securing good wages. Let us say, once for all, that we have the greatest sympathy with any movement that aims at the shortening of the hours of labour as far as is necessary for human health and well-being. But this is quite a different thing, and to be aimed at by different means, from shortening the hours of labour in order to force up wages. Let us suppose, then, the object of the miners' association gained. The price of coals is forced up in the market. On whom does this rise of price press the hardest? On the rich man or on the poor? Coals are one of the articles for which the poor widow pays a much larger proportion of her income than the noble lord. It is a far greater hardship to her to pay an additional penny on her bag than the nobleman or his steward to write out a cheque to his coal-merchant for a hundred pounds in place of ninety. A rise of price on such an article as coal sensibly touches the comfort of every humble family in the kingdom. The collier is no doubt better paid, but the non-collier has the more to pay. Or let us vary the illustration, and take the case of the building trades. When masons, bricklayers, carpenters, and plasterers get their wages raised, the inevitable consequence is a rise in the rents of houses. Here, again, the pressure falls heaviest on the poor. House rent is one of those items which, to the poor man, are most difficult to meet; and a rise of rent is ever a double grievance, since it brings with it a corresponding rise of parochial and other rates. It is a more serious evil for the workman to have his rent raised from six to eight pounds, than for the merchant prince to have to pay for his mansion eight thousand instead of six thousand. If we take the case of the y iron trades, the effect of an increase of prices may not be so direct; but undoubtedly it has a bearing on the poor man as well as the rich. Higher prices in the iron market imply dearer rails, dearer locomotives, dearer wheels and axles, and consequently higher railway fares; dearer grates, iron beds, pots, and locks, and therefore more expenditure in household economy. Considering the vast proportion to which the working classes are customers for all the more common products of industry, it is evident that where better wages result from higher prices, it is they that will have the largest share of the increase to defray. The rise of wages will be accompanied by the rise of prices. No doubt the working class will be benefited on the whole if wages rise generally, because it is not likely that all the articles they require will become proportionally dearer; but it would be an obvious fallacy to assume that the benefit of the rise would be in proportion to its apparent magnitude, or that the increased rate of wages would represent an equal increase of the commodities of life. We have yet to examine a very important Consequence of the policy of stinting labour artificially in order to enhance its market value. We have to inquire, What effect it will have upon the spirit of industry? and how will it influence that character for enterprise and energy which has hitherto been the glory of the Anglo-Saxon race? Our answer to this question is very simple. Its whole tendency is to paralyse industry and enterprise. It reverses the moral conditions on which prosperity and progress depend. We have been accustomed to think that the hand of the diligent maketh rich. It has been our fancy that a conscientious servant watches the interests of his master as if they were his own, and that, according to the New Testament doctrine, he will be rewarded for doing so by the Great Taskmaster. We have even heard sluggards reproved by one who used to be called The Wise Man,' and sent to the ant for a lesson in industry. If the view be correct, that the labour of each individual ought to be minimized, in order that the more labourers may have work, and that work may command the more pay, the sluggard, when employed by a master, must be a very patriotic and philanthropic member of society. By reducing the amount of labour, he is increasing its market value. The pity is that all his comrades do not do the same. That greenhorn from the country, who works as diligently as if it were a sin to waste time, and who really accomplishes the work two men, is a nuisance; for is he not just preventing an additional workman from being employed to do half his work? He is VOL. XLVI. N-2 causing a man to go idle who might be working, and a family to starve who might have bread. Where is this reasoning to end? Where or what is the minimum below which a day's work is not to fall? Can it be thought that we are in real danger from a policy that outrages the moral instincts of every healthy mind? Must we go back to prove that whether one be master or servant, employer or employed, 'not slothful in business is the right motto for his active hours? Shall we get another Hogarth to reverse the pictures of the idle and the industrious apprentice? Is the time coming when parents, sending out their children to work, will instruct them to do as little work as may be ? We would not insult the working people of Great Britain by supposing such a thing possible. We have far too high an opinion of their moral instincts to fancy that they could ever be led to adopt deliberately such a position. The principle on which some of their advisers are now counselling them to proceed has, as yet, hardly been seen; it has not been subjected to deliberate scrutiny; it has been made to flit past in twilight hours, casting a vague look of friendliness upon toil-worn masses. But examined more carefully, we cannot doubt it will be found cousin-german to the prophet's roll-sweet in the mouth, but bitter in the belly. It may be difficult, and even impossible, to define what constitutes a fair day's work. It may be impossible-we believe it is impossible-to say how much a man ought to yield to a salutary fear of impairing his health or exhausting his strength, how much of what he feels at the moment that he might do, he ought not to do, out of regard to these considerations. In point of fact, we find that even when men are their own masters, they differ infinitely in the view they take of such matters. But surely it must be admitted, that in every healthy, vigorous, manly nature, there is a springan impelling force-an évépyeta-that urges him, whatsoever his haud findeth to do, to do it with his might, and that the habitual repression of this 'spirit within the wheels' of his being would be alike unnatural and disastrous. It is through the operation of this spirit that all enterprise that has brought glory to its promoters has been carried to a successful issue; and the more equally the spirit has been diffused among the workers, the more signal has been its triumph. Arctic expeditions would have been sorry enough undertakings had not the whole crew, from the ship-boy upwards, been animated by a common interest in the undertaking, and a common desire to contribute all they could to its success. Exploring expeditions have |