been comparatively easy when the party were all of Anglo-Saxon blood; but woe to the Dr. Livingstone or the Sir Samuel Baker who has had to depend for co-operation on idle savages bent only on plundering him, or doing the least possible amount of work for the largest possible amount of pay. It is to the prevalence of a similar spirit among the whole body of collaborateurs that British industry has largely owed its pre-eminence. The whole body of workers have brought to bear on the work a degree of intelligence and interest beyond the common, and have given effect to that inward impulse which has urged them to work with a will at the undertaking on hand. The heads of the concern have felt confidence in their workers as men of principle and men of spirit, who would not let the enterprise fail through listless indifference or any other meanness. Let these conditions be withdrawn from our industry, and who shall say it will not be like Samson with his locks shorn? who shall say that the Anglo-Saxon, minus his AngloSaxonism, will continue to win the race? Or that colonial and continental populations, under the influence of growing freedom and enlightenment, will not be able to keep pace with the people of these islands, and that our industry, which, though slow to move, is not immoveable, may not find more congenial settlements beyond the seas? III. We have yet to view trades-unions in their bearing on the position of employers. Do they, as practically conducted, lead to such interference with the liberty and prerogatives of employers as to make the management of a large undertaking so difficult and disagreeable a task, that any man of spirit or self-respect will shrink from attempting it? Are they, or are they not, an intolerable interference with the rights of masters? That the men have a right to combine, and by combination arrange the terms on which they will work; and that the masters have a right to direct and regulate their undertakings as they see fit, are both indefeasible propositions. The difficulty lies in adjusting them to each other. In Acts of Parliament, in controversial statements, in articles of peace after was has been raging, this difficulty is continually apparent. It is easy to say a great deal that is true and relevant in support of either of these rights. But this is nothing unless you get them fitted harmoniously to each other. Usually the collision has occurred by one of the parties pushing his claims so far as to jostle the cherished rights of the other. The consequence has been the awakening of an in dignant sense of wrong, and a vehement spirit of resistance in the party believed to be invaded. A war as pro aris et focis has arisen; not a mere difference as to the terms of a bargain, but a bitter civil war, in which each party contends as if for life and liberty, heedless of the cost, determined to win. The coalmasters in Yorkshire resisted their men in 1857, on the ground that 'the struggle is not based on the question of wages alone, but is in fact a struggle for the entire mastery between the employers and employed.' The master-engineers in 185152 declared, that a great question of civil liberty was involved in the uncontrolled right of every master to contract for the services of any British subject he pleased. They were indignant because the shipwrights on the Wear were at that moment on the strike, chiefly on the simple ground of their masters venturing to assert their right freely to make their own contracts, and for refusing to dismiss their labourers, and to engage artisans to perform work that did not require skill. Mr. Rennie, an employer very friendly to the men, while proud to acknowledge the virtues and value of the artisans of the country, felt that self-respect, as well as prudence, required the masters to defend themselves and peaceable hands from a dictation that was ruinous to both.' Preston masters, in 1853, complained bitterly that irresponsible parties interfered with the relation between master and servant, dictating to the operatives the conditions on which they were permitted to labour, and protested that to this spirit of dictation they could no longer submit. One of them, Mr. Hollins, who was willing to comply with the terms asked by the men, shut up his mill on the question of authority, whether he was to make an independent bargain with his operatives, or to be subject to the dictation of a committee of unionists. The To understand the bearing of this part of the dispute, this question of authority, it is necessary to bear in mind the footing on which the men desire to stand with their employers in exchanging their labour for wages. They wish to be recognised as INDEPENDENT PARTIES, having a certain commodity, viz., labour, to dispose of, but determined to conserve their liberty while bargaining for their labour. As slaves, serfs, villains, or knaves, they will not be hired. They will have nothing to do with the feudal system. Perhaps they deem their employers and themselves pretty much on a level, and hold that the one is as much entitled as the other to say what he will do or what he will allow. Now, we are quite as ready as they can be to throw feudalism to the winds. We gladly and cordially acknowledge the independence of the workmen. But the very nature of the contract they make, to do work for one who has a business to manage, and who is responsible for the articles he produces, implies a certain amount of deference to him as the ruling or managing power of the concern. A domestic servant, accepting of a situation in a family, virtually binds herself to recognise the authority and to conform to the arrangements of the heads of the house. A farm-labourer, in like manner, recognises the authority of the farmer. And wherever a business has to be carried on under the guidance of a responsible head, there must be a similar concession. It is he who has to plan and arrange how he is to accomplish the work he undertakes. It is he who has to make each department of his business fit in to the rest. It is he who has to pay wages and all the other expenses; it is he who undertakes contracts, becomes liable to penalties, has to make good any part of his work which may be found defective, and runs the risks of failure incidental to all, and especially to large and difficult undertakings. When workmen accept employment from such a person, they must be understood as surrendering their individual freedom to the extent which is necessary for enabling him to fulfil the responsibilities of his position. What that amounts to, is a question which can never be quite settled on abstract principles. Good sense and good feeling on both sides are indispensable to the comfortable adjustment of such questions. But when any flagrant violation of right takes place on either side, when the freedom either of masters or men is violently invaded, or is believed to be violently invaded, there is a fair ground for the injured party making a stand, and falling back on the rights of free-born men. It is a very delicate matter to discuss the conduct of masters and men in relation to their mutual freedom, feelings, and interests. No doubt there have been, and there are, some masters who fail to recognise in their men those feelings of independence which they are resolved to assert. The old notion of villainage or serfage that lingered so long in the Statute-book, has its hold still on the minds of some masters, and could they enforce as rigid and unquestioning submission to their orders as the commander of a ship of war, they would not scruple to do so. Unreasonable expectations, and an intolerant and intolerable tone on the part of certain masters, have no doubt been the cause of similar conditions and a similar tone on the part of the men. The following instance is given by Mr. Rupert Kettle, an opponent of strikes and combinations, of the way in which disregard of the feelings of the men, unintentional probably, has borne the bitterest fruits : 'When the mining district of South Staffordshire was convulsed by the last great strike, and when enough of loss had been sustained to prove that both parties were thoroughly in earnest, a meeting was arranged between a deputation from the masters and a deputation from the men. The meeting was fixed for a certain hour, at one of the principal hotels in At the appointed time the neighbourhood. the workmen's delegates went to the place of meeting. They were ushered into a grand room, in which the masters had been assembled some hours before. The men found the negotiants with whom they were to meet already seated at a long table, with writing materials before each, and their chairman presiding. The men's delegates were directed to a bench at the end of the room as the place provided for them. Here they sat in a row, dangling their hats. When all were seated, and the scrutinizing eye of ten-master-power upon them, the masters' president opened the negotiation with-" Well, what have you chaps got to say for yourselves?' The question cost the district an incalculable sum of money, positively tens of thousands of pounds. The asking of it. was indeed nothing less than a public calamity. Yet the masters' chairman could have had no intention to wound the susceptible pride of the men, for he was naturally most genial and kindhearted. Take another instance. Lately the carpet-weavers of Kidderminster were deeply incensed, and though more prudent counsels prevailed, and a strike was avoided, still the town was thrown into great excitement, because the representatives of the masters put of their hats and withdrew from a conciliation meeting when the men desired them to stay.' There Many instances could be given of tyrannical conduct on the part of masters when the men have wished respectfully to bring grievances under their notice. There have been works where, by a law unchangeable as the laws of the Medes and Persians, any request for an increase of wages has been followed by immediate dismissal. have been employers who have scornfully refused to negotiate in any shape with their men on the subject of work or wages, except. in the way of summarily dismissing those who have been active in getting up the memorial or petition which conveyed the request. There have been instances in which the men have had to sign their names in the form of a 'round robin,' to prevent detection of the first signatures, and consequent. dismissal of the parties. All this tends to engender a like feeling in the hearts of the men,-a feeling which seeks its revenge, and does not spare the class that have produced. it, when the opportunity comes round. The iron that has eaten into their soul makes | December 27, 1866, the organ of the master them hard and regardless when their turn builders. After referring to the manner in has come when circumstances, for a time which efforts to obtain an increase of wages at least, have given them the whip-hand of are made, the writer goes ontheir masters, and almost enabled them to dictate their terms. Then it has become the turn of the masters to wince. In the middle of a large contract, or as it was drawing to a close, imperative demands have been made, under the instigation of the union, for conditions favourable to the men. A shipbuilder, under stringent obligation to have a vessel ready by a certain day, when she is to proceed on a voyage, possible only at certain seasons of the year, or to carry a cargo which cannot be delayed, sees the stately and beautiful fabric approaching a finished state. Suddenly, like another Tantalus, about to move the cup to his lips, he finds it dashed from his hands. A strike occurs among the workmen. The demands are peculiarly vexatious and annoying to him. The benefit which some of them may bring to the men is out of all proportion to the annoyance they will cause to him. His dilemma is very disagreeable. Should he refuse to comply, he is unable to deliver the ship, and is compelled to pay heavy penalties. Should he yield, his self-respect is wounded, and, moreover, he feels that should a similar demand be repeated, he is helpless in the hands of the men. Of course, he will be most chary of new contracts; and the shipowner who employs him will be chary of giving him fresh orders, which, not being implemented at the stipulated time, may derange the whole current of his business. No doubt, the workman has had his triumph. The union has turned the tables on the employer, and shown that labour is the true master. But such victories are too Pyrrhus-like to excite much satisfaction in rational men. Of the many thousands of shipbuilders who have been going idle during this fearful winter on the banks of the Thames, the Tyne, the Wear, the Mersey, or the Clyde, not a few are, doubtless, lamenting the tactics in which they may have lately been glorying. They have found that the ordinary fluctuations of trade are quite sufficient to derange or arrest the operations of the shipbuilding yard, and that there is little need to add to the embarrassment by a course which alike discourages the shipowner from giving fresh orders, and the shipbuilder from engaging to fulfil them. pro The actual state of feeling prevalent among employers in reference to the ceedings of trades-unions, may be gathered from the following extract from a leading article in The Builders' Trade Circular of 'But it is altogether apart from questions of the advocates of trade-unions as they are at rates of wages that we would join issue with present conducted. These unions are now, and have for some time been, persistently interfering with freedom of trade, both as regards the master, and, still more oppressively, as regards the man. If they have their way, the old idea of a "Master Builder" will soon be an anachronism. That idea involved somewhat that of a commander of a company of volunteers. No man need enlist. But every man who does enlist accepts the conditions previously laid down both as to pay and as to duty. And if after experience of them he does not like them, he can quit the service. The greatest enterprises, both civil and military, that the world has ever seen, have been accomplished by such companies. But we are told that this is an unjust and tyrannical arrangement. We are to give up this idea, and in lieu thereof to take up one similar to that which used to actuate the Dutch and other republics. We are to be nominal commanders, but we are to be accompanied by civil commissioners, who all our plans. But we are even worse off than are to direct all our goings, and who can veto poor Dutch general under such circumstances; for while their High Mightinesses thus thwarted him, they at least paid the troopers; but we are to be providers of the pay and other capital required, while their "High Mightinesses," the leaders of trade-unions, dictate to us what we shall do, and how. And this dictation extends dent of the Association said at Edinburgh, to every part of our business. As the Presi"We have had rules introduced into our trade as to the number of apprentices we must einploy, the men we must employ, and the men we must not employ. We have been directed that certain men, and they only, must erect a scaffold, and certain other men, and they only, must go on it when erected." And not only so, we are dictated to as to the material we must use, the place at which it shall be worked, and the means by which we shall work it.' a Nor is this the ne plus ultra of the dictation complained of. In the Builders' Circular for Jan. 17, 1867, it is stated that Mr. Holroyd, a master plasterer of Bradford, had just received the following official letter from the Bradford Plasterers' Union : 'BRADFORD, Jan. 7, 1867. 'MR. C. HOLROYD,-We, the Operative Plasterers of Bradford, do hereby give you notice, that all your sons that are working as plasterers, which are above twenty-one years of age, are requested to join the society on or before Saturday next; and failing to do so, all our and not return again, unless you pay all the men will cease work on Monday morning next, expenses of the strike. --We remain, yours, THE OPERATIVE PLASTERERS OF BRADFORD.' Mr. Holroyd may surely be congratulated on one thing-the faith reposed in the filial duty of his sons. But if the three young Holroyds, which are above twenty-one years of age,' should choose to act for themselves, and decline the society, what must become of the father? The payment of the fine will be found to be no empty threat; for nothing is more common than for masters to be called to pay the expenses of strikes caused by their alleged violation of the rules of the trade. The journal quoted from mentions the case of a plasterer in Glasgow, who in this way had lately to pay a fine of forty pounds. As another sample of the kind of letters which masters are in the habit of receiving, we give the following: 'SOCIETY-HOUSE OF OPERATIVE PAINTERS, Held at the Cross-Keys, Byard Lane. 'SIR,-It having been represented to us that you have an Individual in your employ of the name of G. Willson--who is a person that refuses to become a member of Our Respectable Body-Consequently it becomes necessary for our Interference for the protection of the Members under your Employ. We therefore Respectfully Inform you that unless you Immediately discharge the said G. Willson. We shall withhold from you the services of those Individuals who belong to us and in your Employ. By Order. SAML-W- REEVE, Sectry.' As warm friends of the working classes, we say that such letters are simply lamentable. We cannot conceive the possibility of the policy that dictates them issuing in anything but disaster. We would appeal to any candid workman, Is this the way you would be done by, if you were a master? Or can you fancy a master, with due self-respect, not feeling bitterly aggrieved by such attempts at dictation by his men? There are other aspects of the recent policy of trades-unions, besides those we have dwelt on, at which we must briefly glance. There is its bearing, for example, on the stability of our industry. We have examined most of what has been written on this subject, especially the letters of Messrs. Creed and Williams, but we have not been convinced that as yet, at all events, much trade has been driven out of the country in consequence of the disputes between labour and capital. It has always been a ready argument, when a strike occurred, that the trade would be ruined by it. In the excited state of men's minds at present, the argument has been brandished with more than usual vehemence. But the returns of the Board of Trade exhibit no falling off in our industry, even in those departments that have been most affected by trades-unions. If locomotives have been built in Belgium, and if door and window-frames have been imported from Sweden, it is quite possible that the same things might have been done had the labour-market at home remained perfectly free from disturbance. The rising spirit of enterprise abroad, the increased facilities of transport, and the great pressure on the home-market might quite possibly have given rise to these or to similar transactions. But though there is not evidence that much harm has been done as yet, there is ample reason to apprehend it, if the present state of things should go on. Every man of common sense must see that a disturbed state of the labour-market is essentially most injurious to the prosperity of trade. The master engineers put the case strongly for the British capitalist in a statement drawn out by them in 1851-52: 'Afraid to subject himself to the repetition of practices which present to him only the alternative betwixt heavy fines for failure of contracts, or loss of business-character, and exorbitant remuneration for inferior skill, the master declines otherwise profitable orders, draws his operations narrower, and diminishes the demand for labour; and this dread, spreading generally through the trade, and too amply justified by offensive interference, forced upon every master, induces a universal disposition to decline the most valuable custom, and thereby seriously to depress the business and circumscribe the employment of the country.' It is evident, too, that the British manufacturer may soon look for much keener competition with foreign nations than he has hitherto had. International exhibitions are stimulating the nations in the race of industry. Emperors are propounding that the policy of their empires is not war but peace. The development of the country's resources' is becoming the watchword of statesmen. The success of England's freetrade policy is breaking almost everywhere the bonds of protection. Facilities of communication and of correspondence are making distant countries like the provinces of one kingdom. Young nationalities, like those of Prussia and Italy, are becoming conscious of an energy that must have an outlet somehow. And it is well known that in continental countries work can be done cheaper than at home. From every quarter the warning comes to Great Britain to be on the alert. An able writer in the Economist of January 19, remarks:- We have watched the approaches of foreign competition for a long series of years, and have from time to time warned our readers of the coming certainty. The danger is no bugbear; but neither is it a matter for panic or despair.' That the present is a very critical near. We e are glad to find some indications, on the part even of the advanced guard of the unionist army, of the necessity of caution: " urge them time for the interests of British industry | hive, anything indicative of a living interest can hardly be doubted. But though appear in the progress of education and temperance, ances are at present ugly, we have great or in any of those movements which aim at confidence in the return of that good sense promoting the higher and more spiritual and good feeling which have so often seemed interests of the masses. We are concerned on the eve of forsaking us, but through God's to find little or nothing indicative of a mercy have always returned when peril was comprehensive view of what bears on the welfare of the working millions, the cultivation of their taste, the improvement of their domestic condition, the purification of their character, the elevation of their recreations, 'Labour, in certain departments,' said The We cannot find evidence that the mere or even the economization of their earnings. Beehive newspaper a few weeks ago, 'has agitation for lately achieved decided victories; but it may, tends to wages by going too far, come to be terribly defeated. forward in any of the higher walks of And if any one says there is now no danger, we attainment, and character. And when differ from them. Our sympathies and strikes occur, though there is usually a interests are with advances, but we must go on marvellous display of steadfast endurance safe grounds. We thus see, and therefore say, and self-denial, we doubt whether the perthat it is the prudent policy and the true wis-manent effect on the character is beneficial. dom of the existing well-paid trades, to maintain their present position; and certainly, just now, cease to agitate either for time or wages. Already the advantages gained by their union action are attracting the floating workers of other districts, and their pits will soon be overflooded with labourers, to their own detriment. They will be overstocked by labour; while, if they restrict work, or advance prices further, they will drive trade to other districts more favourable to the masters. Besides, they will compel the coal-masters to united action and efforts for self-preservation.' The bearing of trades-unions on the higher interests of the working classes is an important subject, but it does not afford many satisfactory results. It is probable that in promoting acuteness, knowledge of the world, self-denial, perseverance, and endurance, the policy of trades-unions, with their strikes and sufferings, has done a measure of good. But, on the other hand, it is a terrible ordeal to any man, or body of men, to be engaged in a perpetual struggle for money. It may be a duty; that we cannot deny; but God help the man on whom the duty is laid! How shall he be protected from the secularizing, pulverizing influence of such a conflict? How shall he be made to feel that 'a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things that he possesseth?' It is not without significance that at this very time a conference has been held to discuss the reasons for the general alienation of skilled workmen in England from the public services of religion. We are glad to observe that Mr. Potter was a member of that conference, and that he showed a lively interest in the endeavour to promote a more religious spirit in workmen. But we doubt whether, as a rule, the leading spirits of the union are very zealous in this We miss, in the colums of The Bee cause. To have the habits of daily industry interrupted, to be thrown into loose and irregular ways of spending time, to have the mind kept in a state of constant excitement, cherishing a sense of wrong, and a vague expectation of a remedy so slow of coming that the heart becomes sick in waiting for it, cannot be a good state. for most. The greater part may probably return to regular habits and plodding industry; but in the case of some, a disorderly life will show the effects of the derangement to which their habits have been exposed. Nor must we overlook the effect of the present agitation on the temper of employers, or the discouragement which it entails on all who desire to promote friendly bonds between them and their workmen. "Commercial philanthropy' is at a discount, and efforts to get the Heads' to care for the Hands' in the world of labour, are little better than sneered at. The friends of the working man are told that their labours are producing the very opposite effects to those which they aim at; and they almost need to be ready with an apology for what but lately seemed, as indeed it is, one of the noblest of causes the effort to raise the masses higher in all that makes human beings great and good and happy. What then is to be done? No one can look on the present relations of capital and labour, and say contentedly that the best or the only policy is just to leave things as they are. On the other hand, it may be that the whole subject has not been sufficiently investigated or considered, to enable us as yet to say with certainty what ought to be done. This, we own, is our own impression. In this view, we welcome the Royal Commission just appointed to inquire into the |