store of food against the season when we foresee we shall want it; but those who do nothing but drink, and dance, and sing, in the summer, must expect to starve in the winter.""-From 'Easy Lessons in Money Matters.'

INTERFERENCE WITH MEN'S DEALINGS WITH EACH OTHER.

PART I.

ALL attempts of Government to regulate by law the rate of wages are useless and mischievous.

But still more hurtful, and much more frequent, is the interference from another quarter; that is, when men who are not lawful governors, and have no legal authority, combine together to control their neighbours, and to dictate to each man what wages he shall pay or receive, and how he shall dispose of his property.

Sometimes when labourers have come in harvest-time from another part of the country to earn their bread by helping to get in the hay or corn, they have been violently assaulted, and driven away, by the people of the neighbourhood, lest they should lower the rate of harvest wages. Sometimes men are prevented by violence from using the most effective machines for threshing corn, spinning, weaving, and other works, from an idea that the use of the best instrument tends to lower the price of labour: though to go on acting on such a notion would bring us to the condition of savages, who dig up roots with a sharp stick, and are clothed in raw hides and bunches of leaves.

An industrious farmer, again, is often prevented from renting a farm from which another tenant has been put out for mismanaging the land or for not paying the rent. The owner of the land, perhaps, is willing to let it to him; and yet he is threatened with being beaten or murdered if he take it, by secret combinations of men who have no right to the land whatever.

And again, many an industrious poor lad is prohibited from learning a trade by which he might earn his living, because in many places the master tradesman is forbidden by his journeymen to take as many apprentices as he desires; the journeymen seeking to keep the trade to themselves in order to keep up their wages. And they accordingly agree together, that if a master does not conform to their rules, they not only will not work for him, but will not allow any one else to work for him. It is very common for the workmen in some manufactory or other branch of business to form themselves into Unions, for the purpose of enforcing certain regulations; the principle of which is, that no one shall work under a certain rate of wages fixed by them, and if he cannot obtain work at this rate, he is to remain idle and starve, on pain of being most cruelly persecuted by the other workmen.

Most of the people of this kingdom reckon themselves freemen, and boast of their liberty, and profess to be ready to fight and to die, rather than submit to slavery. They look down with pity and contempt on the Russian bondmen or serfs, and the negro-slaves, and on the subjects of the despotic governments of Turkey or Persia. And yet many of these people choose to subject themselves to a tyranny more arbitrary and more cruel than that of the worst Government in the world. They submit to be ruled by tyrants who do not allow them to choose how they shall employ their time, or their skill, or their strength.

These unhappy persons are those who have anything to do with Trades-unions and Combinations.

PART II.

THE welfare of any country, and especially of the labouring classes, depends greatly on the abundance of capital; and when capitalists are able to establish great manufactories, such as the cotton-mills in Lancashire, each of them gives employment to many hundreds of families.

And each of these employers is forced to pay his work

men as high wages as the work which the workman does, and the price which goods sell for, will allow. For if he paid less, his workmen would leave him to get better wages elsewhere; and if he paid more, he would lose instead of gaining, by employing them; and if he were to pay every workman alike, whatever were the quantity or goodness of the work done by him, it is certain that in most cases he would be paying either too much or too little too much to the bad workmen, and too little to the good ones. Besides this, when workmen are not paid according to their merit, there are scarcely any good ones; because when they see that they are no gainers by working well and working hard, they all become idle or careless.

Now it is plain that in all bodies of workmen the best must always be but few; since, however good the generality may be, those who are distinguished from them by superior skill, or strength, or diligence, must be but a small portion. And there will generally be found among the workmen some idle and ill-disposed persons, who feel envy, and endeavour to excite others to envy, against everyone who earns more than the usual wages.

In this way they often persuade a great number of their fellow-workmen to form themselves into a Combination, and appoint these agitators as their rulers under the title of Committee-men. The business of these Committeemen is to make laws for the government of the Combination, and to punish all who break them. There are four laws which belong to all Combinations: 1st, that every member shall obey the order of the Committee: 2ndly, that no member shall work in company with any one who is not a member of the Combination, or work for any master who resists its orders; 3rdly, that no member shall work under a stated price, fixed by themselves and 4thly, that every member shall pay a weekly sum for the expenses of the Combination. A part, often a large part, of this tax is taken by the Committee-men for themselves. And generally there are also added laws forbidding any one to work by the piece, or to earn more

E

than a stated sum, or to do more than a certain amount of work in a day, or a week: and also laws prohibiting a master from taking or discharging any workmen without the consent of the Combination, and from using in his manufactory any process, or any machine, that they do not approve of.

The Committee-men having thus acquired their power, keep it by intimidation, and by violence to the persons and property of those who oppose them, or who refuse to join them. And any master who disobeys them is punished by what is called a strike; that is, by refusing to work for him, and by preventing any one else from doing so.

When there is a small strike, that is, when it is only the workmen of one or two masters that are ordered to leave off working, or to turn out, as it is called, these are supported out of the wages of the other members of the Combination who continue at work. And this is one of the purposes for which they are taxed. But sometimes all the workmen of a great number of masters are ordered to turn out at once. Their families are then supported out of the funds which the Committee have laid up for that purpose. They receive an allowance just sufficient to support them on the poorest food. But even this is diminished, if the strike lasts several weeks; and then they are forced to part with their bedding and furniture, and even their clothing; they give up their cottages, and sleep three or four families in one room, with hardly food and firing enough to support life.

All this time the door of the factory is open to them; but they dare not enter, for fear of being assaulted and perhaps murdered, by ruffians hired by their tyrants. Thus they are worse off than even the poor negro-slaves in Africa. For the most hard-hearted slave-master finds it for his own interest to allow his slaves enough of food and other necessaries to keep them in health and strength,

PART III.

SUCH is the history of an unsuccessful strike.

But a successful one is still more mischievous, because its mischief is more lasting. The ignorant and violent men who have acquired dominion over their fellowworkmen, and over the masters, exercise their power to the injury of both. They do injury to the workmen by reducing all to the same level; preventing any one from being a gainer by good conduct, or from being discharged for bad conduct. They thus take away all motives for exertion, and destroy the energy, the industry, and the character of the workmen. And by thus spoiling the workmen, and forcing the masters to pay higher wages than they can afford, and interfering with the management of their business, they make their trade unprofitable. Some of the masters are ruined. Others turn all their capital into money, and either give up business, or else go to America, or to some other part of the world where such folly and wickedness as I have been describing are not practised.

But the work-people remain. Some of them try to learn new trades; but those who seek to maintain themselves in this way generally find themselves prevented by other trades-unions: the workmen combining to keep out all new-comers. Some live on the charity of their friends; and some subsist by begging, or go into the workhouse.

Examples of all this may be found in some parts of England, and to a much greater extent in Ireland. In all trades which require much capital and many workmen. under one master, the workmen are, in Ireland, united in Combinations, and the different Combinations, again, formed into Unions. These Combinations and Unions have been completely successful. No one who ventures to disobey the orders of a Committee is sure of his life for a day. This has been the case for forty or fifty years. And the consequence is, that most of these trades are completely ruined.