HARPER TWELVETREES' DOMESTIC MACHINERY AND MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES. PRIZE MEDAL WASHING MACHINE Protected by Her Majesty's Royal Letters Patent, Is the perfection of simplicity, as well as the PERFECTION of CHEAPNESS, and can be worked by a child, or a Lady may become her own Laundress. It will wash as many clothes in a few hours as a woman can wash in two days by the old method of hand rubbing, besides doing the work better with half the soap and fuel. All who have tried it admit that it is the cleanest, most simple, speedy, effective, and economical Machine ever invented-and it is the very thing long wanted for the Working Classes. Prices 21s., 45s., 55s., 75s. Carriage Free to most Railway stations. Washing Machines with Wringing and Mangling Apparatus combined, &4 10s., £5 10s., &7. India Rubber Clothes Wringer, 20s. Universal Mangle, 30s., 40s., 50s., 60s, 70s. Economical Cinder Sifters, 30s., 40s. Rotary Boot Cleaning Apparatus 42s. Rotary Knife and Fork Cleaner, 21s. Patent Churns, 15s., 20s., 30s. Portable Riddling Machine, for Coals, Gravel, Lime &c., 50s. Economizing Gas Cap, saves 30 per cent, Post Free for 6 stamps. Perpetual Self-acting Mouse Trap, always set and always baited, 1s. 6d., Ditto Rat Trap, catches a dozen in one night and requires no attention, 7s. 6d. Also a Portable Sawing Machine invaluable to Joiners, Machinists, Model Makers, Cabinet Makers, Engineers, &c., will save its cost in a month. Full particulars respecting the above may be obtained by sending a Postage Stamp to Harper Twelvetrees, Bromley-by-Bow, Lon lon. One of the greatest discoveries of this century for the welfare of humanity is that of JEAN DOMINIQUE AND FELIX ALBINOLO. This BALM-OINTMENT is their exclusive and hereditary property. Thomas Holloway, formerly interpreter to ALBINOLO, has sold in the United Kingdom and the different countries of the Globe some millions sterling worth of the spurious imitation of this wonderful Ointment. ALBINOLO'S PILLS The OINTMENT would be sufficient to cure most diseases, principally all diseases of the skin; but however so as to obtain a speedy and safe cure, we advise the taking of our pills at the same time; by their action on the blood they will purify the whole system from all extraneous matters, causes of our diseases.-The Pills must be taken alternately with the application of the ointment. One day the pills, the other the Ointment. Chief Agent in London: M. PROUT'S, patent Medicine Warehouse, Price: Per pot at 1s. 1d-2s. 9d.-4s. 6d.--Per box Balm in Capsules 3s. 6d.-Pills: Is. 1d.-2s. 9d., duty included. Address all letters prepaid to FELIX ALBINOLO, 41, King Street, Soho Square, W. NB. Persons desirous of learning how to make this Ointment, or to purchase it ready made, may apply to Mr. Albinolo. THE WORKING MAN. CONTENTS. "The Working Man.". PAGE 309 Reviews The Garibaldian Fund.................... 310 Taste ............... PAGE 329 ....... 331 66 311 Mortality in the English Factories...... 312 A Ghost in a Belfry 315 The Prisoner of Spezzia. 332 Foreign Politics .............................. 313 The One-sided Parliamentary RepreCo-operation....... sentation ................................. 383 The Doctrines against Usury and in favour A Model Judge 321 The International 325 The Daisy 328 ................... of Co-operation........................... Correspondence Cure for Stammering 66 334 335 HE things of this world are very uncertain. In our We had embarked on another much of our means: and time, and in that we have met with disappointment and failure, for a time indeed, the wreck of the one submerged the other. But now, we are up once more, we mean to devote all our attention and energy to the "Working Man ;" we have been happy indeed to receive numerous letters enquiring anxiously if it was dead, if it would not appear again. Here is our answer to those kind friends; we have sacrificed everything it was in our power to sacrifice, for what we consider to be a just cause. Money, time, anxiety and health are In Poland, in Italy, in America, everywhere; the Working Man follows with anxiety the phases of the struggle between the oppressed and the oppressor, seeing in each a new sign of the fast approaching universal proclamation of the equal rights of man to liberty and to independance, when the only, and most glorious title of man will be, to be A WORKING MAN! We cannot give here any historical details of the struggles of the Poles, but we must warn some of our friends who have publicly declared their belief that Poland had no better friends than the Emperor of the French! The Man who has violated the French republican Constitution he had sworn to defend, the man who has reduced France to the state we see her in now-the man who has pilfered the votes of the French people-the man who keeps his soldiers at Rome in spite of the Romans, the man who has stolen Nice and Savoy from Italy under pretence of freeing her from the foreigner, that man, is according to some of our friends, who ought to know better, the best friend of the Poles. Woe to Poland then, if he is her best friend, there are friends who are more dangerous than declared enemies. We saw the Poles take up their arms with dismay, we thought it was a premature movement, we thought it would have been wiser to wait, if possible, until Prussia should have had enough of the insolence of her legitimacy-mad king, until Hungary should have been ready to give some hard work to Austria, until the Italians should have been prepared to march into Venetia-until,.........but such an accord would have been the signal of the universal triumph of liberty; and the time is not yet come, the leaders of the European nations have not yet understood the Identity of their several causes; they must be taught by experience, and they will have to pay very heavily for the lessons they have to learn. Now that the Poles are on the battle-field, it is not the time for counsel and speaking of better opportunities. Poland must now vanquish or die !!! And when millions of our fellow-men are struggling for liberty against hordes of barbarians, it becomes our sacred duty to ask each of our fellow-working man, Hast thou done thy part? The cause of liberty is one all over the world. The Poles are fighting for us, as well as for themselves. Let the one who doubts read and reflect over European history. In America the bloody strife continues to increase in ugliness. We have said at the beginning why we did not approve of the North going to war, although we wished them success, and the history of the last eighteen months has justified our views. In Prussia, the impudence of the King and Ministry cannot very well go much further, and we must expect every moment to hear of some outbreak in that quarter. The Greeks, after having gone round the Courts of Europe on their knees, begging for another scion to come and try his hands where Otho has failed, have at last found one willing to make the experiment, How long will men require leading strings ? WHEN, in looking at the condition of a people, we find its industrial classes used as a pawn instead of a king-for ever vaccillating between utter idleness, combined with abject want, and over work, with comparatively generous wages --when we know that the increase of wages above a certain standard often produces a corresponding increase of crime, and that decrease below that standard has a like effect-when we notice that these mutations are not merely local, but are common to a whole territory, and confined exclusively to one class of society, it becomes clear that such constant blighting results must be the effect of some great pervading cause. The examination of this cause, with the counter efforts attempted to arrest its operation, may be interesting from an American point of view. America is similar to England in a political and financial aspect, and yet so dissimilarly situated, that, reciprocally, the experience of the one may be made to serve as corrective of the other. The industrial history of England may be summed up as the polarization of capital and labour, accelerated by the circumscribed limits of her territory; that of America, the same polarization, but seconded by an unlimited extent of territory, which has caused a more even distribution of wealth. Thus the polarization of capital and labour have cansed, as external sign of their operation, a polarization of classes, masters, and men. Nature always compensates herself. If the life of one portion of a community is exhaustively expended in creating wealth which it does not consume or retain, another portion of that community must accumulate that wealth, and become exhorbitantly powerful by its instrumentality. The masters, by the very nature of the financial fabric, have become collossi; the men have become dwarfed. Now, social tendencies accelerate in a geometrical ratio, so the poverty of the one class tends to impoverish them still more, while the wealth of the other class tends to make them yet more wealthy; or, as a writer in “Chamber's Edinburgh Journal" more accurately states, the workers possess a degree of means larger absolutely, but smaller relatively, so far as its power of accomplishing progress is concerned, than formerly fell to their lot." In the more terse language of Adam Smith, this tendency leaves us "on the one side heaps of gold, on the other heaps of carcasses.". Carcasses indeed, for crime of the, lowest type always increases as the hope for an amelioratod condition decreases, because it makes the over-tasked labourer seek the immediate gratification of the propensities rather than the prospective enjoyment of intellectul pleasures. As the labourer seeks relief for physical exhaustion in bad stimulants, he looses intellect save perhaps that peculiar intellect which is called forth by the prosecution of his particular trade-and is thus debarred from other necessary intellectual experience, which ends by making his life a routine of habit, both in thought and in action. Thus he is robbed of that self-reliance and comprehen. siveness of information which a more evenly-balanced mind imparts. J This loss has merged the industrial class into a mass; they have come under a general term, "operative," and, to escape this, they need to reassert their individuality. They must rise from the conglomeration and become men, for manhood is distinctiveness of existence, it is personality of expression. However, nature is so wonderfully self-preservative, that extremes bring with them their own relief, so that it becomes doubly interesting to notice the efforts which the working classes have made, and are making, gropingly at first, but now more intelligently, to place themselves in a better position. We have seen that, intellectually, the operative has become less self-assertive, but this defect, when united to destitution, makes him physically less governable, because outside restraint (the only restraint which statute government can bring to bear) cannot supply internal self-poise. We have, then, got the main elements in the philosophy of strikes--a dwarfed intellect which cannot accurately judge consequences, a physical want which will not be denied, a physical demonstration which cannot be repressed. Strikes, however unseasonably conducted, are a declaration of rights, aecompanied with physical demonstrations, backed by an accumulation of capital, in which the capital is scattered to assert liberty, not concentrated to secure immunity, thus leaving the participiants weaker than before. Here we see the mental aberration, but still they are a step which furnishes experience for future efforts, and have actually led to another stage, that of co-oPERATION. This is a great improvement, because co-operation is economy of means in contradistinction to prodigality of them as before. Hitherto the operatives have not been masters of the financial force, they have only been its servants; they have not learned the administration of its power, they have only experienced the disastrous effects of its operation; but before they can claim their own, it is imperative that they should imitate a counter movement to that of their masters, based upon organized centralized capital. This they must do, not that it is the best means of righting the evil they suffer, but because the natural consequence of present circumstances forces it upon them, for it is useless to fight a whole brigade, at twenty paces, singlehanded, with a short sword, when the opponents are possessed of revolvers, and equally futile to wage the war with weapons of which the manipulation is not perfectly understood against inferior arms, which are more effectually used. Let it be understood, however, that the value of the co-operative plan is chiefly owing to its power of rousing the people from stagnation. It is a step in progress, but only on intermediate step-one of the cheerful signs of returning mental activity among the working classes, a phase of life born of self-reliant effort. Co-operation is only a peg upon which to hang the rope that is to help the labourer down the precipice of destitution, into the fertile valley below, but it is not the actual entering into the promised land. Co-operation contains the germs of the best and the germs of the worst of systems. This grows out of the fact that it is founded upon the past and is a promise for the future; it is intellectual wisdom which foresees, humouring blind groping desire, which looks back; it is the principle of progress which has compounded with the spirit of stagnation. This must bring contention; let us see how it will be with co-operation if either element becomes the master. The word "co-operation," as a name, is not a strictly correct one, because, under one denomination, we find several antagonistic principles at work. It contains co-operation of many individuals for a definite purpose (co-operation proper); it contains combination of these individuals for the carrying ont of that purpose; it contains a yet imperfect equalization of exchange; and lastly a polarization of profits. The co-operative principle finds its complement in the yet imperfectly devloped operation of equality of exchange; the associative principle exists because of the joint stock, which forms the capital for future operations-the giving joint ownership in the business, and, therefore, joint control in its management. Here we have the elements of a polarization which must be destructive of the co-operative scheme upon the present basis, but which, like the strikes of trades' unions, will develope a better understanding of the laws of compensation. sure. Co-operation proper is the simultaneous action of two or many individuals for a common purpose, without combination of interests for the carrying out of that purpose. Under the form of conducting business, as there is no responsibility incurred for what others do-there being no combination of interests, there can be no compulsory action-each acts or ceases to act at his own pleaPure co-operation is excellently illustrated by the attendance to a lecture the lecturer states the subject of his lecture to the public, informs them of the time and place of delivery, and the price of admission. All who desire to hear such a lecture under such conditions have now got the preliminary knowledge upon which to co-operate-that is, assemble to hear the lecturer, but they have uot combined for the purpose of directing the course of the lecture, its duration, or the price of admission. These have all been predetermined by the lecturer 1 |
