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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 5

[Lecture]

My Friends,—Our task is somewhat dry, heavy, and ungenial. It offers but little scope to the play of fancy: but ties us down to the contemplation of hard, stubborn, unromantic, and even disagreeable facts.

Of this last character (at least to my thinking) is the first fact we are called upon to take notice of,—men and women find themselves, by some strange chance, divided into classes. We come upon the scene, one—heir to the rights, honors, and immunities of a dukedom; another to penury, servitude, drudgery, and daily-recurring, never-ending, toil.

The first condition is, undoubtedly, pleasant enough—to such, however, as are not overburthened with sensibility; and who (like good Calvinists in heaven) measure the height of their happiness, and get their fruition enhanced, by an occasional peep from a safe distance into that other place where multitudes of their brethren are not so comfort ably circumstanced.

The other condition, though by no means so enjoyable, in time becomes bearable; like the eels in the frying-pan, we get used to it: we know if we jump out of the frying-pan we shall jump into the fire; so we conform ourselves as well as we can to what was taught us in our catechism,—we "honor and obey the Queen, and all that are put in authority under her;" we "submit ourselves to all our Governors., Teachers, Spiritual Pastors, and Masters;" we "learn to labor truly to get our own living in that state of life into which." through some strange chance, it has pleased our page 4 stars to call us. I do not admire the arrangement: but so it is.

The first question, therefore, that arises out of this state of things, and demands an answer, is this,—Is this division of men and women into classes an artificial division, or a natural one? The catechism in the sentence I took the liberty of altering a little, assumes that it is a natural one— Gon Ordained; and therefore not to be questioned, but to he submitted to and obeyed, I shall assume (for reasons to be adduced presently) that it is artificial, and man-made, and therefore alterable; and not God-ordained and irrevocably fixed.

Natural laws will be obeyed; should be obeyed; it is folly to resist them. Fire will burn; the sparks will still tend upward; and the brooks and rivers will leave the higher levels and make for themselves a channel to the lower lands or sea. Human laws are not in their nature so imperious: nor can it be claimed for them (as it must be for Nature's laws) that they are always right. A man says to his brother-man, "Stand thou there!" But his brother-man, having a will of his own, and some interest in the matter, vindicates his natural right and walks. It is only on the supposition that the arangement I have alluded to is artificial that discussion becomes rational, and that effort implies hope.

Men and women are therefore, by an artificial arrangement, divided into classes, which are variously denominated:—as the Governing Class, and the class which is governed: or the upper class, and the lower class; or the upper, middle, and lower: or again, the Laboring Class, and the class in which are the Employers of Labor. It is the men and women that are included in the two last denominations whose rights and interests we are to consider now. "We are then, (for the time being) to forget that we are men and women, and to think of ourselves only as Laborers and Employers of Labor; because the rights of the Laborer (as such), as well as the rights of the Employer (as such), differ considerably from the rights of either considered as men. Let me explain my meaning by an example. One of every man's natural rights as a man. (because it includes one of page 5 his highest needs or wants.) is self-development, physical and moral; because with this comes his highest capability of enjoyment, and social usefulness, and moral worth;—he is a wiser, a better, a more perfect man than he would be without this development. It is obviously better for Society that every man should be wise, and just and good than that any of them should be deficient in these qualities. For the welfare of society, therefore, as well as for his own happiness, he has a right to such an education as would most tend to render him Unselfish, Intelligent, just, and Good; and no man, nor any set of men, can have any natural right to pervert his mind, or to prevent his free exercise of these Virtues, arising as they naturally do out of this unfolding of his nature,—this development of his humanity. But, my friends, such an education would totally unfit the Employer of Labor to be an adroit, selfish money-grubber; and equally unfit the Laborer from becoming a marketable and machine-like proficient in his calling, handicraft, or trade. The proper Education for the first is a knowledge of the arts and contrivances of employing Capital so as to add to that Capital, and become rich: whilst the proper education of the other is the acquisition of that knowledge which best fits him to play his part as a Laborer and remain poor. Any kind of Education other than these must militate against class-distinctions.

The more men and women get educated as men and women, the more they become (or are likely to become) discontented with these class-distinctions. Hence in the "good old times"—times even within my own remembrance—Employers of Labor were wont to say, boldly and honestly, that "all book-education is unfit for the Laboring-classes," and to declare that "the less there is of it the better for us all." They honestly believed in class-distinctions as natural Institutions, God-ordained, and made to continue for ever; and so they honestly opposed all book-education to the sons of toil as an open violation of the arrangements of Heaven, and the best interests of the human race. The same opinions, somewhat modified, continue still. It is generally allowed now that you might safely give all men and women a little education; but that page 6 it is easy to give poor people's children too much, and thus unfit them for the duties which devolve on them as members of the Laboring-class,—and, if class-distinctions are to be maintained, they are right: for, let them all get even moderately educated and things must change. This is well known. It was not for cheap tea that there was such a sturdy opposition a few years since to the repeal of the Paper duties; but, for dear Books and Newspapers, and a little longer respite from the inroad of those innovations which the diffusion of real knowledge among the Laboring-classes must inevitably bring.

You see then, my friends, that the Rights which appertain to the Laborer (as such), differ widely from the Rights which appertain to him, naturally, as a man.

It will be seen that by the term Laborer or Workman, I mean one who does work for wages,—for daily, or weekly or monthly, or yearly hire. Now, what are his Rights? In a book which has been the cause of much mischief in the world, as well as of much good, we are told that "The Laborer is worthy of his hire;" which might be taken to mean that he ought to be fully remunerated for all the legal work he faithfully performed for another. What (in ail casts) a full and fair remuneration is, has never yet been settled between master and man; nor do I see the slightest likelihood that (as a matter of personal arrangement) it ever will. One of the Workman's Rights (and almost his o/dy one) is involved in this question. But it is full of practical difficulties;—there are all sorts of workmen; all sorts of work: there are times when work is plentiful; and times when work is scarce; so the Right practically resolves itself into this,—he has the Right to offer his Labor to any Employer he pleases, and to obtain the best terms for it he can. In short, he is involved in that inexorable Law of Political Economy—The law of supply and demand. Here commences his Difficulties; and "their name is Legion." If he has no property,— if he live by his labor, he must sell his labor to live: and he has crowds of competitors who, for the same reason, must sell theirs. Let us suppose the Labor-market overstocked-—Competition for work brings down wages: he is undersold. His Rights remain: but they are mere moon- page 7 shine now! His choice of a market for his labor is reduced to nothing. He must take the best offer—probably, indeed, the first offer—he can get—or starve! He thinks this hard, and "kicks against the pricks."—He tries methods (some of which are declared unlawful) to obtain "a fair day's wages for a fair day's work." Perhaps he thinks the Legislature ought to help him, and gets laughed at for his pains. He is told that Labor must be cheap in proportion to its abundance; and that prices (whether of work or of commodities) must be determined by the natural Law of supply and demand. Perhaps I shall be asked. Is this Law of Political Economy a natural Law? I answer, Yes, just as if, at a certain point, twenty artificial channels were cut for a river to flow in, it would divide itself, and flow as naturally in these twenty channels as it originally flowed in the one channel from which human ingenuily had diverted it. So if it be determined by men that men shall be divided into two classes, Laborers, and the Employers of Labor, and that the Laborers shall labor in order to live, the natural course of things is that the price of Labor shall be determined by the Law of supply and demand; and any opposition thereto (Legislative or otherwise) will be abortive.

Partial obstructions to the course of the law by a section of the laboring community might perhaps benefit some, but it would injure others; and, on the whole, the law continues to operate as steadily as the lapse of time, as remorselessly as death. Looking therefore at men as divided into two classes—laborers and the employers of labor—we are bound to look upon this law of political economy (in times when labor is more abundant than the demand for it) as the natural enemy of the laborer, mocking him in his difficulties, and rendering valueless his few cherished rights. It must in fairness be added that the profits of the employer are regulated by the same law. He has his competitors, and these competitors limit profits. To sell cheap goods he must buy cheap labor. Profits he must have or be ruined, and pretty large ones if he is to realise the hope of his life, namely, to grow respectable, important, rich; and with his riches to found "a family," and transmit purchased honors and marketable power to his descendants, for so he dreams and the law permits, "to his page 8 posterity for ever." If, to do this, he has been a hard taskmaster, and has done his best to throw the weight of his own natural difficulties on the shoulders of the workman, it should not be forgotten that, had the workman had the like opportunities and the like temptations, it is a thousand to one but he would have done the same. However much, then, we might regret and deplore the consequences, these things are all natural enough, and the centre round which they move is Selfishness, leaving a little margin for degrading charity, but none for the exercise of that genuine humanity, called by a book that shall be nameless, love.

Yes, my friends, it is natural enough and justifiable enough (for the State permits it and the Church allows it:) for the employer of labor to shift the pressure of small profits and bad times upon the shoulders of the workman; for small capitalists to become great capitalists out of the produce of the workman's labor; for great capitalists to ruin little capitalists; for wealth to become the great moving power of the world, and to make the laws, and to support the State which permits all this, and to uphold the "religion" which says these things are right! Yes, it is natural enough and justifiable enough for selfishness and inhumanity to thrive,—for the best-natured men to miss the prizes in this heartless competition for wealth; and for the poor laborer, being weakest, to get rudely hustled in the conflict and be thrust to the wall! This does not look much like justice, but every-day's experience tells us this description of what takes place is true.

Who, then, is the author of this anomalous state of things? The Queen says, it is not I. The Legislator says, it is not I. The Merchant says, it is not I. The Trader says. it is not I. The Employer of Labor says, it is not I. The Workman says, it is not I. No one owns it. No one defends it. No one that would not be ashamed to say, it is a contrivance of mine. So, forgetting the artificial arrangement which causes it, we say, it is a law of nature, and thus father its authorship on God. In all such difficulties this is our last, and indeed our favorite resource. Whatever is palpably unjust and grossly indefensible, we make no scruple about, but lay the responsibility of its authorship on God. Society is made up of these anomalies. Parsons thrive on page 9 sin, real or supposed; and judges, lawyers, legislators, magistrates (with a multitude of subordinates I need not name,) exist on evil-doing, batten on human degradation, and villany, and crime. Honest labor and its natural results are Good. From labor spring blessings capable of bringing a large amount of comfort, and enjoyment, and independence, and happiness to all. But the pay of the laborer is poverty, and his place is at or near the very bottom of the social scale! Sin and crime, and villany are the greatest Evils. They thoroughly degrade us, and their existence is our greatest shame, but out of this filth and rottenness spring up our Church and State, and all the offices of dignity and power which are everywhere the pillars and ornaments of civilization. Strange it might seem, but it is true, that were sin, and crime, and wrong-doing to cease, All these "Time-Honored" Institutions would Topple Down, and (according to our present notions,) The Nation So Afflicted would be a Ruin!—innocent and industrious, but a Ruin. The "glorious" erection of our wise forefathers shattered, and its grim beauty gone!

Reflecting on these strange anomalies, well might we exclaim with the poet:—

"Can such things be—
And overcome us like a surmner's-cloud,
Without men's special wonder?"

But so it is; and so obviously unjust is this state of things that, as I said before, no men, nor any order or class of men, will own to having been its contrivers, and so, religion tells us (and the bulk of men profess to believe it.) that it all comes through our great grandame Eve and the apple, and the miscalculations of Him who reared the infinite systems of the starry universe, of Him whose Wisdom (surpassing the utmost stretch of human thought to conceive of,) in order and harmony, and beauty, rules than all. The very thought is blasphemous, and we need not ask, is it a law of nature? Is it an unalterable dispensation of providence that the laborer, whose toil covers the land with cities, crowds the cities with merchandise, the sea with ships, makes the green earth smile with beauty and abundance?—We need not ask whether it is the changeless will of Providence that the page 10 laborer must needs be poor; that the originator of wealth must be its slave; that the source of power must remain for ever the weak and helpless thing—the oppressed and slighted thing we see him! We need not ask, Is this anomaly written in the nature of things? We will not ask, Is it a law of God ?

No, my friends, among men there is naturally no laboring-class. Had the wise Ordainer of things intended there should be, there would have been no mistake about it. He would have provided for it in our nature, and His arrangement would have been sure to work harmoniously. There would be no discontent, no squabbling about details, no perception of injustice, no necessity for re-adjustment. All would be order without effort, subordination without a sense of inferiority, and there would be no attempt or desire to avoid any of the benign consequences of the law. Of all this, take an example in the way of proof for we are not left to grope our way in the dark if we will open our eyes to what takes place around us. Among the Honey Bees God has made a laboring-class. The working bee, both in its external form and the desires and instincts of its inner nature, is quite a distinct creature from the male drone and the female egg-layer, and its skill and industry are admirable. The working bees are the purveyors, architects, magistrates, guardians, police and general managers and governors of the hive. They are (like the laborers among men,) by twenty or fifty to one the most numerous of its population. But (unlike the laborers among men) they are the state. Work is a delight to them. They range the fields for honey; they manufacture the wax; they construct the cells. Theirs is the collective wealth; theirs the power, and so far as power and joint responsibility are honorable, theirs is the collective honor. Their Queen is the mother of the hive, not its mistress, and her guard of honor is to protect her from either receiving harm or from doing it.

Here, then, is an instance of what God does among the inferior creatures, as if on purpose to tell us that men and women are not inferior creatures any of than, and that had He intended a working class among men, He would have made a working class—labor-loving, ingenious, orderly and page 11 happy, He intended nothing of the kind, did nothing of the kind, or it would be as impossible for a working-man to become, what is called a gentleman, or for a gentleman to become a working-man, as it is for the working bee to become an egg-layer or a drone; and that this latter metamorphosis is impossible you know, in consequence of the impassable barrier of sex and corresponding difference in natural instinct, the worker being a neuter, the egg-layer a female, and the drone a male. But among men and women the contrary fact is so common that it would be inexcusable in me to mention it here were it not to remind you of a fact, not so patent to us all, namely, that it is sometimes but a single step from the hovel of the laborer to the regal dignity and the seductive splendours of a Throne. It is not true, then, that the division of men and women into classes is a natural division, nor that the laborers who toil for the common good of the community should necessarily be treated as inferiors, and be kept helpless and ignorant, and Poor, that they should become either the recipients of charity, or the victims of man-made law. This state of things is, however, belived in, and in practice exists universally. We must, therefore, take the fact as we find it, and deal with its attendant difficulties in the best way we can.

Now, my friends, if we make ourselves, or permit ourselves to be made, what God did not make us—it we arbitrarily divide ourselves, or suffer ourselves to be divided, into classes, it is my honest opinion that (as long as the division lasts,) we must Submit to the natural (ox rather semi-natural) laws which regulate the intercourse between them; that is to say, labor must submit to be underpaid whenever employment is scarce, or (which is virtually the same tiling,) when the labor-market is over-stocked with laborers. If we repudiate this law, if we seek to exempt ourselves from its operations, we, in effect, do this,—we tacitly condemn or practically renounce our class-distinctions; we seek to be dealt with, not as laborers, but as men.

We do this when we demand, in the name of common justice, to have a fair day's wages for a fair day's work. We do this when we form combinations among ourselves to keep up the price of labor by a common agreement; when brother- page 12 worker joins heart and hand with brother-worker, and trade combines with trade, each making a sacrifice for the mutual benefit of all. All these efforts are, in effect, a renunciation of our class-distinction, and are so many evidences of our claims to be admitted to the rank of free men and the rights of men.

Again, my friends, we not only in effect, but in name and reality, renounce our class-distinction as laborers when we join and support co-operative associations, in which a body of workmen form a great co-operative partnership; become producers, and sell the produce of their united skill and industry, instead of setting their labor.

I am not at present giving you my opinion of the reasonableness or probable success of these various struggles and devices now so universal among us. I am only calling your attention to the fact that class-distinctions, with their results, are becoming odious; simply, I believe, because the condition of the laborer is becoming less bearable in proportion to the increase of intelligence in the general community, the light of which intelligence is breaking in upon the great body of laborers themselves; for it might be taken as an axiom that to know our wrongs is the first safe step towards their extinction.

Time was when the working population of England were serfs, human chattels, which passed from father to son, or from seller to buyer, with the land. They subsequently became free laborers, and worked for hire. Those who could not be masters themselves, worked for masters, and exchanged their skill and labor for a settled wage.

Times have changed; times are still changing. Might is not right, so much as it was. Men of all grades are thinking, and talking, and writing. Some laborers have turned poets, and sung of the sufferings of their class—Elliot, Prince, Gerald Massey, and many more. Burns's song, "A man's a man for a' that" has long ago awakened the slumbering manhood of the masses who, till then, had been deadened by Church Catechisms and by indoctrinated or inherited ignorance, and who had been stupified by hireling work.

This, in brief, is the history of free labor in England, and of its growing discontent. Here, then, these questions force themselves on our attention. Is its discontent reasonable? page 13 Are its claims to a new arrangement tenable and just? And are the methods now being taken to bring about this new arrangement the best methods it is possible to adopt?

To the first question, Is the discontent of the workman reasonable? I answer, Nothing can be more natural, and therefore more reasonable, than that hard-working penury, in the midst of abundance, should be discontented with its lot.

To the second question, Are the workman's claims to a new arrangement just? I answer only, that God did not create Classics. He created Men, whom he endowed with a common nature, and invested with common rights.

To the remaining question—Are the methods the workmen are adopting to bring about a more desirable arrangement the best methods it is possible to adopt? My answer (which I fear is not a very definite one,) will have to be gathered from the arguments and suggestions I shall now proceed to offer you, and with which my lecture will conclude.

The solution of this problem is, as I take it, the laborer's chief difficulty. He has a thousand others, personal and domestic, but this extends itself to his class, affects his children and their's and their children's children; and possibly has no limit to its influence for good or evil in time, nor bounds to its influence within the space we call the world.

I have spoken of the Law of Political Economy which, in bad times, operates as the Laborer's enemy,—I mean, of course, the Law of Supply and Demand.

I ought to state also that when work is abundant, and the laborers are few, it operates equally as the Workman's Friend.

In this latter case it looks smilingly on him, and says, "I am glad to see you: name your own price."

But when Laborers are over-abundant, or work is scarce, or both, it replies to his claim of "a fair day's wages for a fair day's work," in other words, to his demand for justice—something after this rude fashion,—"Your case is out of the pale of justice—out of the pale of discussion, even. Your claims were settled before you were born. Indeed, the very circumstance of your being born prejudices your claim. I page 14 (the Law) am, and must be, the more cruel and inexorable the more there are of your class. Take a hint from Dr. Malthus, and, if you would make a friend of me for your posterity, keep the surplus population down."

Now, it is against the arbitrary decisions of this Law (if I understand the matter rightly) that the power of Trades' Unions and Co-operative Partnerships and Stores are meant to be directed.

For reasons already stated, as well as for others to be adduced presently, I am inclined to doubt, not of the policy and desirableness of the attempt, but of the fitness and practical working of these Trades' Unions and of this Cooperative machinery viewed as means to an end.

Co-Operative Partnerships are, no doubt, a cure for the evils they are directed against, so far as they are successfully conducted, and to the extent to which it is possible to introduce them among the workmen at large. An extension so as to include all Manual Labor—Servitude of every kind—is scarcely possible; but, supposing it accomplished, what occurs? This good thing,—the distinction between Master and Workman is destroyed, and "Jack is as good as his master."

Now, as I wish Jack, not only to be as good as his master, but a great deal better, I will make no further objection to an attempt which would destroy the distinction between master and man, than this,—I doubt the possibility, without help from another source, of these Co-operative Partnerships ever becoming universal: and if not universal, it would only add to the Master-Class without bringing relief to the general body of workmen, even if it had not the effect of rendering their condition worse.

Trades' Unions, which aim, not at the abolition of class-distinctions, but only at the mitigation of the evils of the obnoxious law, could gain nothing by their crusade against low wages if every workman were an Unionist, for (other things remaining as they are) the result would be high wages triumphant, but nobody to pay them!—a successful organisation of the workmen, but no work. Besides which, the rise, if general, is only Nominal, because as wages rise, prices rise; if only partial, it must be at the expense of others, page 15 and therefore manifestly unjust. England, moreover, is "going in" for the trade of the world: cheapness, both at home and abroad, is the order of the day. Small profits and large returns (which, of course, means screwing down wages to their minimum) is becoming more and more the principle of Trade; and there is a necessity for this;—a constantly increasing population must be employed. A successful competition of England with other nations (based, of course, on the principles of cheap production) is the only means known of providing this employment. Make a high wages list triumphant, and I see nothing but ruin for master and man.

At present I believe the Unionists form but a minority of the workmen engaged in Trades, and that the tactics these Unionists adopt to keep up wages is the organisation and management of "Strikes," aided by laws and restrictions, operating on (or at least intended to operate on) the whole body of workmen, as well as on the masters, by a variety of devices which naturally abridge the right of free action in all. Now, if this plan of keeping up wages by an organised combination, together with laws intended to limit the natural increase of the workman's numbers by means of exclusive restrictions—were to be successful,—I have already told you what I think would be the result,—collapse of Trade, general Bankruptcy, and ruin. But here I wish to glance at what I might name a moral blemish in these restrictive laws of the union-men. These laws, whilst beneficently intended to benefit all the workmen belonging to the Trades, are still Selfish. They do not seem to recognise the fact that any benefit accruing to the united body of workmen through the operation of their exclusive regulations, must fall on another body of men and women still more helpless than themselves. Now if these exclusive regulations are right here, they are right everywhere. But, in point of fact, they are not right anywhere: and if they did not anywhere exist, the workmen themselves would not have much, if anything, to complain of. If they have anything to complain of at all, it is that, wanting the necessary qualifications to be men of independence, or what is called Gentlemen, they are excluded from the enjoyment of their rights as men.

There never was a greater moral principle enunciated page 16 among men (whoever was its author) than this:—"Do into others as you would others should do unto you"—and the affairs of the world will never go right until it is (in small and large things) of universal adoption.

Observe, now, how these exclusive regulations must operate in the Trades—a Man or a Boy has not the agreed-on qualification to be a workman: what is to become of him You will not let him "dig:" he is perhaps ashamed to "beg:" so he tries to exist, and for a time does exist, on his dexterity in another profession; he turns thief; in time becomes a jail-bird; goes through all the phases of human degradation: and perhaps ends his career of crime and misery in the presence of some fifty thousand human wretches, many of them more vicious and criminal than himself; and most of them the victims of exclusive regulations (somewhere) which have met them in the beginning with this terrible sentence:—"Begone! There is no room among us for you!"

We are, most of us, perhaps all of us, doing, every-day, much of which we do not intend, and cannot foresee the consequences. It is proverbial, too, that associated bodies of men are less just than individuals. It is not therefore to be expected that associations of working men, banded together to protect themselves from the hard dealing of their Employers, should be an exception to the rule: and I fancy they are not.

These mistakes, if on a large scale, are, however, very fearful in their consequences. A vortex of villany and all that is vicious and degrading is thus formed—a sort of Civilization's Dust-heap which society keeps somewhere in the rear of its porticoed-premises; or perhaps only just concealed behind its silken draperies, white muslin curtains, and venetian blinds.

Knowing these things; and thus looking below the surface for the deep-rooted causes of all the evils we see around us, it is scarcely possible (at least I find it so) to glance over the records of human degradation and misery, and revolting and hideous crime, published daily in our newspapers,—without a feeling of shame and sorrow at the inveteracy and extent of that Social Injustice (never hinted at by politicians, nor so much as dreamt of by "Moralists" and page 17 "Divines") of which these diurnal records are the damning evidences, and the men and women therein anatomised; the scape-goats and the victims. But, my friends, this glance at the huge cesspool into which Society at large agrees to hurl its outcasts, admonishes me that all I intended to say to you in this Lecture cannot be said. Instead of this Refuse-heap of Society being made the receptacle for the Workman's outcasts, I feel that the remedy he should have recourse to ought to widen so as to take the whole of these outcasts in. But, as the suggestions, having this end in view, which I thought of making, would lead me to intrude on your attention beyond all reasonable limits, I must reserve what I had to say till some other opportunity. I will therefore conclude with a brief