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so much more squalid and wretched than that of men in the rural districts, who obtained so much lower wages, we were commonly met by such answers as this:-But it must be remembered that for more than a third of the year we are out of work, and indeed more than that. We only get these high wages during the season." And this was true. But whilst tradesmen lowered their charges out of the season, the operatives were forbidden by the trade's union to meet the reduced demand by any reduction of wages, and they consequently lost them. Again,' it was said, 'you do not know how much we have to pay in shop contributions, and in other ways.' In the case of the Sheffield grinders, the shop contributions amounted to upwards of twenty per cent. of their wages.

The regulations to narrow the labour market-those for the reduction of apprentices includeddo but pen up redundant hands in periods of depression, prevent their immediate efflux into other productive occupations, keep them dependent on the box,' and practically reduce wages. All such rules enhance the cost of production, thereby reducing the demand for the produce, and render the demand for it fluctuating and unsteady to a greater extent than is capable of any except very wide proximate estimation.

We found, moreover, that the fixed regulations of trades' unionists were evaded in various demoralising ways. In one striking instance, where the fixed wages were high, the men could only get work on the recommendation of public-house keepers, who had understandings with the contractors or employers, and who only recommended those who drank large quantities of beer at their houses. In other instances, employment was only got by the interest of foremen whose wives kept chandlers' shops,

Since our re

and favour was only given to those who dealt there largely. In other cases, wages were paid in kind or on truck, in modes which were practical reductions. In many others, wages were reduced at times by direct understandings with employers, which were assumed to be confidential and exceptional in the individual case, whereas they were very general. The pernicious regulation against piece-work was usually evaded, by ceasing to employ men whose work was below a certain amount, by keeping on the longest those who did the most, and by various cunning methods. On the other hand, in the free and unprotected employments, the wages were sure, were full, undiminished, and what is commonly overlooked in wage questions-were greater in the net annual amount. port, wages have risen without unions in the agricultural districts twenty-five per cent. in net amount, and more. Adam Smith, speaking of Scotland, stated 8d. a day to be the normal amount of a labourer's wages. In the Carse of Gowrie they were lately 28. 3d. a day; and agricultural wages will, I hope and believe, advance yet further with the extension of labour-saving machines, and of labour-saving processes by high culture. By the extension of machinery, which the union system has impeded, man is converted-to use my friend M. Jules Simon's expression-from 'an intelligent force' to an intelligent director of force -a condition for which advanced wages are requisite, under almost any conditions of supply and demand. In the great branch of cotton manufacture which had to the greatest extent been free from unionist regulations, wages have been more than doubled during the last half century, and are yet under independent conditions of advancecompelling the introduction of more labour-saving processes and machinery: in the colonies, the highest known amounts of wages were ob

tained by individuals remotely separated, under conditions in which action by unions was utterly impracticable: and the same rule held in the cities of the United States, until trades' union protectionism made its way there.

I have obtained from several persons, with good opportunities of observation, the result of their recent experience on this point, which fully bears out these conclusions. Mr. Alderman Jackson, the president of the Chamber of Commerce at Sheffield, and the chief saw manufacturer in England, states in answer to the allegation countenanced by the Edinburgh Review, that unions are serviceable in maintaining wages:

If we had had no trades' unions in Sheffield, and if the workmen had been left entirely free, the staple trades would have increased more than they have done; the workman would have had as large an income as he has now, and would have passed a more quiet and comfortable life and would have been a better citizen. The population of the town during the last ten years ending 1861, being increased 377 per cent, and during that period many of the old staple trades in which unionism was rife, increased only from 20 to 30 per cent, whilst in the steel trades, in which there was no union, the increase has been over 200 per cent.

This is in perfect conformity with other information, except that the increase under unionism was probably, after all, an increase by evasion. Dr. John Watts, of Manchester, who has made the condition of the working classes and the means of improving it a study, declares, after extensive observation, that 'trades' unions do not raise wages, and that instead of the workman being dependent on the capitalist, a skilful, industrious, and persevering and economical working man is at all times about the most independent member of society.' I may mention as an illustration of the state of knowledge in high society as to the

economy of the working classes, that there has been much sympathy excited of late in behalf of needlewomen, whose scanty wages had, it was said, been reduced by the introduction of sewing-machines; the fact being, as I am informed, on good authority, that the machines have left the demand for the labour of the unskilled very much as it was, whilst the machine sewing for making shirts has created a demand for skilled needlewomen, whose wages, as 'tackers,' have been increased from 12s. to 158. per week; whilst the average wages of women working the sewing-machines are 11. per week, the wages varying with the skill of the machine workers, from 168. to 268. per week in shirt-making. In shoe-making, I am informed, the variation is often wider,-from 148. to 288. or 298. per week.

Now suppose that a trade's union committee were to get possession of this branch of labour, and maintain it by vitriol throwing. The effect of their first regulation, the prohibition of piece-work, would be to reduce the payment to the level of the lowest rate of production, that of 148. to 168. at the most. Hence the cost of production would be increased, and demand and employment would be reduced; while again if the union succeeded in enforcing a fixed rate of wages, it must be at the expense of maintaining those who were unemployed, thus practically reducing the wages, or the net returns to the producer. These mischievous consequences would only be averted by a demoralising conflict of evasions; and the workers would labour under a wretched thraldom, for precarious and reduced returns.

On this topic, I have elsewhere given more full elucidations as to principles than would be admissible on the present occasion. The main

conclusion from the whole is, that regarding the interests of the artisan exclusively (viewing the manufacturer merely as a provider of capital, and machinery, and of raw produce, and as a salesman for the wageman's service, at a market rate of remuneration), the labourer's best position for progress is one of perfect individual independence-in which he shall be, to use one of his own expressions, complete ;-standing in his own shoes; 'and that the best progress is made for the class in which 6

each man is for himself, and God-or the great economic law of supply and demand-is 'for us all,'-untrammelled by any class restrictions whatsoever.

Some persons treat it as a valuable legal right of the labouring classes that they should be enabled to fix the rate at which they shall work. There is no more objection to their having this right than that manufacturers should have the right of agreeing collectively to the price at which they will sell their produce. But when examined, it is found to be a right which it is a folly on the part of the masters to exercise -as by commissions, percentages, and various methods, such agreement is very commonly evaded. It is extremely difficult to fix prices so as to stimulate consumption and obtain the best net return. The directors of large concerns, with much better information than trades' unions committees have or can have, are frequently much mistaken on this point, being sometimes driven to accept prices which they declare and firmly believe to be ruinous, but which ultimately prove, by the stimulus given to demand, to be highly remunerative to them.

The trades' unionist leaders are driven to prescribe fixed prices for variable qualities and conditions of service, which, in times of falling demand, often occasion great losses of wages, whilst in times of ordinary demand, there is a tendency for market convenience to maintain

fixed prices against ordinary fluctuations. In times of rising demand, the universal leaders take credit for advances of wages, such as would and do occur simply from the scarcity of hands.

The protection of the individual workman and manufacturer from personal violence is loudly declared to be a matter ofimperative necessity. The writer in the Edinburgh Review speaks of the law against the trades' unionist outrages as being weak, and calls for its being strengthened. But we found the substantive law sufficiently strong against them, even as it has been recently judicially declared to be against picketing; we considered that it wanted no amendment, except where it might on some points be improved by more distinct wording.

A, B, and C may agree with each other as to the price at which they sell their own labour; but if they join together in any act to force E to sell his labour at their price, it was then, and is now in law, a conspiracy; so it is for them to join together to force F or the employer to a certain amount of wages. pay This state of the law was fully accepted and advocated by the late Mr. Joseph Hume, who moved the repeal of the combination laws, and who came before us to give evidence. He said that in obtaining the repeal of the old combination laws, his aim was to prevent secret societies. 'My view,' he said, was to leave both parties at liberty to determine at what price the one would sell their labour, and the other give their capital and labour, and to protect both parties from violence.'

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'What,' he was asked, 'were the opinions of the working classes generally as to granting them protection from violence?' He answered:

The delegates from the working men in the manufacturing towns, generally very shrewd and intelligent men, were unanimous (as the evidence chiefly of 1824 will show) that if the combination laws were

repealed, and the masters and men left perfectly free to make what agreements they thought proper, the working classes would cheerfully agree to any law the legislature might pass to punish acts of violence or intimidation; and the strongest clause against violence, which I inserted in the Act of 1824, met with the entire concurrence of the working classes, and is the best proof I can offer of what was the intention of all parties at that time.

Everywhere, however, we found that due means of executing the law were wanting. The local constabulary or police forces were inefficient, and in the manufacturing districts the authorities to execute them were commonly master manufacturersthe employers frequently of the workmen who were out on strike or engaged in riots; or if they were not masters of the particular men compromised, were rival manufacturers or tradesmen. Judicial authority ought never to be exercised by persons with sinister interests. Strong complaints were made by the late Mr. Leonard Horner and other factory inspectors, of the obstructions they met with in the execution of the factory acts from manufacturers acting as magistrates. It was necessary to point out in our report some of these prejudicial relations as they affected strikes :

In the report of the Factory Commissioners, evidence will be found of the readiness with which some of the owners of one description of machinery were prepared to sacrifice the interests, or property, of the owners of another description of machinery -of the readiness with which the owners of steam power, for example, were ready to cripple and destroy the capital of the owners of machinery moved by water power, and of the promptitude with which the owners of new machinery were ready to act in favour of limitations which must have impeded, to an important extent, the working of machinery that was old. We have good reason for believing that strikes are sometimes instigated by masters to forward their sinister interests, and that they frequently divert to their own improper purposes strikes originating with the men. We have had it before us in evidence as one of the uses to which strikes are available, that manufacturers when closely pressed by the competition of low priced' manufacturers have

discharged their workmen, telling them that until low priced masters altered their course, no work would be given. The implied intimation has been, that the rival manufacturers were to be checked by violence, and violence has been used. It has, we are assured, been so used against the introduction of new machinery, and two instances have been stated to us where the use of improved machinery has been prevented by violence in one district, and, on such instigation, the capital driven to another. It has also been stated to us, that on the occurrence of ordinary strikes of a whole trade, particular masters, having bribed the leaders of the strikes, have been freed from interruption, and have thus been enabled, for the time, to distance their rivals. We have not adduced full evidence as to the illegal proceedings of masters

only because we found it more difficult to obtain for public use than evidence of the proceedings of the workmen.

Almost every police force then was wanting, in competent and impartial direction, on occasions where large numbers of offenders were to be dealt with. There was no properly organised civil force in the provincial towns. The only alternative then, as now, for defective civil organisation, was the employment of a military force. Of its essential unsuitableness, we gave the following exposition from the evidence:

Where the description and use of an organised police force or constabulary is unknown, the only means of protection has appeared to be a military force. But the military commander of the district (Lancashire) has, we believe, made representations of the unsuitableness of any military force to meet the numerous occasions from which protection is required. In such representations, the most experienced witnesses concur, and not only represent the inadequacy of a military force to repress numerous small disturbances, but to act singly, or without the aid of a civil force, to repress large commotions. Of the military force, it may be observed that the private soldier has both hands occupied with the musket, with which his efficient action is by the infliction of death by firing or stabbing. The constable or the policeman, whose weapon is the truncheon, or, on desperate occasions, the cutlass, has one hand at liberty to seize and hold his prisoner, whilst, with the other, he represses force by force. Each of the soldier's actions forms part of the general action of the body to which he belongs; he acts only

in silence. He is allowed to exercise no individual discretion, and he may not move out of the ranks to seize any individual rioter. The constable is invested with very wide discretionary authority: he may use persuasion or remonstrance to particular persons; he may go amongst any crowd, or otherwise singly pursue and seize any ringleader, or take note of him for subsequent pursuit. These elementary differences in the mode of action of the individual soldiers, or of the individual constables, constitute the wider differences in the nature of the distinct forces of which they form part-the military and the constabulary. From the fatal nature of the action of the military force, the magistrate entertains great reluctance to use it, or sanction the summary and indiscriminate infliction of deaths for offences which, on trial, would probably meet only with some secondary punishment. Hence it is that it is only when serious offences, which ought to be and might be prevented, are committed, and houses and other property are destroyed, that consent is given to the military to act. It is only as against the outbreaks of armed mobs that the military force may be said to be preventive; the indisposition to have recourse to its aid, except in the most alarming emergencies, appears to increase, and thus, in the absence of an efficiently organised constabulary, this indisposition must give impunity to such illegal proceedings as have of late been witnessed in the manufacturing districts. Dr. Mitchell, in his report, observes upon the comparative expediency of the employment of a police or of a military force: There are men of high consideration of both parties in Norwich who will speak with great coolness of calling out, in case of any disturbance, the military from the barracks. But the military are a tremendous engine, which it may at times be necessary to employ, but the seldomer the better. The soldiers either do nothing or do too much. The populace will not believe that the bullet or the bayonet will actually be used until too late, and all parties lament the result. But they have no incredulity as to the policeman's staff; and when they feel its force, they experience severe pain for a few days, but they get well, and are better subjects ever after. Policemen soon learn to know the person of every man who makes himself conspicuous. Ringleaders who figure in the day time at the head of a body of followers, before next morning find themselves within the bars of a gaol by virtue of a warrant, and all this comes about with very little noise or disturbance. The leaders being gone, the main body become quiet.'

The general conclusions of persons engaged in the administration of the law, and

who are conversant with the dangers which beset the manufacturing districts, appear to be expressed in the evidence of Mr. Sheriff Alison, of Glasgow, as to the means required for the protection of the free exercise of industry and capital in the manufacturing districts of Scotland. Before the Committee of the House of Commons, he was thus examined:

Do you look to any efficient check being given to these combinations by the extension of a regular police? I think the extension of a regular police would have a very great effect; more effect than anything else possibly could have in checking the evils of combination; because I think that if combination could only be severed from its accompanying intimidation and violence, it would cease to be an evil at all. It is because I feel that so difficult a matter to accomplish, that I deprecate it so much. Supposing you had a more effective police, in what way do you consider that it would affect the combinations? I will state in what way it would affect the combinations. If there was a more effectual police established, the proper course for a magistrate would be this: the moment a strike began, to issue a proclamation, stating that. by such an Act of Parliament, or by such a decision of the court, it was held that persons assembling, hanging about a mill, offering any molestation to new hands, were guilty of an offence, punishable with three months' imprisonment; and that he should station a considerable body of police round the building where the work was carried on. I would station, I think, forty or fifty policemen permanently, day and night, round the building, and then if any persons began molesting or intimidating the new hands, I would have them brought up for summary punishment.

Beyond the line or cluster of burghs which form the aggregate of Glasgow, there is no police whatever, and I consequently found myself in this situation, that I have had applications from all quarters for protection, when I had not a single policeman at my disposal to send, and I had no resource but either to arm the constables (specials), which was just putting one mob to fight another, or to call out the military, where I ran the hazard of producing a collision between the government and the people.

Can you suggest any method of making the civil power adequate to restrain the illegal conduct and intimidation of the cotton spinners' and other similar unions? The only effectual remedy that can be provided is the establishment of an adequate police force; that is an indispensable preliminary to anything else which can be done; other things in addition may be done, but without that everything else will prove nugatory