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call it what you will, is not equally energetic. If it is not, economists talk a great deal of nonsense when they speak of the power of association, politicians are silly in extolling patriotism, and every man of business is an ass when he takes a partner instead of a clerk. The success of Greening and Co. is not a recondite or a revolutionary fact. It is simply the reduction to practice of the ideas that a man works rather better for himself than he will for other people, and that two horses pulling together can drag far more than the load of two horses pulliug separately.

man, he actually had to force his men into | results he will see and eat, an idea which of a system in which they did not believe, not itself, as prison inspectors know, adds 20 per seeing a whole year ahead, and now the one cent to energy. The moral gain, too, is difficulty is to soothe the wrath of those who enormous. The Times says it is absurd to in their ignorant prejudice rejected the import moral speculations into business; offered boon. One person, who may be but just let the proprietors, editors, and heard of again in this world, and who was printers of the Times all give up the moral under the old system accustomed to lecture ideas which, except in politics, we do not against the lessee as the "Prince of Devils," doubt they possess, all quarrel, and push, is now a keen supporter of that lessee's "new- and cheat among themselves, and see what fangled" idea. In an agricultural experi- will become of next year's dividend. Comment of the same kind made by Mr. W. Law-petition, i. e. jealousy, is of course a capital son the labourers when asked to choose be- motive-power, most of the evil passions being tween "co-operation" and "each for himself" strong forces, but there is no proof that love, actually voted by ballot against co-operation, fraternity, mutual helpfulness, co-operation, under some extraordinary idea that "each for himself" was an "English" maxim, and it will resolutely be necessary to divide the money against the men's will, relying on the certainty that when they have tasted blood they will hunt for themselves. The success of these experiments is attracting the attention of the whole North, till colliery lessees look askance at Whitwood's, scenting mischief, and Trades' Unions begin to doubt whether "Briggs' lot" ought not to be excommunicated as masters, and not men. At the meeting of Greening and Co. Mr. Hughes, who made his first speech on cooperation years ago to twelve men in fus- How far the system can be extended is of tían, of a very enthusiastic type, found him- course matter of opinion, but it seems, we self surrounded by "respectables," and think, applicable to most undertakings not cheered by industrial magnates like Mr. requiring secrecy or the possession of some Whitworth, perhaps the largest manufac- indivisible mental power. No system of turer in Manchester, and felt evidently half co-operation would help to make a great tempted to indulge in millennium dreams writer, or doctor, or engineer earn more of the day when the capitalist lion should than he does, and it will be difficult to aplie down with the proletariat lamb. We do ply the principle fully to affairs, which, like not believe much in millenniums, or look banking or contracting, require some degree forward to any time when a race, every of secrecy. The Legislature, however, has member of which is under sentence of capi- of late provided for this last difficulty, firms tal punishment, will not have in life more being authorized to give shares in aid of suffering than pleasure; but we do believe wages, which shares involve no right of that the claims of capital and labour are inspecting books. A delegate from the men, reconcilable, that the relation of master and too, can be admitted easily enough into the man can be made endurable, that brain and interior of the concern, though the men limbs can be brought to work together in themselves cannot, and the power of dispermanent harmony. That result would missal, by far the greatest obstacle to the reduce suffering more than any other social success of any co-operative scheme whatchange short of the adoption of Christianity ever, may be exercised, as in the Governby the people, and this experiment tends ment services, virtually through courts-mardirectly and visibly towards it. It makes tial. As education advances confidence labour comparatively free and hearty. Every workman is working for himself; and when a man is working for himself he not only works better, but he works more happily, is free of that galling sense of disproportion between effort and result which is so apt, even among educated employees, to embitter life. It is not a crank he is turning, but a machine he is helping to get results out of,

becomes more complete, and self-restraint, both as to gossip and as to exhibitions of temper, more a habit of the mind, and the managers of such societies know well that suspicion and temper are greater obstacles among Englishmen than any of those which capitalists suggest. One power undoubtedly will be lost, and that is the energy of despotism. There is in some minds, and es

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pecially in great administrative minds, a capacity which seems to be evoked only by absolute authority, and disappears whenever anything intervenes between the volition and the act. They succeed only when alone, fail when compelled to discuss, and if called on to persuade lose even their original force. Napoleon would make a wretched Cabinet Minister, and the greatest generals have failed whenever called on by circumstances to appeal to a council of war. The requisite power is evolved only under the combined stimulus of perfect responsibility and unquestioned power. But then this loss, which we admit to be very real, is one which must be encountered in any partnership, and has no special relation to co-operative association, least of all to that form of it which Mr. Hughes on Monday advocated so well, and which is based on the assumption that obedience and copartnership can be made reconcilable. Indeed it has no special relation to any form of it, for nothing prevents an association from adopting the presidential form of government, and making its chief administrator irremovable during a term of months or years. Some of the French copartnerships, we believe, do that, with the best results on their profits, and no material injury to their own energy and heartiness in the work. In fact there is no substantial reason why, in any case in which partnership is admissible at all or can hope to contend with individual capacity, the partnership should not include the workmen, and there is this reason for it. The old relation of employer and employed is dead and buried, and we have either to find a new one now, or to pass through a period of industrial anarchy until one at last presents itself. Industrial undertakings have grown too large for individual agreements with individuals, and while the masses employed on every work have found in their numbers a secret of power, the master has not found the secret of vigilant supervision. He has to face combination and carelessness, both together, and on their largest scale. Cooperation as practised by Greening and Co. ends combination, for even illogical Englishmen dislike combining against them selves, and see clearly that striking for wages to be paid by all to each is not a paying process; and carelessness ends, too, for every man employed becomes an overseer. John may be as careless as possible, but if Tom is careless too, and John himself pays for the carelessness, he thinks Tom's head ought to be punched, while Tom is just as keensighted to his comrade's laches. Enlightened self-interest, on which the Times

relies, is aroused to the highest degree, and something else besides, which, if Christianity is not a dream and the theory of cohesion a baseless illusion, has a separate and a perceptible force.

From The Saturday Review, 26th May. ENGLAND AND THE WAR.

IF war is to come, England may reckon confidently on keeping out of it. She will not only be neutral, but the war will be of a kind that is exceedingly unlikely to raise any of the difficult questions which sometimes involve neutrals in embarrassment. It is scarcely probable that there should even be a blockade, and all the combatants will want near home the few ships they have got, and will not come to create embarrassment to the authorities of English ports. No result of the war is likely to affect us much, and we can afford to let the Continental Powers settle how the map of Europe shall be remodelled, so far as it is likely to be altered. This makes it very easy for us to be calm and impartial at this critical time when war may break out any day, and any suggestions we may offer have the recommendation of being disinterested, and of not having been dictated by hope or fear. But, on the other hand, we cannot hope to have much influence, and it is very much to be desired that our diplomatists may not have been pretending to have an influence which every one knows they have really not got. That we should do what we can for the maintenance of peace is very right, and England has sufficient claims on the attention of all the combatants to invite them to consider with her whether their differences cannot be adjusted. But this is the utmost that she can ask, or that she need wish to ask. She is rapidly ceasing to be a European Power in the sense in which she was a European Power in the days of WELLINGTON. She is now an Asiatic Power, a maritime Power, an oceanic Power, much more than a European one. The affairs of Burmah, of Affghan, of Nepaul, are of more importance to her than the affairs of Wurtemburg and Hanover and Hesse-Cassel. To keep the road to India open through Egypt is far more necessary to her than to insist that this or that little Rhenish stronghold shall not be long to France. Her chief interest in re

sisting the aggressions of Russia on Constantinople is not to protect the mouth of the Danube or to neutralize the Euxine or to help the Rayahs of Turkey, but to impress on the Mahommedan populations under her rule or adjacent to her territories that her strength is unbroken, and that she can rule them with a rod of iron if necessary. It makes exceedingly little difference to us whether we are lightly spoken of and our prestige is pronounced to be at an end in the beer-gardens of Munich and the cafés of Florence; but it is of vital moment to us that at Lucknow and Peshawur we should still be thought quite sure to win in a struggle, if a struggle is forced on us. We are also a nation of traders and of carriers, and we are rich because we trade with every nation, and carry the goods of all the world. Some of the greatest nations of the Continent are, in this respect, of the least importance to us. With great pain and difficulty we have managed to make a commercial treaty with Austria. We have a Budget, of which two main features are that, to carry out the treaty, wine is to be taxed in a new way, and timber is not to be taxed at all; and then, when we have done our part, we are told that Austria hesitates to do her part, and thinks that, if she is to find money for war, she must find it through protective duties. Lastly, we have Oceanic interests; and parts of ourselves, members of our families, homes of our brothers and our children, are separated from us by half the globe, and must be linked to us by our making our paths sure and undisputed on the highway of nations. The taking of a New Zealand pah is more to us than the taking of Düppel. It is not because we are more selfish than we used to be that we care less for the Continent than we used to do, and interfere less in its affairs; but because we have new things to think of, new sympathies to absorb us, new interests to protect. The Americans wisely hold off altogether from European affairs, for they have a world of their own to attend to. We cannot hold off altogether, for we are too near the Continent; but we hold off more and more, for we too are gaining a new world washed by Indian and Southern seas.

The efforts, therefore, that British diplomatists may make, at a time like the present, to preserve peace, cannot derive very much weight from the fact that it is in the name of England that they are made. For not only is England rapidly ceasing to take any active part in the affairs of Europe, but her diplomatic efforts are obviously

made, not merely to effect the special aim to which they are directed, but also in order that those who live in diplomatic circles may agree that the right thing has been done. Lord CLARENDON is expected to go through a certain amount of decorous activity to save the Continent from war, not only that war may be averted, but that English diplomacy may not seem to have faded altogether out of existence. The traditions of the Foreign Office demand that the representatives of the Five Great Powers shall, on important occasions, step forward and consult for the common good. Lord CLARENDON would be thought to be doing less than, as a representative of one of these Powers, he ought to be doing, if he did not now do as much as possible in the way of talking and writing on behalf of peace. We still think it desirable and natural that the English Secretary for Foreign Affairs should belong to the class from which European diplomatists are ordinarily taken, and our relations with the Continent are still so numerous and complicated that this may very probably be expedient. But the consequence is, that we appear to be more of a European Power than we are, because our diplomatists give us the air of holding our old place in European diplomacy. And although we may quite expect to keep out of the war, still we cannot fail to be largely affected by it if it takes place. Our trade will suffer, our investments in Continental property will be depreciated, costly enterprises in which English capital is embarked will stand still, and will remain unfinished, or perhaps go to decay and break up. The affairs of the Continent can never cease to have the most powerful interest for us even while we gradually become more disinclined, and in some sense more unable, to take an active part in them. Nor is this interest merely a material or a commercial one. It is also social and political. We cannot be indifferent to the spectacle of neighbouring nations rushing to arms, entering on new systems of government, upholding new ideas, venturing on new crimes, courting ruin on a gigantic scale, or calling into play new elements of strength. The politics of the Continent offer a field of study and an inexhaustible source of instruction, the value of which we cannot overrate. But in order to criticize European politics rightly, and in order to extract from them any philosophy that is better than twaddle, we must have some principles of criticism, and be on our guard against some of the errors into which insu

lar ignorance or prejudice, or the natural | critics. They cannot see the war for a desire to say exactly what English readers single instant as Italians and Germans see can most easily take in, may so readily it. They sit down quite gravely and show lead us. Ignorance is, of course, the root of the Italians that Italy is making an arithall misjudging criticism. We judge wrong-metical mistake. They think they can ly because we have not sufficient grounds prove to demonstration that a war for on which to form our judgment. But igno- Venetia will not pay. They are exceedrance takes many shapes and springs from ingly sensible, and they know it, and let it very various causes. We are on the outside be seen that they know it. But it is not of all these Continental disturbances, and these admirable advisers who are going to we are apt to judge of them simply as out- war, but the Italians, who are by no means siders. Englishmen know that the war in a condition of common sense, and are is a very serious matter, and long to pro- breathing the very different atmosphere of nounce or read opinions upon the parties to a burning, fiery excitement. That a nation it; but they are content to judge them only like Italy cannot keep itself together at all from the outside, and exhibit those defects, unless it feels the excitement of a noble of judgment to which outsiders are most purpose and of a sublime daring, is not the prone. kind of theory these critics like to encourAmong these defects of judgment, some age. England pays the interest of her of the most obvious are those which spring consolidated debt without any insane wish from that want of imagination and that to take anybody's fortresses, and why should thirst for quick results, satisfying their pre- not Italy do as England does? As to Gerpossessions, to which all outsiders are so many, again, we are told morning after prone. In nothing is the thirst for quick morning that the two German Powers are results displayed so strikingly as in the lan- doing nothing more than quarrel over their guage held at present about the Emperor plunder, and are scrambling for the ill-gotNAPOLEON. We do not want to mix our- ten prize of the Duchies. It is quite true selves up in European politics, but we want that the first beginnings of war came from to have them shaped in such a way as will the differences of Austria and Prussia about please us. Now it has occurred to some Holstein, but the very slightest sympathy of us that this wish might be most conveni- with the feelings of Germans would suggest ently realized if we could but find a very how very far things have now advanced powerful European State that could keep beyond those first beginnings. Austria has the rest in order, but would consent to act not strained her resources, called nearly a as we advised and recommended. We have million of men to be ready for battle, obliged selected France to play this part. Every herself to court her outlying nationalities, morning we read that peace is most desira- appealed to the fitful enthusiasm of Boheble, and that if the EMPEROR Would but mians and Poles, in order merely that she speak the words we should have peace. may retain the supremely uncomfortable The mode in which peace would be secured position which the Convention of Gastein would be, that France should threaten to gave her in Holstein. She is doing all this make war on any Power that broke the that she may take an advantageous oppor peace; and that, guided by English wisdom, tunity of deciding whether her whole existthe French army should be sent over the ence shall be an existence of sufferance, Continent to make things quiet. France and whether, among the German populais not to get anything by this. She is tions whom she rules or influences, the forbidden to acquire any new territory; manners, the feelings, and the religion that she is to be purely unselfish; she is to are dear to her, shall be stifled and overfind the money and the men, and Eng-shadowed by the advancing supremacy of land is to furnish nothing but sound advice; and then the results on which England has set her fancy would be rapidly and, so far as England went, most cheaply secured. How childish this must seem to Frenchmen, and more especially to the EMPEROR, even those who use such language would perceive, if they took the trouble to reflect for a moment on what they were saying. Nor are the errors much less serious into which an utter want of imagination leads English

her rival in the North. Austria may be right or wrong, wise or foolish, in thinking of war now to determine this issue; but at any rate it is a great issue, an issue worthy of a supreme effort of heroism, and not a paltry issue like that of the dominion of the Duchies. How can the Continentals care for exhortations to peace that come from peacemakers utterly unable to understand the causes of the war?

From The Saturday Review, May 19. accordingly seized the first opportunity of

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THE CONGRESS.

protesting against an intrusive dynasty; and the German nation forced their Governments to retract or repudiate their own solemn acts. With less excuse, the Emperor of the FRENCH intimated, at an early period of the negotiations, that the first treaty which he had signed after his accession to supreme power was invalid or practically obsolete. Russia was unwilling to take active measures in favour of Denmark, and England alone consistently supported a policy which had in the first instance been erroneous. It is not easy to understand why any future settlement of territorial disputes should be more permanent. A potentate who publicly announces his hatred of the Treaties of Vienna will be ready to express a similar feeling whenever an international compact forms an obstacle to his policy for the time, or to the aggrandizement of his country.

PEACE is so paramount an object that it may be excusable to attempt to preserve it by the use of even cumbrous and dangerous machinery. A Congress or a Conference may perhaps furnish Governments which are hesitating on the verge of war with a pretext for retracing their steps without too obvious a compromise of their dignity. It is impossible, however, that the Powers which are really or ostensibly neutral should devise any solution which was not previously open to the different parties in the quarrel. There was indeed a time when the consent of the Great Powers was considered to give a valid title to dominions allotted by the decision of a European Congress; but the events of half a century have destroyed the Federal organization which followed the great war; and, with the aid of the French EMPEROR'S acts and words, they have If it be true that the Conference will conlargely dislocated the elaborate settlement sider the questions of Venetia, of the Elbe of 1814 and 1815. More modern adjust- Duchies, and of German Federal Reform, it ments have been still less fortunate, as the must be supposed that Austria has begun to arbitrators have either neglected to enforce contemplate the possibility of making large their award, or deliberately counteracted the concessions to Italy. That such a result effect of their own recent decisions. The ink should follow the quarrel about Schleswig of the signatures to the Convention of Paris and Holstein, and the levy of 700,000 men, was scarcely dry when France began to con- would be in the highest degree surprising. cert with Russia the means of disturbing an Venetia might have been yielded with a arrangement which represented the policy of better grace any time within the last six England. The Danubian Principalities were years; nor could the sacrifice in any degree united, because Lord PALMERSTON had in- tend to settle or to simplify the earlier disduced the Conference to separate them; pute with Prussia. It would be better to and it was only through the firmness of the treat directly with Italy than to invite an English Government that Russia was pre- arbitration; unless, indeed, the Great Powvented from resuming the territory which ers are to award a territorial compensation would have given her access to the left in some more convenient quarter. bank of the Danube. The most conspicuous Danubian Principalities, which have recentinstance, however, of the futility of a terri- ly elected a Prussian prince as their Sovetorial adjustment made by the authority of reign, have often been destined by rumour a. Conference ought to be especially present to the purpose of counterbalancing the loss to the minds of the plenipotentiaries who of Venetia; but Russia would almost certainmay now attempt a similar task. The ex-ly oppose an arrangement which would give a isting complications in Europe may be rival Power absolute control of the mouth of directly traced to the unwise and vexatious the Danube; nor is it possible that, after the treaty which was excogitated by the Great recent discussions on the Government of the Powers in 1852. England, France, and provinces, the Conference could arbitrarily Russia, with the consent of Austria, of Prus- dispose of a population of four millions, sia, and of the principal minor States of which has not only rights of its own, but Germany, undertook to determine the suc- legal relations with Turkey. Another concession to the Danish Crown and the future jecture has suggested Silesia as the price of disposition of the Elbe Duchies. The in- Venice on the one side, and of Schleswig tention of all parties was to obviate the and Holstein on the other. But it may be struggle which ultimately arose mainly from confidently asserted that no Prussian King their unauthorized interference. Like other or Minister will venture to propose the assemblages of the same nature, the Con- abandonment of the most valued conquest ference took no account either of the rights of FREDERICK the GREAT. The Germans or of the wishes of those who were princi- of Silesia, too, stand higher in the scale of pally concerned. Schleswig and Holstein | nations than the mongrel inhabitants of the

The

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