APPENDIX 8.

Page 84.-Regulations of Trade.

I PRINT portions of two letters of Mr. Dixon's in this place one referring to our former discussion respecting the sale of votes.

"57, Nile Street, Sunderland, March 21, 1867.

"I only wish I could write in some tolerable good style, so that I could idealize, or rather realize to folks, the life, and love, and mar riage of a working man and his wife. It is in my opinion a working man that really does know what a true wife is, for his every want, his every comfort in life depends on her; and his children's home, their daily lives and future lives, are shaped by her. Napoleon wisely said, 'France needs good mothers more than brave men. Good mothers are the makers or shapers of good and brave men.' I cannot say that these are the words, but it is the import of his speech on the topic. We have a saying amongst us: 'The man may spend and money lend. if his wife be ought,'-i. e., good wife;-'but he may work and try to save, but will have nought, if his wife be nought,'-i. e., bad or thriftless wife.

"Now, since you are intending to treat of the working man's parliament and its duties, I will just throw out a few suggestions of what I consider should be the questions or measures that demand an early inquiry into and debate on. That guilds be established in every town, where masters and men may meet, so as to avoid the temptations of the public-house and drink. And then, let it be made law that every lad should serve an apprenticeship of not less than seven years to a trade or art, before he is allowed to be a member of such guild; also, that all wages be based on a rate of so much per hour, and not day, as at present; and let every man prove his workmanship before such a guild; and then allow to him such payment per hour as his craft merits. Let there be three grades, and then let there be trials of skil in workmanship every year; and then, if the workman of the third grade prove that he has made progress in his craft, reward him accord

ingly. Then, before a lad is put to any trade, why not see what he is naturally fitted for? Combe's book, entitled The Constitution of Man, throws a good deal of truth on to these matters. Now, here are twc branches of the science of life that, so far, have never once been giveu trial of in this way. We certainly use them after a crime has been committed, but not till then.

"Next to that, cash payment for all and everything needed in life. Credit is a curse to him that gives it, and he that takes it. He that lives by credit lives in general carelessly. If there was no credit, people then would have to live on what they earned! Then, after that, the Statute of Limitations of Fortune you propose. By the hour system, not a single man need be idle; it would give employment to all, and even two hours per day would realize more to a man than breaking stones. Thus you would make every one self-dependentalso no fear of being out of work altogether. Then let there be a Government fund for all the savings of the working man. I am afraid you will think this a wild, discursive sort of a letter.

"Yours truly,

"THOMAS DIXON."

"I have read your references to the Times on 'Bribery.' Well, that has long been my own opinion; they simply have a vote to sell, and sell it the same way as they sell potatoes, or a coat, or any other saleable article. Voters generally say, 'What does this gentleman want in Parliament? Why, to help himself and his family or friends; he does not spend all the money he spends over his election for pure good of his country! No: it's to benefit his pocket, to be sure.' 'Why should I not make a penny with my vote, as well as he does with his in Parliament?' I think that if the system of canvassing or election agents were done away with, and all personal canvassing for votes entirely abolished, it would help to put down bribery. Let each gentleman send to the electors his political opinions in a circular, and then let papers be sent, or cards, to each elector, and then let them go and record their votes in the same way they do for a councillor in he Corporation. It would save a great deal of expense, and prevent

those scenes of drunkenness so common in our towns (uring elections Bewick's opinions of these matters are quite to the purpose, I think (see page 201 of Memoir). Again, respecting the Paris matter referred to in your last letter, I have read it. Does it not manifest plainly enough that Europeans are also in a measure possessed with that same demoniacal spirit like the Japanese?"

APPENDIX 9.

Page 144.-Greatness Coal-begotten.

"HERE is a bit of paper in my hand, a good one too, and an honest one; quite representative of the best common public thought of England at this moment; and it is holding forth in one of its leaders upon our 'social welfare,'-upon our 'vivid life,'-upon the 'political supremacy of Great Britain.' And what do you think all these are owing to? To what our English sires have done for us, and taught us, age after age? No: not to that. To our honesty of heart, or coolness of head, or steadiness of will? No: not to these. To our thinkers, or our statesmen, or our poets, or our captains, or our martyrs, or the patient labour of our poor? No: not to these; or at least not to these in any chief measure. Nay, says the journal, more than any agency, it is the cheapness and abundance of our coal which have made us what we are.' If it be so, then ashes to ashes' be our epitaph! and the sooner the better. I tell you, gentlemen of England, if ever you would have your country breathe the pure breath of heaven again, and receive again a soul into her body,

A saying of Baron Liebig's, quoted at the head of a leader on the same subject in the Daily Telegraph of January 11, 1866, summarily digests and presents the maximum folly of modern thought in this respect. "Civilization," says the Baron, "is the economy of power, and English power is coal." Not altogether so, my chemical friend Civilization Is the making of civil persons, which is a kind of distillation of which alembics are incapable, and does not at all imply the turning of a small company of gentlemen into a large company of Ironmongers. And English power (what little of it may be left) is by no means coal, but in leed, of that which, "when the whole world turns to coal, then chlefly lives."

instead of rotting into a carcase, blown up in the belly with carbonic acid (and great that way), you must think, and feel, for your England, as well as fight for her: you must teach her that all the true greatness she ever had, or ever can have, she won while her fields were green and her faces ruddy;-that greatness is still possible for Englishmen, even though the ground be not hollow under their feet, nor the sky black over their heads."-Crown of Wild Olive, p. 200.

APPENDIX 10.

THE following letter did not form part of the series written to Mr. Dixon; but is perhaps worth reprinting. I have not the date of the number of the Gazette in which it appeared, but it was during the tailors' strike in London.

"To the Editor of the Pall Mall Gazette:

"SIR,-In your yesterday's article on strikes you have very neatly and tersely expressed the primal fallacy of modern political economy -to wit, that the value of any piece of labour cannot be defined'— and that all that can be ascertained is simply whether any man can be got to do it for a certain sum.' Now, sir, the 'value' of any piece of labour, that is to say, the quantity of food and air which will enable a man to perform it without losing actually any of his flesh or his nervous energy, is as absolutely fixed a quantity as the weight of powder necessary to carry a given ball a given distance. And within limits varying by exceedingly minor and unimportant circumstances, it is an ascertainable quantity. I told the public this five years ago and under pardon of your politico-economical contributors --it is not a 'sentimental,' but a chemical, fact.

"Let any half-dozen of recognized London physicians state in precise terms the quantity and kind of food, and space of lodging, they consider approximately necessary for the healthy life of a labourer in any given manufacture, and the number of hours he may, without shortening his life, work at such business daily if so sustained.

"And let all masters be bound to give their men a choice betweeD an order for that quantity of food and lodging, or such wages as the market may offer for that number of hours' work.

"Proper laws for the maintenance of families would require further concession-but, in the outset, let but this law of wages be established, and if then we have any more strikes you inay denounce ther without one word of remonstrance either from seuse or sensibility.

"I am, Sir,

"Your faithful servant,

"JOHN RUSKIN.'