subordination, that he tolerates in the reading-room such prints only as represent the interests of the bourgeoisie, that he dismisses his employees if they read Chartist or Socialist papers or books, this is all concealed from you. You see an easy, patriarchal relation, you see the life of the overlookers, you see what the bourgeoisie _promises_ the workers if they become its slaves, mentally and morally. This "country manufacture" has always been what the employers like to show, because in it the disadvantages of the factory system, especially from the point of view of health, are, in part, done away with by the free air and surroundings, and because the patriarchal servitude of the workers can here be longest maintained. Dr. Ure sings a dithyramb upon the theme.
But woe to the operatives to whom it occurs to think for themselves and become Chartists! For them the paternal affection of the manufacturer comes to a sudden end. Further, if you should wish to be accompanied through the working-people's quarters of Manchester, if you should desire to see the development of the factory system in a factory town, you may wait long before these rich bourgeoisie will help you! These gentlemen do not know in what condition their employees are nor what they want, and they dare not know things which would make them uneasy or even oblige them to act in opposition to their own interests. But, fortunately, that is of no consequence: what the working-men have to carry out, they carry out for themselves.
142.
{192a} Grainger's whole Report.
{192b} Grainger Children's Employment Commission's Report.
{193} Burns, Children's Employment Commission's Report.
{194} Leach. "Stubborn Facts from the Factories," p. 47.
{196} Leach. "Stubborn Facts from the Factories," p. 33.
{197} Leach. "Stubborn Facts from the Factories," p. 37-40.
{200a} See p. 112.
{200b} Grainger Report and Evidence.
{202} Horne Report and Evidence.
{203} Dr. Knight, Sheffield.
{205} Symonds Report and Evidence.
{207} Scriven Report and Evidence.
{208} Leifchild Report Append., Part II., p. L 2, ss. 11,12; Franks Report Append., Part II., p. K 7, s. 48, Tancred Evid. Append., Part II., {211} Thomas Hood, the most talented of all the English humorists now living, and, like all humorists, full of human feeling, but wanting in mental energy, published at the beginning of 1844 a beautiful poem, "The Song of the Shirt," which drew sympathetic but unavailing tears from the eyes of the daughters of the bourgeoisie. Originally published in _Punch_, it made the round of all the papers. As discussions of the condition of the sewing-women filled all the papers at the time, special extracts are needless.
{221a} So called from the East Indian tribe, whose only trade is the murder of all the strangers who fall into its hands.
{221b} "What kind of wild justice must it be in the hearts of these men that prompts them, with cold deliberation, in conclave assembled, to doom their brother workman, as the deserter of his order and his order's cause, to die a traitor's and a deserter's death, have him executed, in default of any public judge and hangman, then by a secret one; like your old Chivalry Fehmgericht and Secret Tribunal, suddenly revived in this strange guise; suddenly rising once more on the astonished eye, dressed not now in mail shirts, but in fustian jackets, meeting not in Westphalian forests, but in the paved Gallowgate of Glasgow! Such a temper must be widespread virulent among the many when, even in its worst acme, it can take such form in the few."--Carlyle. "Chartism," p. 40.
{222a} Dr. Ure, "Philosophy of Manufacture," p. 282.
{223a} Dr. Ure, "Philosophy of Manufacture," p. 367.
{232} Compare Report of Chambers of Commerce of Manchester and Leeds at the end of July and beginning of August.
{235} See Introduction.
{241} According to the census of 1841, the number of working-men employed in mines in Great Britain, without Ireland, was: Men over Men under Women over Women under Together 20 years 20 years 20 years 20 Years Various, the mineral not As the coal and iron mines are usually worked by the same people, a part of the miners attributed to the coal mines, and a very considerable part of those mentioned under the last heading, are to be attributed to the iron mines.
{242} Also found in the Children's Employment Commission's Report: Commissioner Mitchell's Report.
{259} The coal miners have at this moment, 1886, six of their body sitting in the House of Commons.
{264} E. G. Wakefield, M.P. "Swing Unmasked; or, The Cause of Rural Incendiarism." London, 1831. Pamphlet. The foregoing extracts may be found pp. 9-13, the passages dealing in the original with the then still existing Old Poor Law being here omitted.
{268} This has been literally fulfilled. After a period of unexampled extension of trade, Free Trade has landed England in a crisis, which began in 1878, and is still increasing in energy in 1886.
{269} The agricultural labourers have now a Trade's Union; their most energetic representative, Joseph Arch, was elected M.P. in 1885.
{272a} Report of the Poor Law Commission upon Ireland.
{272b} "Principles of Population," vol. ii.
{273} "The State of Ireland." London, 1807; 2nd Ed., 1821. Pamphlet.
{276} Carlyle gives in his "Past and Present" (London, 1843) a splendid description of the English bourgeoisie and its disgusting money greed.
{286} Extracts from Information received from the Poor Law Commissioners. Published by authority. London, 1833.
{293} To prevent misconstructions and consequent objections, I would observe that I have spoken of the bourgeoisie as a _class_, and that all such facts as refer to individuals serve merely as evidence of the way of thinking and acting of a _class_. Hence I have not entered upon the distinctions between the divers sections, subdivisions and parties of the bourgeoisie, which have a mere historical and theoretical significance.
And I can, for the same reason, mention but casually the few members of the bourgeoisie who have shown themselves honourable exceptions. These are, on the one hand, the pronounced Radicals, who are almost Chartists, such as a few members of the House of Commons, the manufacturers Hindly of Ashton, and Fielden of Todmordon (Lancashire), and, on the other hand, the philanthropic Tories, who have recently constituted themselves "Young England," among whom are the members of Parliament, D'Israeli, Borthwick, Ferrand, Lord John Manners, etc. Lord Ashley, too, is in sympathy with them. The hope of Young England is a restoration of the old "Merry England" with its brilliant features and its romantic feudalism. This object is of course unattainable and ridiculous, a satire upon all historic development; but the good intention, the courage to resist the existing state of things and prevalent prejudices, and to recognise the vileness of our present condition, is worth something anyhow. Wholly isolated is the half-German Englishman, Thomas Carlyle, who, originally a Tory, goes beyond all those hitherto mentioned. He has sounded the social disorder more deeply than any other English bourgeois, and demands the organisation of labour.
{296} And it did.