own business now as long as we keep the peace.”
“He does, indeed, make a pitiful figure between his dread of belonging to the Union and his horror of being left out. But why do we waste our breath upon him? Who has seen Allen to-day, and why does he not come? We shall count his modesty for backwardness if he does not take care.”
“Don’t be in a hurry to blame a better man than yourself,” said a neighbour. “Allen has been in the country all day.”
There was no offence in such a comparison; for Allen was generally looked up to as the first man in that branch of the Union, though he was so little aware of his own merits that he did not come forward so much as he should have done, except on urgent occasions; and then he never failed to do all that was expected of him.
When the petition to the masters to hold a public meeting was prepared, and when Clack had appointed himself and two others to carry it round the next day, the Committee terminated their present sitting.
The first firm to which the deputies addressed their petition was that of Mortimer and Rowe.
“Are the partners at home?” they inquired.
“I don’t know whether Mr. Mortimer is here yet, but there is Mr. Rowe.
Sir! Mr. Rowe!” called the clerk, as he saw the junior partner making his escape, “these men wish to speak with you, sir, if you please.”
Mr. Rowe, perceiving that he had been seen, came forward to be spoken with.
“A public meeting,—equalization of wages,—aye, very fair: hum! very well, my good fellows. Well: what do you want me to do?”
“To give your voice in favour of this public meeting.”
“Why, you know you have a good friend in me. You surely cannot anticipate any difficulty with me. I am a friend of peace, you know. No man more so.”
“Aye, sir: but there is more than one sort of peace. The masters have called it peace when they had all their own way, and their men were cowed by the law and dared not openly resist. The men call it peace when the two parties have confidence in each other, and make a cordial agreement, and keep to it. This is what we want at the present time.”
So said Gibson, whose turn it was to be spokesman; but Clack could not help putting in his word.
“And if either party refuses peace, you know, sir, the next thing is war.”
“O, no war!” said Mr. Rowe. “A cordial agreement, as you say, is the right thing. So, for this purpose you wish for a public meeting. Well; I shall be happy to attend a public meeting, if——” “We are happy to find you so agreeable, sir. Will you just sign for self and partner, if you please.”
“Because you happen to be the first person we have applied to, sir; that is all. We hope for signatures plenty before the day is over. Will you please to sign, as you approve of the meeting?”
Mr. Rowe suddenly recollected that he must consult his partner who sat in a back room. The men had not to wait long. The junior partner, indeed, did not appear again, but Mr. Mortimer issued forth, looking not a whit less haughty than usual. He begged the deputies would make the best of their way off his premises, as he had nothing to say to them.
What were his sentiments respecting the meeting, if they might inquire?
His sentiments were, that the masters had been far too tolerant already of the complaints of the men; and that it was time the lower orders were taught their proper place. He had neither leisure nor inclination to argue with any of them, either there or elsewhere; so the sooner they took themselves off the better.
“You may live to change your sentiments, sir,” observed Gibson.
“Beware of threats!” said Mr. Mortimer. “There is law yet for the punishment of threats, remember.”
“I have neither forgotten the law, Mr. Mortimer, nor used threats. I said, and I say again, you may live to change your sentiments; and, for your own sake, it is to be hoped you will. Good morning, sir.”
“He is too busy even to wish us good morning,” observed Clack. “How coolly he looked over the letter he took from his clerk, as if we were not worth attending to for a moment!”
“Haughty as he is,” said Gibson, “I would sooner bear with his pride than Rowe’s behaviour or Elliot’s.”
“They are young men, Gibson, and Mortimer is old, and we would sooner bear with an old man’s mistakes than a young man’s, be they what they may! Where next? To Elliott’s?”
“Yes, we are sure of being ill-treated there; so the sooner it is over the better.”
As they approached Mr. Elliott’s house, they perceived that gentleman mounted on his favourite hunter, and in the act of leaving his own door.
He was too much occupied with his own affairs to see them coming, for the most important part of his morning’s business was setting off for his ride; and he had eyes for little else while he was admiring the polish of his boots, adjusting his collar, settling the skirts of his coat, and patting his horse’s neck. Clack was not the man for ceremony; he came straight up before the horse, and laid his hand on the handsome new rein, saying, “By your leave, sir—” “Hands off,” cried Elliott, giving him a cut across the knuckles with his riding whip. “How dare you stop me? How dare you handle my rein with your greasy fingers?”
“How would you get such a rein, I wonder, sir, if we did not grease our fingers in your service?” said Clack, indignantly.
“I’m in a hurry,” said Elliott; “you can speak to the people within, if you want any thing.”
“We will not detain you, sir,” said Taylor, who was now spokesman, “but nobody but yourself can answer our question.” And he told the story in a few words, and put the petition into the gentleman’s hands.
Elliott glanced his eye over it as well as the restlessness of his horse would permit, and then struck it contemptuously with his riding-whip into the mud, swore that that was the proper place for such a piece of insolence, rode up against the men, and pranced down the street without bestowing another look or word upon them.
“Pride comes before a fall; let the gentleman take care of himself,” said Gibson, quietly picking up the petition and wiping off the mud with his handkerchief.
Clack talked about using his greasy fingers to cram the soiled petition down the gentleman’s throat, and seemed disposed to harangue the laughing bystanders; but his more prudent companions took him by the arm and led him away. Mr. Elliott’s clerk, who had seen the whole proceeding from an upper window, and was ashamed of his master’s conduct, came after them, out of breath, to ask them in while he copied the petition, which was not, as he observed, fit to show to any other gentleman.
Gibson thanked him for his civility, but observed that the soiled paper would tell part of their story better than they could tell it themselves. The clerk, therefore, slowly returned, saying to himself that it is a pity when young men, coming to a large fortune obtained in trade, forget by whose means their wealth was acquired, and by what tenure it is held.
After visiting several manufacturers, some of whom were more and others less favourable to their claims than they expected, the deputies requested an interview with Mr. Wentworth. Mr. Wentworth had been rich as a young man, had failed through unavoidable misfortunes, and had worked his way up again to a competence, after having paid every shilling he owed. He was now an elderly man, homely in his person, somewhat slovenly in his dress, not much given to talk, and, when he did speak, causing some surprise and weariness to strangers by the drawling twang of his speech. Those who knew him well, however, had rather hear his voice than any music; and such of his men as belonged to the Union agreed that ten words from him were worth a speech of an hour long from Clack. There was, to be sure, no need for so many words from him as from other people, for he practised a great variety of inarticulate sounds, the meaning of which was well understood by those accustomed to converse with him, and served all the purposes of a reply.
Mr. Wentworth was sitting at his desk when the deputies were introduced.
As they uncovered their heads and made their bow, some murmurings and clutterings reached them which they understood as a welcome. He looked steadily at them from under his shaggy eyebrows while they explained their business, and then took the petition to look over.
“You can hardly have any paper-makers in your Union,” said he, chuckling as he unfolded the sheet; “or are you saving your pence against a strike, that you can’t afford paper as fair as your writing?”
“Aye, aye; wait a while and you will see him grow wiser,” was his observation on hearing the story of Elliott’s insolence. “We were all boys before we were men.—Hum:—equalization.—Who will avouch that this equalization is all that you want?”
“I, sir,” said the ever-ready Clack—“I drew it up, and so I ought to know.”
Gibson observed, that though no further object was expressly contemplated by the Union, he would not answer for their not increasing their demands as they proceeded. If there was any attempt to equalize the wages by reducing all to the lowest now given, the Union would demand an advance.
“Who gives the lowest?” inquired Mr. Wentworth.
“Except some upstarts whom we can easily manage, Mortimer and Rowe give the lowest, and you, sir, the next lowest, and Elliott the highest.”
“Who was lamenting lately that the combination laws were repealed, so that the masters cannot be prosecuted for oppression? Who proposed to burn them in effigy, tied to one another’s necks?”
The deputies looked at one another, and then answered that all this was only private talk of one of their meetings; it was never meant for earnest.
“Well, I only let you know that you may look about your Committee-room and find where the little bird builds that carries the matter; and if you can’t find her, take care that she has nothing to carry that you would be ashamed to own. Did you learn from her that the masters combine against you?”
“We learn it from our own eyes, and ears, and senses,” said Clack. “Have not masters oppressed their men from the beginning of the world?”
“Indeed I don’t know,” said Mr. Wentworth. “If Adam had a gardener under him in Paradise, they might have tried to turn one another out, but I never heard of it.”
“Stuff and nonsense, sir, begging your pardon. Don’t we know that masters always have lorded it over the poor? They were born with a silver spoon in their mouths, and——” “I wonder where mine is,” observed Mr. Wentworth; “I will look in my mother’s plate chest for it.”
The orator went on,— “They openly treat us like slaves as long as they can, and when we will bear it no longer, they plot in secret against us. They steal to one another’s houses when they think we are asleep; they bolt their doors and fill their glasses to their own prosperity, and every bumper that goes down their throats is paid for with the poor man’s crust.”
“They must have made the little bird tipsy, Clack, before she carried you such a strange story as that.”
“Don’t tell me, sir, that it is not true! Don’t tell me!”
“I am not telling you anything; for the plain reason, that I have nothing to tell. I only want to ask you one or two things, as you seem to know so much more than we do. Pray what have the masters combined for just now?”
“To lower our wages, to be sure.”
“And yet Mortimer pays one rate, and I another, and Elliott another. Why don’t I ask as much labour for my money as Mortimer?”
“You dare not,” cried Clack.
“You know it’s not fair,” said Taylor.
“You are not the man to grind the poor,” said Gibson.
“You have not hit it, any of you. You all seem to think it is a matter of pure choice with us, what wages we give.”
“To be sure,” said Clack, “and that is the reason we want parliament to settle the matter at once and for ever.”
“Parliament has no more choice in the matter than we masters,” drily observed Mr. Wentworth. “If ever Parliament passes a Bill to regulate wages, we must have a rider put to it to decree how much rain must fall before harvest.”
Clack muttered something about not standing any longer to be trifled with; but his companions thought it possible that Mr. Wentworth might have something to say that was worth hearing, and persuaded the orator to be quiet. Gibson inquired,— “Where then does the choice rest, sir, if neither with the government nor the masters?”
“Such power as there is rests with those who take, not with those who give wages. Not such power as tips our friend’s tongue there,” nodding at Clack, “not such power as you gain by the most successful strike, not such power as combination gives you, be it peaceable or threatening; but a much more lasting power which cannot be taken from you. The power of the masters is considerable, for they hold the administration of capital; but it is not on this that the rate of wages depends. It depends on the administration of labour; and this much greater power is in your hands.”
The deputies thought that they who pay wages must always have power over those who receive.
“That is as much as saying that wages are a gift. I thought you had supposed them your right.”
All were eager to urge the rights of industry.
“Aye, all very true; no right can be clearer when we see what wages are.
Come, Clack, tell us, (for who knows if you don’t?) tell us what wages Adam gave his under gardeners. You can’t say? Why, I thought you knew all that the masters did at the beginning of the world. Well, when Adam was some hundred years old, (you may trust me, for I am descended from him in a straight line,) he said to Eve, ‘Stay you here and spin with the women, while I go yonder and set my men to delve; and don’t expect us back in a hurry, for tillage is tough work here to what it was in Eden, and we must gather our crops before we can bring them to market.
Come, my good fellows, work hard and you shall have your shares.’ ‘And pray, sir,’ said the men, ‘what are we to live upon while our fruit and vegetables are growing?’ ‘Why,’ says Adam, ‘instead of my sharing the fruit with you when it is grown, suppose you take your portion in advance. It may be a convenience to you, and it is all the same thing to me.’ So the men looked at the ground, and calculated how much digging and other work there would be, and then named their demand; not in silver money with king George’s head upon it, but food and clothing, and tools.”
“Then at harvest time,” observed Gibson, “the whole produce belonged to Adam?”
“Of course. The commodity was made up, like all commodities, of capital and labour: Adam’s capital and the men’s labour.”
“And of a deal besides,” cried Clack. “If it was grain, there was the root, and the stalk, and the ear; and if it was fruit, there was the rind, and the pulp, and the juice.”
“Begging your pardon, friend, there was nothing but capital and labour.
Without labour, and the soil and the tools which made the capital, there would have been neither grain nor fruit; and if grain and fruit grew wild, they could be no commodity without labour, any more than the diamond in the mine, and the pearl in the sea, are a commodity before the one is dug, and the other fished up. Well, Adam and his men expected to get as much by their crop as would pay for their subsistence and their toil; and this much the men asked, and Adam was willing to give, and a fair surplus remained over for himself. So they made their bargain, and he bought their share of the commodity, and had to himself all the flax and other things that his produce exchanged for in the market. And so that season passed off, and all were contented.”
“And what happened next season, sir?”
“Next season, twice the number of men came to ask work in the same plot of ground. Adam told them that he had very little more wages to pay away than he had the year before, so that if they all wanted to work under him they must be content with little more than half what each had formerly earned. They agreed, and submitted to be rather pinched; but they hoped it would be only for a time, as it was a very fine harvest indeed, so much labour having been spent upon it, and there being a fine profit into Adam’s pocket.”
“Did they wear pockets then, sir?”
“No doubt; for the women were improving their tailoring, as much as the men their gardening, and expecting, like them, to increase their gains in consequence; and so they would have done, but that four times the number of labourers appeared next year, so that, notwithstanding the increase of capital, each had not so much as one-third the original wages; and the men grew very cross, and their wives very melancholy. But how could Adam help it?”
“Why did not the men carry their labour elsewhere?” asked Clack contemptuously.
“Why do you go on spinning for Mortimer and Rowe, when Elliott pays higher wages?”
“Because nobody is taking on new hands. I can’t get work.”
“Well, nobody was taking on new hands in Adam’s neighbourhood; all the capital was already employed.”
“But I don’t mean to go on so,” said Clack. “I shall strike with all the rest of Mortimer’s men, if we don’t get better paid.”
“Aye, it is as I thought, Clack. Adam’s head labourer was your grandfather, for he said just the same thing you are saying; and what is more, he did it. They all turned out, every man of them, and let the field take care of itself.”
“Only half a harvest came up; so that, of course, wages were lower than ever next year. The worst folly of all was that they went on to blame Adam, though he showed them that the harvest would not even pay its own expenses; much less leave anything to divide between him and them. ‘You talk to me,’ says he, ‘as if I could get capital down from the clouds as fast as I please: whereas you might have seen from the beginning, that I have a certain quantity and no more. If you choose to bring a thousand labourers to live upon the capital which was once divided among a hundred, it is your fault and not mine that you are badly off.’”
“If the thousand men agreed to live for so little, it was their own affair, to be sure.”
“And if they did not agree, their bidding against each other could not shift the blame upon Adam. If there was such competition among the men as to enable him to obtain more labour for the same wages, he was not to blame, was he, for employing three men for what he had at first paid to one?”
“Nor were the men to blame, sir, for bargaining for such wages as were to be had.”
“Certainly. Where then was the evil?”
“Clearly in there being too many hands for the work to be done,” replied Gibson. “But who could help that, sir?”
“Nobody could relieve the immediate pressure, Gibson, unless some had the means of taking themselves off, or of applying their labour to some employment which was less overstocked; but all had it in their power to prevent the evil returning. By foresight and care, labour may be proportioned to capital as accurately as my machinery to the power of my steam-engine.”
“What has all this to do with our petition?” asked the orator, who was impatient of remaining so long in the background.
“A great deal,” replied Gibson. “Mr. Wentworth means to point out how much rests with the masters, and how much with the men, and to warn us against a strike. But, sir, about equalization of wages: you think that fair enough, I suppose. In the very same market, and under the very same circumstances, labour ought to be paid at the same rate, surely?”
“One circumstance, you know, is the extent of the master’s capital, which is seldom the same in any two cases, and on which his power of waiting for his returns depends. But I agree with you that a man cannot safely lower his rate of wages much and permanently below that of his competitors, and that an equalization of wages is desirable for all parties; so I will sign my agreement to your wish for a public meeting.
Coming, Charles, coming.”
Gibson had observed Mr. Wentworth’s old gray pony in the yard for some time, and he now saw that Charles looked tired of leading it backwards and forwards while the animal turned its head one way and another, as if looking for its usually punctual master. While helping the gentleman on with the heavy great-coat, which he wore winter and summer, the deputy apologized for having kept the rider and his steed so long asunder.
“Never mind,” drawled Mr. Wentworth. “Dobbin and I have two rounds, a long, and a short; and I dare say he has made up his mind already which it will be to-day. If I have helped you to a short cut to your business, you will not think your time wasted any more than I.” Then as he buttoned the last button, and pulled his hat over his brows, “That’s well: all tight. Hey ho, Dobbin! Good day to ye all.”
The shaggy pony pricked up his ears, quickened his pace, and well nigh nodded to his master at the sound of his voice. When Mr. Wentworth scrambled up into the saddle and left the yard at a funeral pace, the deputies looked with much more respect on him and his equipage, than on the brilliant spectacle they had met at Elliott’s door.
CHAPTER IV.
UNION OF MEN.
As soon as it was ascertained that, though many of the masters declined committing themselves by signing their names, most or all of them would attend the desired meeting, Clack took upon himself to issue a placard, whose large red and black letters attracted the eyes of all who could read. It made known the intention of the masters to meet at the York Hotel, on the Wednesday afternoon, and of the Committee of the men to hold a previous meeting at the Spread Eagle, in the morning, in order to prepare resolutions to be laid before the masters. The Committee was to be escorted to and fro by a circuitous route by a procession; and the place appointed where those were to meet who wished to make a part of the show, was St. George’s Fields. The placard began and ended by an appeal to the people to guard their rights against oppression. Many were surprised at the anxiety of the leading men among the spinners to disown this placard. It seemed to the crowd very spirited and eloquent, and they began to look out their decorations for the procession.
Bray was one of the first on the spot, piping, drumming, and shaking his bells at the appearance of every new group. Other musicians joined the train, flags were displayed, the women gathered to look on, the children cheered and brought green boughs, and all had the appearance of rejoicing, though it would have been difficult for any one to say what there was to rejoice about. Many had no clear idea of what was doing or going to be done: some had no idea at all, and those who knew best thought it a pity that such a display should have been made as might bear the appearance of being intended to intimidate the masters. The Committee were so generally of this opinion, that they did not attend, but went quietly, one by one, to the Spread Eagle; so that, in fact, the procession was formed to escort Clack, and nobody else. This was all the more glorious for him, he thought; and he walked proudly just behind the chief musician, Bray, now shaking hands from side to side, now bowing with his hand on his heart, now bidding all halt and giving the signal for groans or cheers. There were three groans at Mortimer and Rowe’s, and three cheers at Elliott’s, which were received with infinite disdain by that gentleman as he sat at his breakfast table, balancing his egg-spoon and glancing at the newspaper. The procession next overtook Mr. Wentworth in Chancery Lane, pacing to business on his gray pony. All eyes were turned to Clack for a signal whether to groan or cheer. There was, in the meanwhile, a faint beginning of each, at which the pony looked more astonished than his master, who only chuckled and murmured in his usual manner as he looked upon the assemblage with a quiet smile.
“What do you expect to get by this fine show?” said he to a youth near him.
“Cheap bread! Hurrah!” cried the lad waving his bludgeon, and wishing there was a loaf on the top of it.
“And you, and you, and you?” said Mr. Wentworth to one and another as they passed.
“No potato peelings! Reform and good wages! Liberty and cheap bread!”
cried they, according to their various notions. The children’s only idea was (and it was the wisest) that it was a holiday, with a procession and a band of music.
When Clack had got a little a-head of the slow-moving pony and its rider, he decided to halt and hold a short parley. Advancing with a bow, he said, “You call yourself the poor man’s friend, I believe, sir?”
“No man’s enemy, I hope,” replied Mr. Wentworth.
“Then allow us the honour of giving you three cheers on your pledge to support our interests this evening. Hats off!”
“Better wait awhile,” said Mr. Wentworth. “Cheers will keep, and I dislike unnecessary pledges.”
Clack looked suspicious, and nods and winks went round.
“We might differ, you know, as to what your interests are, and then I might seem to break my word when I did not mean it.”
“Let him go free,” said a bystander. “He knows the consequences if he opposes us.”
“That is rather a strange way of letting me go free,” observed the gentleman, smiling. “However, friend, threats are empty air to a man who knows his own mind; and my mind is made up to consider the interests of all, come groans, come cheers.”
“It is not everybody, sir, who would speak so independently,—to our faces too.”
“True, friend. All the masters and all the men have not my years, and have not learned to look steadily in honest faces; and that is why I am sorry to see this parade, which looks too much like intimidation. Come now, be persuaded. I will give you house-room for your flags, and my old friend Bray there shall not lose his job; he shall make it a holiday to the children in my factory.”
It was too much to ask of Clack. He could not give up his procession, and so made haste to march on. As Mr. Wentworth turned in at his factory gate in Ancoats Street, every man in the long train bowed respectfully.
In his case, the regard of his neighbours was not measured by the rate of wages he paid.
The procession, having deposited Clack at the Spread-Eagle, was by no means so ready to depart as to arrive. They insisted that it should be an open meeting, and that they should have a voice in the demands to be offered to the masters. They rushed through the house to the skittle-ground behind, caused a table with paper and ink to be placed in an arbour, and, setting the Committee entirely aside on the plea that this was a special occasion, began to call aloud for Allen to take the chair. Allen was nowhere to be found on the premises, for the good reason that he was at his work, and knew little of what was going on.
Being sent for, he presently appeared and asked what he was wanted for.
“To take the chair.”
But Allen was too modest to accept the honour at a word; he drew back, and urged his being totally unused to come forward at public meetings, and named several who understood the management of that kind of business better than himself. Those that he named were all single men; for he bore in mind,—and this certainly added to his reluctance,—that the sin of taking a prominent part in a combination of workmen, is apt to be remembered against the sinner when the days of trouble are over; and he felt that a family man was not the one who ought to be made to incur the risk.—When further pressed, he did not scruple to declare this to be one of his objections; but the people were in the humour to overcome objections, and they promised faithfully that he and his family should not be injured; that if discharged from the factory, they should be maintained by the Union; and that as no one knew so much of their affairs as Allen, as he could express himself with moderation in speech, and with ease on paper, he was the man to be at the head of their affairs, and that it was his bounden duty to accept the office.
Allen could not deny this, and did not, therefore, dally with his duty; but it cost him a bitter pang. While Clack listened and looked on with a feeling of jealousy, and thought it a moment of triumph such as he would fain have enjoyed himself, he little knew how little Allen was to be envied. He could not guess what feelings rushed on Allen’s mind at the moment that he took the decisive step into the arbour and seated himself at the table, and received the pen into his hand. Thoughts of the dismay of his timid wife, of the hardships to which he might expose his children, of the difficulties of his office, and the ill-will which its discharge must sometimes bring upon him,—thoughts of the quarrels in which he must mediate, and of the distress which, in case of a turn-out, he must witness, without much power to relieve,—might have overcome a man of firmer nerve than Allen; but though they distressed, they did not conquer him, convinced as he was that he ought not to evade the choice of the people. His fellow-labourers allowed him a few minutes to collect his thoughts before addressing them, and while he was seemingly arranging the papers before him, they packed themselves and one another closely, in order to leave room for new comers, without creating a noise and bustle. Those who stood nearest the arbour hung the flags so as to make a sort of canopy over it, and a few of the most efficient of the standing Committee took their places on each side of Allen.—His address was in natural accordance with the feelings which had just passed through his mind:— “Combinations are necessary, my fellow-labourers, when one set of men is opposed to another, as we are to our masters. The law could not prevent combinations, even when severe punishments visited those who were engaged in them; which was a clear proof that men must combine, that the law was of no use, and ought therefore to be done away. Let me congratulate you that these severe laws are done away; that a man cannot now be shut up in prison for many months together for agreeing with his companions to withhold their labour in order to increase its price. Let me congratulate you that when a man cannot be caught in the trap of the combination laws, he can no longer be punished under a law against conspiracy, which was made long before such a thing as combinations of workmen were thought of. We can now meet in the face of day, and conduct our bargains with our masters either by agreement or opposition, without any one having a right to interfere, as long as we keep the peace. Evils there are, indeed, still; and such a thing is still heard of as persecution in consequence of a combination; but such evils as are inflicted by the crushing hand of power light on a few, and the devotion of those few secures the exemption of the rest. It is certainly an evil to a peaceably disposed man to see himself regarded with a fierce eye by those to whom he no longer dares touch his hat lest he should be accused of suing for mercy. It is certainly an evil to a man of independent mind to be placed under the feet of any former enemy, to receive his weekly subsistence from the hands of his equals, and to fancy that the whisper is going round—‘This is he who lives upon our gathered pence.’—Such evils await, as you know, him who comes forward to lead a combination; but they belong to the state of affairs; and since they can neither be helped, nor be allowed to weigh against the advantages of union, they should be, not only patiently, but silently borne. Well is it for the victim if he can say to himself that now is the time for him to practise the heroism which in grander scenes has often made his bosom throb. He may even esteem himself honoured in his lot being somewhat of the same cast,—though his own consciousness alone may perceive the resemblance,—something of the same cast, I say, with that of venerated statesmen who have returned to the plough to be forgotten in their own age, and remembered in another,—with that of generals who have held out the decrepit hand with a petition to the gay passers by to give a halfpenny to the deliverer of their country.—Nay, no cheers yet! Your cheers only recall me with shame to that which I was going to say when my personal feelings led me away,—led me to compare that which is universally allowed to be moving because it is noble, with that which, if moving at all, is so only because it is piteous. As I was saying, combinations are ordered by laws more powerful than those which, till lately, forbade them; and this shows the wisdom of the repeal of the latter. If it had been wished to prevent our meeting for caprice or sport, laws might have availed. If their object had been to hinder the idle from meeting to dissipate their tediousness, or the gamesome from pursuing that on which no more valuable thing was staked than their present pleasure, these laws might have been successfully, though somewhat tyrannically, enforced. But such are not they who form combinations: but rather such as have their frames bowed with over-toil, and their brows knit with care, such as meet because the lives and health of their families, their personal respectability, and the bare honesty of not stealing a loaf from another man’s counter, are the tremendous stake which they feel to be put to hazard. Sound and wise laws can restrain the fiercest passions of the few, because, being sound and wise, they are supported by the many; and it is therefore clear that when laws give way like cobwebs before the impulse of a body of men too united to be brought together by caprice, those laws are neither wise nor sound. Such were the combination laws, and therefore were they repealed. Never again will it be attempted to set up the prohibition of parliament against the commands of nature,—a threat of imprisonment against the cravings of hunger. Security of person and property being provided for, (as, indeed, they were already by former laws,) we are left free to make the best agreement we can for the sale of our labour, and to arrange our terms by whatever peaceable methods we choose.
“Combination on our part is necessary from power being lodged unequally in the hands of individuals, and it is necessary for labourers to husband their strength by union, if it is ever to be balanced against the influence and wealth of capitalists. A master can do as he pleases with his hundred or five hundred workmen, unless they are combined. One word of his mouth, one stroke of his pen, can send them home on the Saturday night with a blank prospect of destitution before them; while these hundred or five hundred men must make their many wills into one before his can even be threatened with opposition. One may tremble, another may mourn, a third may utter deep down in his heart the curses he dares not proclaim; but all this is of no avail. The only way is to bring opposition to bear upon the interests of the master; and this can only be done by union. The best of the masters say, and probably with truth, that their interests demand the reductions under which we groan.
Be it so: we have interests too, and we must bring them up as an opposing force, and see which are the strongest. This may be,—allow me to say, must be—done without ill-will in any party towards any other party. There may be some method yet unknown by which the interests of all may be reconciled; if so, by union we must discover it. But if, indeed, interests must continue to be opposed, if bread must be fought for, and the discord of men must for ever be contrasted with the harmony