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cripple the labourers , such imperfeet combination as the statute-book has not yet prohibited is the really effective check against reduction of wages . It is also the only check which , lies ready to the hand of the workman , to use at will ; other checks being of an indirect and passive kind . The leading journal partly admits this consideration , but insists that the workman can trust to
" the immutable law of supply and demand , " to the " irresistible influence" of " public opinion . " Also the journalist insists that if' * a glut of good enginemen" enables directors to oeconomize " the expenses of the company on this head , the very fact is sufficient to justify their decision . " Furthermore , if discretion be allowed , " it will scarcely be doubted that the board of directors is a safer
repository of such discretion than the council of the enginemen . ' * It appears to us that not one of these ^ considerations" is sound ; the laws of supply and demand are not " immutable , " but are habitually altered by combinations of employers . Examine the state of any trade where the working class does not maintain an effectual organization for its own protection ; look at the tailors' trade , witli the effects of competition among traders , the slop
system , and the sweating system : these influences are generally reducing the labour of men to a mortal toil not remunerated by a solid subsistence , as it is in the scarcely more fatal white lead works , or the less fatal powder mill . In this case the laws of supply and demand have undergone an artificial change through the combinations of employers and the power of the capitalists , so to make a profit out of aggregated fractions of profit as to beat down the regular trader and the fair returns of work . " Public opinion" has not checked this process .
We might laugh at the capitalists' presumption , which attributes discretion to railway directors after the disclosures of Hudsonism , the mad schemings , the blind rivalries of competing lines , the combinations against the public to keep up fares , the devices which charged the passenger more from Edinburgh to Manchester , or from Lincoln to Watford , than the whole way from those places to London ; after the litigations of companies in joint occupancy ; after the defective administration which produces so \ much bad timing , so many collisions ;
—after all the enormous waste of money , time , and human life . Such errors are unanswerably charged against the bodies now proclaimed so " discreet . " But we pass these reflections to consider the intrinsic merits of the immediate question before us . In backing the claims of the directors to a three months' notice from their men , the writer in the commercial iournal is naturally impressed with the
immense public inconvenience through the sudden stoppage of traffic on a great railway . It is quite proper that the directors should take precautions against such a public inconvenience . Their motive for doing so , of course , is a not unenlightened selfinterest : the stoppage would seriously affect their dividends—immediately by the stoppage of the revenue for the time ; beyond that , probably , by diversion of traffic to another line . Shareholders
Avould suffer by diminished dividends . But are not the interests of the driver or fireman at stake ? Truly his whole property is in jeopardy—his wages . If his stoppage would occasion some inconvenience to the public—not an unjust retribution on the moneyed public that so seldom remembers or supports the interests of the working class—will prompt dismissal occasion no inconvenience to the working man ? Assuredly , if there are reasons to justify a great millionaire company in demanding three months' notice from each individual servant , there are reasons not less forcible for making the
notice reciprocal , by pledging the company to give three months' notice to each and all of its servants , with proper guarantees that it will not enter into any combination , project , or intrigue , that shall entail inconvenience or loss to its work people . If such guarantees were given , we should feel some confidence in the justice of the company , and would heartily support its endeavour to prevent Iobs to the shareholders and inconvenience to the public . But before we can admit those perfectly justifiable pleas , we must have before us as perfectly a fair squaring of accounts between the company and its servants .
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WAGES IN BUCKS AND LANCASHIRE . In our remarks on Lord Stanley ' s ^ agricultural-improvement speech , at Bury Meeting , in October , we took exception to his lordship ' s statement that the farmers of Lancashire possess very great advantages over the cultivators of the soil in other parts of Englandon account of their having an
excel-, lent market for their produce , and large supplies of manure within a short distance . We reminded hi 8 lordship , that while the high rent of land m Lancashire places it on a level with other counties as regards farming profits—the benefit thus all going to the landlord , as Earl Derby ' s rent-roll will testifv—the dearness of agricultural labour in
" Women are seldom employed in the field * at Iweing , or other light work , thrre beiii # better employment tot them indoors at the factories . It is necessary , therefore , to employ men in this county at many operations for which women or boys are found competent in other counties . This makes the manual labour on the turnipcrop nearly double the cost in Lancashire as compared with such , counties . " Here is a piece of information for Lord Stanley , which he would do well to remember when he next comes forward to lecture the Lancashire farmers on agricultural improvement .
To a labourer who toils hard all day in the open air , and must , therefore , be weli fed ; and who hat a wife and family to support besides , out of his earnings , 15 s . a-week is a very moderate sum , and will require to be husbanded very carefully in order to furnish a sufficient supply of food , fuel , and clothing , not to speak of rent , education , and other needful items . But , if 15 s . a-week be too little , as it certainly is , for the wants of the labourer and his family , how wretched must be the condition of the Buckinghamshire serfs , who have not half that
sum ! From a statement in the Bucks Chronicle of last week , we learn that the farmers in that county have reduced the wages of their labourers to 7 s ., and , in some instances , to 6 s . a-week ! And yet almost any one of these men , if placed on the land , with proper instruction , and sufficient encouragement to make him expend his strength and skill upon its cultivation , could easily extract from a few acres what would be worth three or four times 6 s . a-week to him . Industrial schools for the labouring class in every parish , and free access to our waste lands , would work a marvellous change in the condition of such miserable
paupers as the Bucks and Wiltshire peasantry mainly consist of . And all this might be put in operation within a very few months if we had only such a governor as Mr . Carlyle demands . Failing the discovery of such a great man the people must try to force the needful changes in their own confused way . If much damage and confusion should result from the rough mode in which they will ultimately bring about a thorough social reformation , the fault be on the heads of those men whose duty it is to guide them to the promised land in an orderly manner , and who waste their time in discussing whether candles ought to be burned at noon .
the neighbourhood of the manufacturing towns renders it one of the worst districts in England for carrying on agricultural improvement . In corroboration of our statement on that head , we find the Times Commission , in Wednesday ' s paper , making the following statement : — " The wages of labour throughout Lancashire will be southern countie
reckoned high as compared with the s . In South Lancashire 12 s . to 15 a . a-week is the usual rate for Englishmen , and 9 s . a-week for Irishmen . In that district native labour is so scarce that the farmers declare they could not get on at all without the aid of the Insn . "In some cases , when labourers ' cottages fall into decay , they are not rebuilt , nnd the labourers are consequently driven into the neighbouring towns . But from the flenseness of the population this is not attended with the inconvenience we have sometimes witnessed , as m this county a labourer has Beldom to walk so inuco as two miles to his work .
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SOCIAL REFORM . EP 1 STOLJE OBSCURORUM VIROEUM . XXII . —The True Poor Law : its Working . To W . E . Forster . Dee . 25 , 1857 . My Dear Sib , —You will bear in mind these principles with which I have started—that in considering the promotion of national welfare we must look directly to the well-being of the living men and women rather than to the accumulation of money or goods ; that the land is the natural endowment of the creatures , whereon to take their chance of
subsistence by labour ; and that so long as Society keeps human beings off the land , it is bound to secure to those who are excluded the opportunity of labour—a " right to labour" which you have so excellently expounded . I have noted what appear to me to be facts , open to all who look—that " the higgling of the market" does not and cannot distribute the industrial duties the performance of which is necessary to social life , and that as concert in labour is essential to the right division of
employments , a better organization than " higgling" is needed ; that for want of such concert our arts are rendered vain , also that while there is no concert , capital is a thing of which the surplus becomes dangerous , so that its blind accumulation i « not wise . I believe that to recognize the natural obligation of the land , to take direct measures towards the regulation of industry will not only benefit those who now suffer , but will prevent the dangers that ever hang over the wealthy , and will even bring added happiness to the moat prosperous .
The Poor Law is an engine which we already possess , suitable for the great purpose in vi « w , and capable of being rendered efficient without any revolutionary act . I have already pointed out the separation which should be made between the law of correctional police bearing on vagrants , and tins real Poor Law ; also the classification by which th » Poor Law should give free help to the a « ed , tie sick , and the imbecile , and offer industrial employment to the ablebodied—the opportunity of labour . I now proceed to explain how Much a law should be carried out in the incidence of its taxation ivnd in its working .
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John Stuart Mill has recorded his " conviction that the industrial economy which divides society absolutely into two portions , the payers of wages and the receivers of them , the first counted by thousands and the last by millions , is neither fit for nor capable of indefinite duration ; and the possibility of changing this system for one of combination without dependence and unity of interest instead of organized hostility depends altogether upon the future developments of the Partnership principle . "
And he has further given his unequivocal assent to partnership en commandite whereby any persons may associate in an enterpri » e without incurring greater responsibility than their actual investment of capital . The letters of a " Banker" to the Times with the replies elicited , have given a wider circulation to this idea—an idea so just , so practical , and so accordant with the tendencies of a commercial and industrial nation that one is surprised to find any serious opposition to it .
The great advantage of limiting responsibility to the actual participation in the enterprise , saying that a thousand pounds invested in a manufactory shall be the whole amount for which the invester is liable in case of failure , would create numberless enterprises that now languish for want of means . Take a newspaper as an example . Many men would join in establishing a paper if their responsibility could be limited . They know the speculation is precarious ; but it may succeed ; and they are willing to risk—say £ 100—for the 6 ake of the opinions the paper is to promulgate . If it succeed they have their profit ; if it fail they know the extent of their loss . At present , inasmuch as they are all and severally liable to the whole extent of their means for all the debts of the paper , they
hold aloof . In point of fact the present system does admit a rude and incomplete form of commanditaires Mr . Smith is a merchant or shipowner , and responsible to creditors . But his own capital being insufficient to meet some new exigencies , he borrows money at interest . The lender receives interest in lieu of a share in the profits ; and thus limits his liability . In France and America the lender would
invest his capital and receive his share of profits . The assistance , therefore , which the merchant gets is similar in both cases ; but now mark the difference with respect to the public—the creditors ( and it is only for their sakes that the commandite is not allowed ) . In the case of commanditaires all the capital borrowed goes to the creditors ; in the case of lenders all the capital borrowed is an addition to the debts of the concern , and diminishes to that extent the assets wherewith creditors would
PARTNERSHIP EN COMMANDITE . Our readers know the importance we have always attached to the opinion now gaining ground in England that the present Laws of Partnership must be altered , for the system adopted in France and America which is called Partnership en commandite .
have been paid 1 The objections against commandite bear no scrutiny , or they may easily be obviated . It would be a very simple plan , for example , to have a public registry of all associations , with the amount of liability incurred by each associate : so that , knowing , for example , that Baring was an associate you might , at a moment ' s notice , ascertain if he were an associate to any large amount before you trusted the society on the strength of his name .
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Dec . 28 , 1850 . ] ¦ QZffe HeatHCX . . 947
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 28, 1850, page 947, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1863/page/11/
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