wholly dissolved, if possible, is proved by various most important consider ations.

It was alleged that the great object of the repeal was to make the trade in labour perfectly free-to give full and equal freedom to both servants and masters. Well, the first great step in Free Trade-in the overthrow of monopolies-has been to place labour under a close and gigantic monopoly. It matters not what the masters may be able to give what servants, who do not belong to the combinations, may be willing to take what the price of provisions and the needs of workmen may be-what labour there may be in the market-the will of the combinations is to be the only thing to fix the wages. All the things by which these ought alone to be fixed, are to be wholly deprived of operation. When wages form the main ingredient in the price of most articles, it may easily be conceived how this will affect general prices-when the manufacturer is exposed to the competition of foreigners, and is bound to manufacture at a certain price, or not at all, it may easily be conceived how it will operate on trade.

The master is not, in effect, at liberty to choose his servant; and the latter is to be chosen, not for his character and qualifications as a workman, but for his character and qualifications as a member of the combinations: he is to study to please these combinations, and not his employer. Our readers need not be told how perniciously this must operate upon the industry, skill, good workmanship, and general character of the servants. Under such a system, the very best servants are in the greatest danger of wanting bread, and the very worst have the greatest certainty of always having it in abundance.

The masters and servants are converted into hostile bodies. The old feelings of reciprocal good-will and regard for each other's interests, are de stroyed, and replaced by strife and animosity. The servants care not what injury they may do their masters; they are struggling for their ruin. This goads the latter into the same spirit; it makes them refuse to give anything beyond the amount of the bond; it makes them afraid to give good wages, lest part of the money should go to the combination fund; it dries up their benevolence and geVOL. XVIII.

nerosity, and renders them callous to the sufferings of the servants, when these really do suffer.

The combinations have the effect of raising wages far above the proper figure. They not only enable the seryant to fix any value he may think fit on his labour, but they compel him to demand considerably more than the sum which he judges to be necessary for his maintenance. He must contribute constantly and largely to the funds of the combination, and his contribution must, of course, be taken from his wages. The masters are therefore compelled to pay large sums in wages, which are not needed for feeding and clothing their workmen, and which are to be employed only in working their own injury and ruin. They are constrained to furnish every farthing of those funds which are only employed to rob them of the control of their property, and to destroy their trade: they are compelled not only to pay their servants for the time in which they employ them, but for the weeks and months in which these think proper to do nothing. When the master is, in most cases, bound to a certain price for his articles, the exorbitant rate of wages must operate powerfully to narrow the quantity of employment, and the demand for labour.

These combinations destroy all equality in sacrifices for the public weal, The masters have little or no power in fixing the rate of wages; they must give whatever the servants declare to be necessary for supplying themselves with bread. As they cannot declaim against high wages, they declaim against the high price of provisions. The servants compel them to pay much more than is necessary for the purchase of food, and then they cry out that corn is too dear. Of course, those sacrifices which the manufacturer's competition with foreigners may call for, are not to touch his workmen; they are to be thrown principally upon the agriculturists. These workmen are to live plentifully, and to have large wages for weeks and months of idleness, whatever the master's prices may be; if he cannot make his customers pay for this, he must make the farmers and the agricultural labourers pay for it. From the farmers and the husbandry-labourers is to be sponged, in the long run, the money which forms the funds of these

D

combinations, and which enables the town-labourers to spend weeks and months in idleness, turbulence, and, too often, crime.

In a political light, these combinations are calculated to yield the greatest evils to the empire. The town working-classes of the three kingdoms are, to a very great extent, organized into a gigantic confederacy. However numerous the combinations may be, they still, in reality, form only one body: the army may be divided into regiments, but, nevertheless, these form but one army. This confederacy exists to promote the private and personal interests of its members only; and, like most other bodies which exist on the same principle, it cares not what interest it injures or ruins, provided it benefits its own. It tramples upon law, and the rights of the rest of the nation, to the utmost point possible. It not only places the masters under a ruinous tyranny, destroys competition in the market for labour, and stifles emulation among the workmen in respect of industry, skill, and sobriety; but it emancipates the working classes from all authority and influence touching moral and political conduct. The labourer's bread is made to depend in no degree on his good morals; however vile a profligate he may be, and however pestilentially his conduct and principles may operate upon his younger and less experienced associates, the master has no power to discharge him. He must be placed on a level with a man of the best character; he must be protected from everything that might reform him; he must be kept to corrupt all the innocent youth that come in his way. We need not point out how this must operate on the morals of the working classes generally. Many of the workmen possess the elective franchise, and, generally speaking, they are incapable of exercising it properly without advice. The masters are the proper men to give such advice, but they are now the last people in the world who would be listened to. Their influence is gone; they are now the obliged party. The working classes are thus left without proper leaders they are placed in opposition to all above them, and they will follow any demagogue who may address them.

In addition to all this, the combinations, from their perpetual efforts to violate the laws-their invasions

of the rights of the masters and the labourers who do not belong to them

the brutal punishments which they inflict and the spirit of enmity and vengeance which they keep in action, must operate powerfully to fill the working classes with contempt for the laws, with disregard for the rights of others, and with the worst principles.

We care not for what Mr Brougham may say against the working classes being dependent on their masters; we care not for the new schemes of education which are now bewildering the country; we are very sure that the working classes of this nation are not, at present, in a fit state to be independent of their masters; and we are, moreover, quite sure that they never will be in such a state. Woe to England, when its labourers shall be so far independent as to be only governed by laws! It is essential for the good of the labourer, as well as for the good of the state, that he should be under the authority of his master in respect of general conduct as well as labour; that his master should instruct him in what constitutes a good member of society, as well as in the mysteries of his calling; and that his master should coerce his bad morals, as well as his idleness and bad workmanship.

The magnificent edifice which society forms in this country, can only stand so long as the different classes which compose it shall be properly cemented together, and shall duly bind each other to the proper place and the proper duty. The lower orders must be cemented to the class next themthey must form its basis, and must have sufficient weight to bind them to act their part in the support of the structure. The foundations are, however, now tearing themselves asunder from the rest of the building, and if this be suffered to reach its completion, it will not need a prophet to foretel the consequences. The working orders are, in regard to connexion and control, separating themselves from the rest of the community, and establishing a state of things the most unnatural and portentous. This must be speedily remedied, or it will be beyond remedy. If they be not under the moral government of their masters, they cannot be governed at all; and if they be not duly governed, they will plunge the nation into ruin.

In times of distress our working orders generally become furious poli

ticians. It would be the most easy thing imaginable for this immense confederacy to assume a political character, and it would be pretty sure to do this, were trade to receive any serious injury. We need not say what the consequences would be, were it to become fiercely actuated by the spirit of Radicalism. Were these combinations to proceed as they have done, they would soon look for other slaves in addition to the masters: they would soon find tyrannizing over the latter very insufficient for protecting what they call their rights and interests. They are already attempting to rivet their chains on the farmers and husbandry-labourers; they would next place commerce under their despotism; they would regulate our imports and exports, and give us another new system of trade. It is the nature of such vicious bodies to keep continually thirsting for additional spoils and authority, and to be satisfied with nothing.

Setting aside all other matters, if they continue to exist, trade must perish. Hemmed in by them on the one side, and rival foreigners on the other, the masters must either emigrate to other countries, or submit to

ruin.

It is therefore the duty of every friend of his country to do his utmost towards the dissolution of these combinations. The servant has an undoubted right to take his labour to the best market, and to be perfectly free in making his bargain; but the master has an equally undoubted right to the same liberty. If it be impossible to frame laws that will give the exact degree of liberty to both-that will make the market in labour perfectly free to both seller and buyer-laws must be framed that will make the nearest approaches to it. If it be impossible to avoid giving a little advantage to one of the parties-to avoid leaving something to the discretion and generosity of one of the parties-on every principle of reason, experience, and interest, the masters ought to be the favoured party. The servants have just given decisive evidence that they cannot form it without bringing the most grievous ills upon the state; and the masters long did form it, without in any way abusing the privilege. The masters of this country may laugh at the fashionable slang touching tyrants

which is employed against them; their conscience is pure, their hands are unstained. As a body, they have always exercised their authority over their servants in a manner becoming Englishmen and Christians. Had they endeavoured to tyrannize as their servants are now tyrannizing, the country would soon have been made too hot to hold them.

We exhort the masters to bestir themselves to the utmost against the combinations, and to trust less to laws than to their own efforts. It occurs to us that the adoption of the following plan would be far more efficacious than any law that could be framed.

Let them change their mode of hiring; let them hire their workmen no longer by the week, or for an unfixed period, terminable on short notice. Let them follow the farmer's plan, and hire for twelve, six, or three months certain. If at the first they be compelled to hire the whole of their men at the same moment, they must not hire them all for the same period, for this would set them all at liberty together, again to combine. They must engage some for twelve months, some for nine, some for six, &c. By this plan, only a small portion of the workmen would be able to strike at the same moment. When those engaged for the shortest period should be at liberty, and should want to form a new contract, all the rest would be firmly bound, and could not join them in combining to suspend trade and tyrannize over the master. If the master could not agree with them for a new engagement, he could still keep his other hands at their work, and engage new ones in the room of those who might leave him. He would likewise be able to get rid of such men as might not suit him. The grand principle to be kept in sight, should be, to guard vigilantly against more than a small number of the workmen being at liberty at the same moment for the renewal of contracts.

To illustrate this, we will assume a master to employ regularly forty work

men.

All these have left him, and it is necessary for him at present to reengage the whole on the same day, Let him bind ten to him for a year, ten for nine months, ten for six months, and the remaining ten for three months. When three months shall expire, ten of the men will be at liberty, but all the rest will be bound; the ten free

ones must wait three months before they can get ten more to join them. Let him then hire the whole, as their terms may expire, for a year certain. By this mode, no more than one-fourth of his men could ever strike at once, and their striking could do him but little injury.

Under this system, the wages could be paid in weekly sums as usual: it is as applicable to labourers who work by the piece, as to those who work otherwise. It will apply to those trades which only employ workmen a part of the year, for the men could be bound for the season. The masters must be far better judges of its practicability than ourselves, but we certainly think it a very practicable one. It would, no doubt, clash with old customs and habits, but these are such as might be changed without difficulty. We cannot see why the mechanics, &c. should not be hired as the clerks, shopmen, and husbandry-labourers are hired: if the weekly system were universally adopted, we are pretty sure that the combination system would rage as furiously among the clerks, shopmen, &c. as it does among Mr Brougham's pupils. That the working classes would set their faces against such a system, is abundantly certain, but they might be conquered. The present state of things must be remedied, whatever efforts and sacrifices the remedy may call for. These combinations are, in reality, most pernicious, odious, and oppressive monopolies, and they must be dissolved. It is idle to say that they will, under regulations, produce good. Their principle is vicious; they exist not for public, but for private benefit, they seek to benefit associations of individuals by injuring the rest of the community. They give to these individuals a vast portion of unconstitutional and dangerous power, which is sure to be generally employed to the detriment of the weal of the

state.

We entreat the masters in this nation to reflect deeply upon the doctrines which certain political men are putting forth in favour of what they are pleased to call, the independence of the working classes. Although these doctrines emanate from faction, and have for their grand object the profit of faction, they are still capable of working incalculable mischief. Their glaring falsehood is, alas! in these

days, no security against their being believed in. They strike, no doubt, at the vital interests of the empire, but they strike more immediately at those of the masters; and it is the masters principally who must render them innoxious. We conjure the latter, by what they owe to themselves and their country, to make a determined stand in defence of their just rights, and in resistance to these fearful innovations. We call upon them to insist boldly upon possessing that authority over their servants which they have always hitherto possessed, which the servant has always hitherto surrendered to them in his contract, and upon which the wellbeing of themselves, the working classes, and society, so largely depends.

It

It is the authority of the master over the general conduct of the servant, which compels the latter not only to labour for a certain number of hours, but to do a sufficiency of work, and to do it in a proper manner. is this authority which compels the servant not only to do his duty as a workman, but to do his duty as a member of society. It is this authority which educates the servant-which makes him industrious, active, skilful, sober, and honest. To this authority, the working classes of Britain mainly owe their high character. Let it be destroyed-render these classes independent-give to the latter the power to bind the masters from interfering with them in anything beyond a stipulated period and quantity of labour

and you will strip the workman of all his valuable qualities. The twelve hours per day of labour will soon dwindle down to seven or eight: the industry and activity will soon degenerate into sloth and carelessness: the skill will soon sink into ignorance: the sobriety and honesty will soon change into dissipation and knavery: and the good morals will soon become general depravity.

The masters are the main agents in maintaining public tranquillity and order; so far as regards these, they have a more powerful influence in governing the nation than the laws and the government. The uninformed and the wilful-the vast overwhelming majority of the population-are distributed in small portions among them, and each master instructs and governs his portion. What makes the Irish peasant