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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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THE TRUCK SYSTEM . Oue attention was drawn last week to the system of paying wages by truck , in a letter for our " Open Council" from Mr . George Dawson , who has also , at a recent public meeting in the iron and coal district , stood up manfully in defence of the working classes from the injustice sustained by them through constant violations of the law which prohibits that system .
It is proved by Mr . Dawson , and the authorities which he quotes , that the goods supplied by employers , sometimes in part and sometimes in full payment of wages , are deficient in quantity , inferior in quality , and superior alone in price . Reckonings between master and man are deferred for weeks , during which time no money can be obtained by the latter , but goods from the " tommy shops , " as they are called , to the full amount due
to him ; care of course being taken that he does not exceed it . Wives are forced to rise at midnight to be ready with their notes at the opening of the shop , which only occurs on fixed days ; or , after wasting whole afternoons in waiting for their notes , they must sit up all night in order to secure an early turn in the morning . After all this exertion , the " food procured by them is always dearer than it is elsewhere , and sometimes , in the case of butcher ' s meat , perfectly unfit for human consumption .
Evasions of the law by the masters , either in dismissal of recusant workmen , or in payment of wages with checks on a distant bank , appear to be prevalent , especially whenever it is attempted to put the law in force . It would seem from this that the existing statute is inadequate to meet the evil , at any rate without the appointment of inspectors , who should see that its provisions be rigidly enforced .
Mr . Dawson says that it may be matter of discussion as to " how far the truck system is essentially wrong , " and it must be admitted that , if fairly administered , it possesses advantages which , in the minds of some persons , may amount to a recommendation . The want of shops in remote districts is supplied by it , a superior article may be furnished at a less cost , habits of economy may be encouraged among the workmen , and many collateral advantages in the way of medical attendance , education , allowance in sickness , 8 cc , be secured to them where the employers are
benevolent and conscientious . On the other hand , to unjust and covetous masters the system affords means of enrichment at the expense of their men , which are incompatible at once with the welfare of the latter , and witl . all fair and equitable conditions of employment . T . iese means we have already indicated , and we may add that much injury is inflicted by the fraudulent use of the system upon such masters as do not use it , or , if they do so , uso it faiily ; as also by the system altogether upon the independent shopkeeper , through the partial or entire withdrawal of his custom .
On these grounds we do not hesitate to pronounce the truck system , under the present state of society , productive of evils which call upon the Legislature or executive to insist on its abrogation . In associated communities it is found not only practicable but advantageous to dispense , from the common store , articles required by the members , in proportion to their contribution by labour to the common wealth ; and to this equitable and
organized distribution the truck system may be said to bear a rude and incomplete resemblance . As associative arrangements between capitalists and workmen gain ground , this resemblance may grow into identity ; but , meanwhile , the system must be denounced as bearing with baneful and iniquitous force upon the industrious and defenceless classes ; and as such it must , whether b y enacting new statutes , or by more rigidly enforcing the present one , unflinchingly be put down .
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the rosT-orriCE absurdity . Ministers agreed to Lord Ashley ' s resolution for stopping Sunday labour at the Post-office , under the belief that there would be a burst of public indignation : there has been no such spontaneous burst of public indignation ; so far as the ostensible manifestations go , the balance of expressed opinion is in favour of the stoppage . Yet we share the oflicial belief that the public is not in
favour of the plan . Why , then , give the assent imputed to silence ? Mainly for three reasons : the public is idle ; it resents the being called upon to take trouble , merely ;» s a means of saving a little firmness or responsibility to Lord John llussell ; it believes that Ministers will not maintain the suspension . And that belief is right . Although Ministers assented to the suspension against a known majority in Parliament , they will now abrogate it
against a polled majority of public opinion ; for it was known beforehand , from the composition of the commission , that it would report in favour of discontinuing the suspension . Can you imagine a more farcical mess ! In the meantime , vast numbers have been put to inconvenience and loss ; Sunday work has been immensely increased by the temporary measure ; and the progress of improvement in the Post-office has been arrested .
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CRUELTY I , EGAIi . " Cruelty" is well known to have burlesqued definition in the matrimonial courts ; but , perhaps , the new dictum of the House of Lords outdoes all previous monstrosities . A case came before that high court ^ of Parliament on appeal from the Scotch courts , in which the main facts are not disputed . In 1843 , a Mr . Paterson borrowed a sum of money from a Mr . Russell and married his daughter . It appears that he never professed affection for the lady ; even before marriage he conceived some personal aversion from her ; soon after
marriage he came to the conclusion that it would be necessary for them to sleep apart ; about six weeks after marriage he carried out that conclusion , the gentleman still being practically as little of a husband as he was before marriage ; he ascribes this to his unconquerable depression of spirits ; he does not deny these allegations , nor the fact that his wife is irretrievably unhappy ; he only complains that she has misconstrued or exaggerated her statements that she is deprived of money , of society , of the solace even of her relatives , whom he confessedly desired not to visit his house .
Conjecture is baffled to define the cause of this rooted aversion in the teeth of which Mr . Paterson entered into marriage . It might be some morbid delusion ; or some perverse , but most unmanly , resentment under a sense of pecuniary obligation ; or some preposterous fastidiousness ; but it might be something else . The motive of the lady ' s father in permitting such a match is equally obscure . The one thing patent and indubitable is the wretchedness of the lady . She prays a divorce a , mensa et thoro , on the score of cruelty : Lord Brougham pronounces the judgment of the House of Lords that her treatment is not cruel ! *
On the face of the tale the lady has been sold ; she is doomed to perpetual celibacy , and bound to reside with a husband who treats her as an alien and an enemy . The Lords affirm that it is reasonable , just , and lawful that she should remain in that state—in that cruel , iniquitous , and indecent bondage !
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SOCIAL REFORM . EriSTOL-ZE OBSCURORUM VIRORUM , To A A . August 1 , 1850 . Excellent Friend , —The matters which have been in discussion between us so often have grown to be subjects of earnest public discussion . Party opponents cannot differ more widely or more earnestly than you and I have on some points that most concern us human beings living in that
policecontrolled , haphazard anarchy which is called " society "; but the vehemence of our dissent has only served to try the strength of the grasp which kept us undivided ; and in coming to know each other ' s thoughts more thoroughly , we have learned that in principle , in spirit , in substance , we agreed , and had agreed all along , differing chiefly as to modes . Had we been dismayed and turned off by the first aspect of what seemed utter difference between us ,
what misery might we have endured , and have inflicted on others . But we both had faith in truth and in affection , faith more deep than our conviction in any opinion ; and the thorough understanding which enabled us to bring our varying opinions under a common term , our individual convictions under a broader belief , justified our faith . In extending our controversy to the public , I still address myself to you witn whom this correspondence originated , because it is already consecrated by affection and failh .
You reproached me with hostility to the received order of society ; and I appealed to the misery we see around us . You shrank from my openness on the subject of religion , saying that if I did not share the belief generally professed I ought to reserve my dissent ; and 1 replied that it is this flinching , this tampering with the truth , which has clogged religion with falsehood , has made it the " persuader of evil , " not the guide and sustainer , but the deluder and tyrant of society : —
" Hombili super aspectu mortalibus instans . " In every question of political or social advancement , you find the great bar to be some religious dogma or the interest of some religious incorporation . You must then grapple with that difficulty ; you must speak openly , or the truth will for ever elude
you . Nor is dogma confined to religion : it lays its leaden weight on politics and on social
questions . We are , in fact , forbidden to speak of religion itself , but must only discuss some one of those numberless forms which all severally and yet exclusively profess to be " the truth "—innumerable incompatible " truths , " sustaining an endless conflict , and mutuall y exposing their own falsehood while the victims in the war are human beings . Authority strives to avert us from handling the
machinery of priesthood , lest the vocation be superseded ; Decorum tries to frighten us from meddling with morals ; Ridicule warns us off political dogma : all instigated by a pusillanimous fear that we might introduce disorder in lieu of the makeshift order that now rules . As if Nature , being free , did not irresistibly tend to order . Even the freest religion will demand its formula , and society will always elect its priesthood .
It is not to destroy the great and sacred influences of Religion and Order that we ask for a bolder but not irreverent handling : it is to set those influences free , that they may work more powerfully . We cannot have arrived at even a proximate conception of religious truth , while all mankind is refuting each section , and is making the controversy the pretext for hateful passions . It is not the true influence of Religion that converts society into an universal Cain . It cannot be Order that
sets man against man , master against workman , workman against workman , producer against consumer , husband against wife , parent against child , class against class , People against Government , and Government against People . That is not Order , but rebellion ; and if it does not hold the allegiance of society it is because the warrant is not authentic . What is the actual condition of us English people at this moment , what has it been any time within the recollection of those who now live to
note it ? Religion is a word of fear and discord ; discord somewhat mitigated by indifferency , insomuch that as a motive of conduct , social or political , Religion is , with the many , deadened . The industry of our country , pushed to its highest known condition of activity and skill , leaves the labourer poor ; often barely able to keep body and soul together ; sometimes sojourning for ever on the borders of starvation . To belong to the e industrious classes " is to be poor ! Immense
multiplication of the forms of industry , but too little food , raiment , or lodging for the workers . Is that sense ? " Property" zealously guarded , yet fearing the gradual acquisition of knowledge and power by the working classes . Land too narrow for the population on it , yet shut against the direct and ample exercise of labour by complicated tenures . Capital vastly augmenting the wealth of the few , but ever attended by its coequal shadow bankruptcy ; and ever helping to render the poor poorer , by setting labourer to compete with labourer in the retrograde race to abate the
returns of labour . Taxation planned to press upon , the poor and spare the rich—to avoid produce but squeeze the producer , and more than doubled in its burden by a deliberate plan for immortalizing the fatal mistakes of our forefathers , so that we may go on paying their National Debt to the end of time . The poor multiplied and bared by our laws , and then confounded with vagrants and wrongdoers in a niggard " charity" with a penal
form . Ignorance told to await its enlightenment until religious discord shall have agreed upon a common doctrine . Ceaseless agitation in the whole mass of the people , who see among them natural resources wasted , wealth frustrated , knowledge shut up among the few , power weakened by confinement to the few ; ceaseless agitation to redress these gratuitous wrongs . Such is our actual civilization , our " Order" as it is .
I say we must talk openly , plainly , and directly of these things . The love of God does not forbid me to ask what it is that is at the bottom of this religious discord which has at its two ends despotic bigotry and anarch infidelity . Public faith teaches me to ask whether it is honest to defraud my children to pay for the follies of my
fathersespecially whether any of us , who are all children , profit by robbing ourselves in the capacity of Peter to pay ourselves in the capacity of Paul , for the waste committed in the wars of the ancestral Peters and Pauls ? No superstitious notion of " property " can make me believe that it is good to cramp production , defraud the producer , and starve the labourer . Every omnibus proprietor will tell you
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Aug . 3 , 1850 . ] gCft * VLt&iltX . 445
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 3, 1850, page 445, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1849/page/13/
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