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There is no learned man but will confess he hath much profited by reading controversies , his senses awakened , and hi 8 judgment sharpened . If , then , it be profitable for him to read , why should it not , at least , be tolerable for his adversary to write . —Milton .
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IS OUR " PROGRESS " BACKWARDS . Leeds . August 20 , 1850 . Dear Sir ,- —Your account of the " Progress of the Nation , " in last week ' s Leader , is a very lugubrious , but fortunately , as I think , a one-sided view of the present state of things . It appears to me that you exclude the good features of our times and exaggerate the bad ones . You are decidedly Calvinistic in your Socialism , for I perceive you firmly believe in the fall of man from some state of happiness and prosperity enjoyed by him in past times .
For my part , I have never been able , in the records of man now extant , to fall upon any authentic account of that Golden Age from which editors of newspapers ( ever since they came into existence ) have pronounced us to be constantly falling . Had their prophecies and enquiries been at all correct , what a tremendous way down the pit we must have been by this time ! The more carefully I look into the history of the working classes , the more satisfied do I become that the further we recede from modern times the more miserable and hopeless has been their lot . You must
remember , my dear Sir , that there were no Morning Chronicle reporters in past times , giving to every suffering class a voice , and dragging misery to the light from even its most poetic recesses . No , no ! Nobody troubled their heads in the Golden Age about misery —it simply hid itself from the public sight and , for the most part , quietly lay down and died . As for poverty , it was branded with hot irons on the cheek and th ' w breast , lashed at the cart ' s tail , or , like ?? Poor Tom " in King Lear , was " whipped from tything to tything , and stocked , punished , and imprisoned . " As recently as the time of the ?• good Queen Anne , " sturdy rogues ,. found begging and unable to give an account of how they lived , were liable to be adjudged felons and suffer death . At a more remote period they were bought and sold like cattle , and were liable to suffer death if they ran away from their masters . The further back I go into the pnges of history the more wretched do 1 find the lot of the poor to have been ; and nil the liberty und well-being which the working classes now enjoy appears to me
to have begun with , the growth of towns , and steadily kept pace with the march , of modern tiviliza tion . But you do not , for the purpose of your comparison , go so far back as the period when the working classes of England were an actual slave class . You start from 1775 . Well , I have had the curiosity to look into the state of the times then , and I am unable to come to any other conclusion than that the working class has made decided progress ever since that date . Take the following as a social feature of the Golden Age of 1775 : —
" Dec . 5 . The Norwich stage-coach was attacked by seven highwaymen in Epping Forest , three , of" whom were shot dead by the guard , but his ammunition failing , he was shot dead himself , and ^ the remainder of the gang robbed the passengers . " In the following year , 8000 debtors were confined in the different gaols of England . About the same time , the crimping of men for the colonies , and the
impressmentof seamen for our ships , were regular practices on the part of the paternal Government . There were occasional brutal outbursts of bigotry , such as the Gordon riots in 1780 ; and the petition from the inhabitants of London against the Papists had attached to it no fewer than 120 , 000 signatures , or " marks of men as outrageously zealous as grossly ignorant . " Certainly , I would not exchange the working class of this day for the populace of the Golden Age ! find
Then , about the same period , I frequent cornriots and meal-mobs occurring , which do not argue a very comfortable condition of the working classes . In 1772 , wagons laden with corn entering London were seized by the mob , and the corn was sold among them at low prices ; for there was ' ? great distress " then prevalent among the poor . There were seriouB meal-mobs at Dundee and other towns in Scotland in 1773 . A few years before , in 1770 , there were general riots on account of want of food all over England ; the military were called out , many lives were lostand special commissions were issued for the
, trial of the rioters . About the same time , the weavers in the country districts were rioting and breaking looms ; sometimes they could only be quelled by the military after considerable slaughter ; the Spitaldelds weavers were engaged in violent disturbances , ending occasionally in the seizure and execution of the ringleaders , and sometimes by the more summary method of dispersion by the bullets and swords of the soldiers . Indeed , for many years about this time , the Spitalfields weavers seem to have been in a state of constant riot . Then , there were
the sailors and coal-heavers , who used to meet armed with deadly weapons in Stepney-fields ( in 1769 ) , when dreadful fights ensued , in which some were killed and many wounded . There were also militia riots , riots because of reductions of wages , bigotry riots , toll-bar riots , machinery riots , and motions in Parliament" to enquire into the causes of the present discontents , " indicating a state of the working classes by no means comfortable and satisfactory . And yet , that was a period immediately preceding the war with the American Colonies , of comparative
prosperity among the commercial and working classes ! Even at that time , however , there were lugubrious prophets crying , " Woe ! "Woe" ! For we find , in 1783 , Sir John Stair concluding a pamphlet on the state of the nation in these words : •—?? The inevitable conclusion is , that the nation is a bankrupt , and those who have entrusted their all to the public faith are in imminent danger of becoming ( I die pronouncing it !) Bbooars ! ' A prophecy , like most others of the same kind , happily not yet
fulfilled . You also give out that " wages have not advanced , and that ?? the continued tendency of wages is to diminish . " Well—how stands the fact here ? on referring to the return of contract prices of provisions and wages at Greenwich Hospital , I find that the wages of the mechanics employed there ( and we must presume that their wages represent the average of those paid in the metropolis ) have been steadily advancing up to the present time . In 1775 mechanics were paid from 2 s . 6 d . to 2 s . lOd . a-day ; and the
same mechanics are now receiving from 4 s . lOd . to 5 s . a- day . I am also informed by living witnesses that in Scotland , at the same time , mechanics were glad to get only from 8 d . to Is . a-day , who are now paid from 4 s . to 5 s . a-day . There is also another most important circumstance which you entirely overlook , and that is , that the workman ' s wages now go much further in the purchase of all the necessaries of life—food , clothing , and so on—than they did formerly . Mr . Sidney Smirke , a good judge of matters mechanicslnlorms
touching the condition of working , us , in the Builder , that the wages of a good mason in London , in the year 1800 , were only 16 s . a-week , with wheat at 90 s . 6 d . a qunTtcr ; whereas the same labourer now receives from 30 s . to 33 s . a-week , with wheat at under 50 s . a quarter , and all other necessaries of life very much reduced in price . Nor is there any reason to believe that the wages of the agricultural labourers are lower now than in former periods . In all the manufacturing neighbourhoods they have considerably advanced ; and the prices of food being lower , they are able to enjoy on the whole a greater share of the necessaries of life *
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is taken from its natural mother Earth , and put out to nurse in the care of Trade ; and we see m what fashion it thrives . Now , I do not know under what religion it can be that man dares to keep his brother off God ' s earth in this way—I do not know how he dares to do it—how he has the heart . Is this " the Expulsion ? " . We might be reconciled to it , if we found the exiled man flourishing in plenty and fatness , or the land rioting in a plethora of fertility . But we find , in fact , that the exiled multitude is living in wretchedness , or at the best in discomfort ; that those who have the land "in trust "—the landowners and their adherents , the practical agriculturists ,
are always complaining of " distress ; and persons learned in agriculture are ever declaring that the trust is very ill performed , the land not being encouraged to do a tithe of the work that it is ready to do . The agriculturists exile their fellows to live on trade in the towns , and then clamour that trade must not be free ; they so clamour because they find that their share of the bargain is anything but easy or profitable , that their possession is " distress . " So the artificial system does not answer .
The People is not allowed access to its land ; the land is not allowed to feed its People , the sons of the soil : the exilers murmur , agitate , perhaps revolt , because the trade to which their brothers are exiled is free ; the exiled complain that the trustees are negligent , idle , and stupid in their trust . It is all reproach and ill-feeling—dictated by harsh
discomfort . The sons of the soil , most of them , are sent to toil in dark unwholesome depraved streets ; and the ' * chaw-bacon" that actually works the " trust" of the landowner is a laughing-stock , an opprobrium , the butt of sarcastic toasts about * ' a bold peasantry . " Such is the actual condition of society under the circumstance of the divorce between People and Land .
I know that I have not described all that civilization has done—I well know what " the progress of society" has been : I know that we weave infinitely superior loom stuffs , and have carried locks and keys , and ironmongery in general , to the highest perfection ; I know that statistical works glow with figures , and " account" for the misery of the poor—the mankind of our day—by ascribing it to improvidence , drink , pigeon-fancying , neglect of saving— " saving" out of short commons ! —I know that a crowd of merchants , very wealthy , dwell in Belgravia rather than Mecklenburg Square ; that millowners possess enormous
wealthif they were to sell out in lucky times ; that gentry get huge rents , and that Regent-street , ministering to all that wealth , both supplies and enjoys luxury . But the gentry and the professions , their retainers , the merchants and millowners , and the fashionable 8 lopseller 8 , are not society , unless " society" means something distinct from mankind : mankind consists , in its bulk , of these , my brethren , working in field or factory , mine or shop , in great discomfort and privation . What do I care for the " progress" of a packed party ? I repudiate it . The feast makes me sick at heart : I look for
the mark of the collar round the neck of my tamer fellow ; I go back from the mansion of wealth to the home of hardship , where the numbers live , and I am the more discontented , —disaffected , if you will , —for the luxury which is vain for these ray countrymen in the multitude . Even in the mansion they talk of the danger of speaking out these things to the working classes : now , I do not enjoy wine and cake if I must whisper while I eat , lest the hungry multitude should find me out in my pleasure . I am not so humble , Masson ; I have not
the heart . Therefore , so far as my voice can reach , I will say to these enjoyers of a precarious luxury , to those sufferers under needless hardship , to those chaw-bacons " trespassing" on the land they till , and to those dwellers of unwholesome towns , and to such as you whose special business it is to have knowledge , that this is an unsound state of things , unsafe , not necessary , not pious ; that it cannot last , and ought not : that the sufferers by it will one day find it out , and that , before they do , we ought to take counsel on the modes of turning to better courses , gradually and smoothly . Meanwhile , I will not take part in hushing up the truth .
I cull not for " redistribution of wealth , "—I know the wealth which exceeds the wealth of former days has not been taken from a defrauded industry , hut has accrued through mechanical and tcconomical improvements—all that is true . But I way it is not the wholu truth . I do not demand the abnegation of " property . " I recognize property as the needful protection of industry ugainst that disturbance which would not only rob it of its fruits ,
but in so doing rob it of its motives . What I say is , that in the actual condition of things , industry is not allowed to do its utmost , that property is inarude and imperfect state , that wealth is made by haphazardmuch of it made to waste , much of it which is needed to eke out the means of the poor is not created . And , in order to find the issue for that unhappy and unsafe state of things , I insist that we must
look beyond that empirical science which confounds the natural laws ol ceconomy with its mistakes , to the natural needs , opportunities , and capacities of our race . Art can never depart from Nature , but can only develop and multiply the use of natural resources . And in looking thus back to natural standards , I say we must search until we come to such great primary facts as this one which I have pointed out in my present letter ,
namely—That the land of England is withheld from the people of England : that those who profess to hold it in trust exercise their trust so ill that they are forced to confess even their own " distress : " that the unnatural arrangement is practically condemned as bad by the broad facts that our agriculture lags behind the progress of our day , that the dwellers of towns are needy and comfortless , and that the so-called " science" of this licensed chaos covers up its own imperfections , and scrambles over its difficulty by audaciously stigmatizing an unnumbered portion of the people as " surplus . " Ever yours , Thornton Hunt .
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564 ©!> * ILtalftX , [ Saturday ,
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[ IN THIS DEPARTMENT , AS All OPINIONS , HOWEVER EXTREME , AllB AIXOWBD AN EXPRESSION , THE EDITOR . NECESSARILY HOLDS HIMSELF RESPONSIBLE FOR NONE . ]
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Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 7, 1850, page 564, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1852/page/12/
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