On this page
-
Text (2)
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
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.
-
-
Transcript
-
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.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
SOCIAL REFORM . EPISTOL . 7 E OBSCVRORTJM VIBORUM . XVIII . —Lb Droit au Travail , No . 3 . To Thornton Hunt , Esq . Bawden , near Leeds , Nov . 20 , 1850 . Dear Sir , —In my first letter , I attempted to affirm the duty of the Capitalist , and the fact of its frequent non-fulfilment ; in my second , the fact of his punishment for this non-fulfilment , and the duty of society not to be contented therewith , but to strive to remedy its consequences . At the risk of wearying you with repetition , I fear I must , before entering on the subject of this letter , briefly recapitulate the arguments by which I arrived at
these conclusions . It is the duty , I said , of every man to work , for life ' s task is work , and it is his duty to fulfil it : bul ^ many men are robbed of this right , because being landless and stockless , having neither land nor capital , they cannot employ themselves , and no one will employ them ; they do not do their dutythey do not—because they cannot work , because they have themselves no power of working , nor means to live while working ; and those who have
will keep to themselves , will not share with them this power and this means . Therefore , the labourer has a claim upon the Capitalist for employment—( in the term Capitalist , I here include both landowner and stockowner , the former being almost always also the latter)—it is his duty to employ him because he has the power , because his possession of the means of employment keeps them from the labourer ; the labourer is wronged if the Capitalist does not do his duty ; but he does not do it because he will not or cannot , because he fails through selfishness or ignorance . But , if one
man be wronged by another , he has a claim upon society to see him righted ; the business of society is to right the wronged ; men associate—band together in society—in order that , by the protection of the rights of all , each may be able to fulfil his duty , and in order that by means of its Government , which is , or ought to be its organ , each may best do his part in protecting his brother from wrong ; therefore , it is the duty of Government to redress the wrongs of the labourer . But though his forced idleness—that is , these wrongs—may be the immediate result of the mistake or misdeeds of
some individual capitalist , yet his claim is not on that individual alone , because it may happen , often does happen , that he has no power to satisfy this claim , —his power is lost by its misuse , its loss is the punishment of the misuse . But this punishment of the capitalist does not indemnify the labourer ; on the contrary , it makes him unable to indemnify the labourer . The claim of the labourer , therefore , is no longer on the man who cannot , but on
those who can , employ him , —no longer on the individual who has ceased to be a capitalist , but on all who yet remain capitalists . It becomes their duty to give him the means of working , inasmuch as they alone possess those means ; and their title to this possession rests on their fulfilment of this duty . And it is this claim , therefore , which it is the business of society by the agency of its Government to enforce . If it cannot make the individual
employer remedy the consequences of his fault or error , —and often it cannot , for in the first place he is hard to find , and , if found , he is for the most part found to be incompetent—made so by the eternal Nemesis , —then , I say , it becomes its business either to find a fresh employer , or , if it cannot , to turn employer itself—that is , to tax capital for the means of employment , to force the capitalists no longer to monopolize these means , to do their duty by ceasing to keep from their brother the power to do his .
But , granting this to bo the business of Government , it by no moans follows that it will do it , even if it would ; for it may be that it cannot—cannot , cither because it is in itself impossible , beyond all power of Government , or because it is difficult beyond its present power , in other words , its wisdom .
Impossible I will not believe it to he , till Government tries its best and fails : but dillieult it doubtless is . Hut does not this difficulty lie , not so much m the hardness of the task as in its dangers , or , rather , the fear of what men suppose must be its lungers—the fear of causing one evil while trying ; o remedy another ? And this brings me to the uibieet I alluded to in my last , viz .,, the mistakes of
the labourer : they , too , are a cause of his misery . If in trying to remedy the mistakes of the employer we tempt the employed to make mistakes , we do more harm than good ; for the harm is a certainty , and the good but a problem . As to these mistakes , no one , surely , can doubt their existence or their penalty—that they are made , and make pauperism ; or , if any one does doubt , let him study how pauperism is made , inspect its manufacture , and he will soon learn—to use a manufacturer ' s simile—that if the selfishness or folly
of the capitalist be the warp , the recklessness and improvidence of the labourer is the weft of the piece . In a word , let him serve as Poor-law Guardian on any union board , and he will be forced , as I have been , to admit that even if capital were omniscient and upright , perfect in knowledge and intention , yet pauperism , though diminished , would not cease ; the sluggard would not regain the moral , nor the drunkard the physical strength which he has wasted ; nor the deserted wife and children the husband and father who has left
them . But do I feel that these misdeeds of the paupers themselves , or of their natural protectors , neutralize their claim upon society , or relieve it or its Government , or me , as its member , of responsibility ? By no means ; they change , it is true , the nature of the claim , but they do but strengthen its force . Far be from the hearts of my fellows all pity of my sorrows , or forgiveness of my faults , if , when a miserable vagrant be brought before me , the
helplessness of whose folly has left him by the wayside , or the hunger of whose desires has driven him forth to wander—ay , even if this hunger have devoured the food of his children , and of the mother who bore them , —if I could say , or feel 1 could say , to him , " Thy blood be upon thine own head , my brother , I am clean . " Because , alas ! I cannot heal his wounds , nor dry the fountain of his blood , am I therefore clean ? I must first wash my hands in tears of sympathy , and it may be of bloody
sweat . Putting aside all metaphysical notions which , denying man ' s free-will , and asserting his actions to be the result of the force which God has given him , working upon and worked upon by the circumstances wherein God has placed him , would replace blame by sympathy , and believing the sin of the individual to be the burden of the race , would limit punishment to prevention , by interpreting the responsibility of the sinner to society for his sins , to . mean the duty of society to help him to bear his share of the burden—seemingly so
unequal . Disregarding , I say , all such abstract dogmas , yet how often , how universally , are the misdeeds of the pauper , whole or in part , the sins of society rather than of the individual , —the pauperism , seemingly self-inflicted , really the burden which society has placed upon his back . Work is at best uncertain to the workman , his wage as uncertain as the prize of the hunter—can we wonder that he has a hunter ' s recklessness ? If he has the circumstances , will he not also have the feelings of a savage ? Nay more , can we wonder at his sloth ? Industry is an art needing practice for perfection ; its habits are not formed in
a clay ; every hour that we keep the workman " play" we lessen his capacity for work , make toil more toilsome to him . Again , we leave his senses a prey to all physical pain , and yet complain if he yearns after sensual pleasure—forgetting that the senses , asserting their own existence , will rebel against injustice . Noisome exhalations infest his dwelling , caused by our selfish neglect or shortsighted greed ; they sicken his frame and paralyzo his strength , so he strives to forget them in the fumes of drink . What should we do in his place ? or could we fiy from such a home as we have made for him , which is no home , is not habitable--should we not do so ? Above all , making his
mind the battle-field of our miserable quarrels , we hedge him of !* from the tree of wisdoin , and yet tell him to eat the fruits of his folly . While we leave him surrounded with bodily pains and material cares and sorrows , we take from him all power to forget his body in his mind ; his mind is frozen , it cannot warm itself , and we , who have the fire , keep it to ourselves j we keep him untaught , and blame him for his ignorance ; in a word , we put our burden on bis back , and then tell him it is no burden of ours—that it is his and
his alone . But we cannot make good our wordy . If this burden be his , his property , it is at least propeity in which we are forced to be Communists ; grant that the labourer commits sins , his sins of
commission are , alas ! often ours of omission , and we must sympathize with him in their punishment ; we are forced to feel with him , if not for him . Nor is this sympathy with his suffering a new fac t—it is old as the suffering itself ; but our consciousness of it is new , and its novelty is a chief ground of hope for the future . Sanitary improvements by the Government—national education—this very call on the State to find work for its subjects which we are now discussing—they are all at once the signs and results of this social sympathy . But in evincing this sympathy , one truth must be borne in mind , one caution remembered , or its expression will be useless , if not harmful ; the truth , that no man can bear his brother ' burden for him , even though forced to bear it with him ; that not even society can relieve any one of its
members of his share ; the forgetfulness of this truth seems to me the besetting sin of the Socialists , the chief fault both in their practice and principles ; inducing them to incite individuals as members of associations , or to call upon the community , as the association which nature has already formed , to aim at impossibilities which the laws of humanity forbid man to grasp . I cannot bear my brother ' s burden for him—I cannot take it from off his shoulders on to mine , however much I may yearn to do so , or feel that as I helped to put it on I ought to do so , or think that as my back is stronger it is more fitted to bear it . It is his burden—he must bear it , or be overborne by it ; death alone can take it off : if I try to do so I fail , I do him no good : and if I succeed in persuading him that I may do him good , I do him harm ; for in so far as he relies on me , who cannot help him , he ceases to rely on himself , to seek help where alone it can be found ; if I hold out straws to him , and tempt him to stop swimming to catch them , he will sink , or , rather , I shall drown him . All diminution of selfreliance , of determination to help himself is so much diminution of strength . But if I can diminish his strength I can also add to it ; no matter how he came to bear the burden , there it is , he cannot shake it off , I cannot take it from him : but this I can do , I can give him greater strength to bear it . If I have strength myself , I can give him strength—give , and be no loser ; for energy is like love , it returns with interest to the giver . This , then , ought to be my object , to help him to help himself ; or , rather ,
my object should be , my duty is , twofold : first , to try to keep the burden off my brother ' s backto prevent it ever falling on him ; secondly , if it be there , to encrease his strength to bear it . His will is his strength : so , then , we ought to seek to give the labourer not only the power of working , but also the will to work—not only the means of employment , but also the strength to use those means .
will , doubtless we do harm ; and it is the fear of doing this harm , which frightens us , we say , from the fulfilment of our social duty to find work for the workman . But I hold this cause of fear to be a bugbear , or a pretence . The real reason for our fear lies elsewhere , deep-seated in the slothful selfishness of our hearts—not the fear of the danger of doing our duty , but of the trouble or the sacrifice .
True , the duty must be performed with a regard to the danger ; in remembering the right of the labourer , in calling on society to do its duty to him , we must not tempt him to forget his duty to society ; but , depend upon it , in ensuring his right we should make his duty easier and plainer—plainer , because the punishment of neglecting it would seem more certain . In a word , the enforcement of the droit an travail would ensure idleness its punishment , as well as industry its reward ; and so , while securing the power of working , it would also give the will to work ; for it would make the workman willing , because both hopeful and fearful . Thus , in trying to remedy the mistakes of the capitalist , we should lessen , not encrease , the misdeeds of the labourer : in striving to remove one cause of pauperism we should also remove another . But there is yet another cause of pauperism which , if it be a mistake at all , is rather a mistake of the
race than of the individual , the result of the infraction of a law of human nature , which human miture , under certain circumstances , is sure to infringe . I had hoped in this letter to have attempted to define the meaning of , and the means of keeping , this law—the iron law of population ; but the postman forces me to stop . —Yours truly , W . E . FOKSTEK .
Untitled Article
830 Q £ ft $ & tat ! fit . [ Satohday ,
-
-
Citation
-
Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 23, 1850, page 830, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1860/page/14/
-