On this page

• Text (2)

  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.

  • 

    Untitled Article

  • 

    Untitled Article

• 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

    peatedUr presented ta public notice , it has not hitherto been adequately developed in any part of Great Britain . The Trades " Unions , are still sectional local , limited powers . Last week , however , an important meeting was held in Glasgow , upwarda of sixty delegates being present , from the trades of that city , of Aberdeen , Dundee ,, Ayrshire , Stirlingshire , and other districts—upwards of twenty trades being represented . It was unanimously resolved to form a federal union , with a view to put an end to the mischievous results arising to all classes of the community from the forced

    idleness of the working classes , whether they " strike , " or are " locked-out" by their employers . As is remarked by Mr . Aubxandjsb Campbeuj , the immense amount of wealth consumed , and the immense amount of production prevented , during the last twentyfive years , by " locking out" and " striking , " would have sufficed to carry the legitimate objects for which the Trades Unions contend . An enormous power is deposited with the working classes ; but they never use it . They are Kke men- attempting to raise some ponderous block of stone—the burden of their

    lives . One is straining at the task , while the others are at rest . The engineers are on strike and starving , while the spinners are humming in the mills . The miners are in a state of collapse , reconciled , by hunger ,, to- low wages , truck payments , false weights and measures , and despotic overseers , while the carpetweavers , perhaps , are preparing for a social ¦ war of three months' duration . That system will never prosper . They must combine their methods * of defence . They must agree and

    act together . They must get rid of the fallacies that oppress them . They must work in concert , men and women , engineers and milliners , sempstresses and pitmen , because the class that , generally speaking , has placed itself in antagonism to them , without being formally organized , has discovered certain set maxims , by the enunciation of which the sympathies of the public are abated . Thus , it is their practice to object that all organizations of labour are attempts to interfere with

    the laws of the social economy , with competition , with supply and demand , with the natural operation of food upon wages , and wages upon food . "Now , we know that capitalists have frequently combined to put a check upon competition .. An obvious example was the Booksellers' Association , for keeping up the trade price of books . It was established to enforce the principle that retail dealers should not be supplied with certain , commoditiea unless they sold those commodities at uniform prices determined by the wholesale dealers themselves . This is

    one illustration out of many ; and , in the face of it , who has a right to deny the propriety of Trade Unions for Trade purposes r As to that deceptive , fiction , quoted by economists as the law of supply and demand , we have learned how demand may be forced and supply curtailed , by the arts of the bondholder , by holding back , by tampering with the processea of production and exchange . Wo have seen ten tons of meat destroyed to keep up

    the high price of provisions in a city market ; we have discovered how far this sort of jug-§ ling is in operation ; and we detect it inuencing the trade in every species of commodity-, and when capitalists resort to these profitable artifices , some audacity is required to impugn the position of self-defence assumed Dy the working tradeB . " We are in the presence of certain facts , of which one or two suffice by way of explanation . How is it that i « m thousand needlewomen are employed in thia metropolis for fourpence-halfpenny per day—the day being from twelre to fifteen hours long ? How is

    it that ten thousand , slop-women Mind or stupify themselves by working : for starvation wages ? How is it that one-fourth of the masons' trade is out of employment for three monthain the year ? That , a bitter winter may drive away dock-labourers to the workhouse —the representative of apoor-law disgraceful to our civilization ? That the working classes throughout the three kingdomsespecially those in factories and mines—are

    exposed to the frauds of the truck syBtem , to false weights and measures , and prices higher than the prices of the general market ? That workshops are unhealthy , that defective steamengines are -worked to a dangerous pressure , that machinery is not fenced and guarded , that the employed classes suffer under a multitude of grievances and restrictions , and derive no benefit whatever , as a body , from the increasing prosperity of the nation ? illustra

    The Bleaching Works Bill is an - tion . It has been rejected , of course , because it was a workman ' s , not a master ' s bill . Mr . Cobbett affirmed and proved that he had known young girls to be employed at times from sixteen , eighteen , even twenty hours day , in an atmosphere varying from ninety to a hundred and thirty degrees . It has been shown that they frequently work , halfnaked , in the bleaching inferno , until they are compelled to run , or are carried out , to lie down for refreshment on the cool earth . We

    have no desire to use exaggerated language ; but we say , this is the tyranny of the Pharaohs : no industrial object whatever can be alleged in justification of the murderous practice . The opponents of parliamentary interference completely stultified themselves by asserting that the hours of labour in the bleaching works were less than those which Mr . Cobbett proposed to allow , and by arguing , at the same time , that such , short hours would injure the trade . He should have said " diminish the bleachers' profits ;"

    whereupon we say , that to employ a growing girl in a poisonous atmosphere , for even twelve hours a day , is irreligious , inhumau , and criminal . If a majority of the employers in this trade have the work performed in the open air by well-clothed , well-fed , well-housed girls , who labour only seven hours a day , why should they object to put down the unfair and rapacious competition , of men who , by their own admission , are the scandal of their class , and who get the sama amount of work

    out of half the same number of workwomen ? Admit that the bleaching of linen or calico is a peculiar process which must sometimes be carried on uninterruptedly for four-andtwenty hours . It could be done by relays . But the employer may do what he will with his own , and the girls are his own , for they enjoy neither free will nor the salutary control of their friends . The one thing needful is , to bleach the linen , and the skin of the poor workwoman is blanched to tho jpallour of death .

    The working classes , who have their millions in savings banks and tho funds of friendly societies , who have their unions , their journals , their places of assomMy , can . certainly help themselves , if they have the will and the resolution . In the annual report of the National Association of United Trades of London , it is said , " Tho general result has been to maintain intact tho rights and

    privileges of all tho members of the association , while so many othor trades and associations have suffered so severely in wages , hours of labour , and general treatment . " It is oven shown that the operations of this league have had n marked effect upon the condition of tho labouring class in Cheshire . That is a distinct and positiyo result . But results of incomparably greater voluo would follow from tho JPederal Union

    agreement ,, and combined action of the working trades throughout the three kingdoms . The movement commenced last week in Q-lasgpw is very important .

    Untitled Article

    peerage which would enable them to place in the Upper House of the Legislature persons of such classes as were peculiarly acceptable to the official body ; and since we must look forward—at least for a time—to an alternation of Whig , or Tory , or mixed Ministries , we may suppose that the House of Lords will be recruited by Whig , Tory , or half-and-half Life Peers ; somewhat undermining tho independence of the Upper House , and rendering it more ductile to the official class . Again , it has

    HALF-PAY KISHOPS . It is- a curious characteristic of the . present Ministry , which is not . a Reformed Ministry , but only one to continue the war and " to carry on her Majesty ' s Government , " should have aimed in one year at more innovations on the constitution of the present day than any other which we have had . for generations . It is . true that the changes have not been such as materially affect tho body of the people , but they have been in one peculiar direction , which it is important to note . Ministers have introduced Life Peers—that is , a sort of

    been proposed to modify the position of Bishops by permitting them to resign—a total innovation on the theory and actual constitution of the episcopal office . The office , it must be understood , is in theory not conferred by the Crown , but is conveyed from Bishop to Bishop , in what is called the apostolical succession . The Crown be

    permits a particular person to appointed Bishop , but he is actually " elected" by the Dean and Chapter of his diocese , as the most apostolical personage , and he becomes a successor of the apostles . Now , it is proposed by the present Government to set aside this apostolical succession ; and after a man has been , a successor of the Apostles , to unmake him , and return him into private life .

    Thus , besides altering the constitution of the House of Peers by the admission of Life Peers , the present Government has undermined the Church by declaring that tho apostolical succession is subject to be set aside by the secular authority . It is not for us , of course , to dispute that official view ; but how materially it alters the position of the Church of England ; how strikingly it places that Church on an equality with any Dissenting body in the country !

    ! Nor can it be said that these changes arc without practical consequences ; quite tho reverse ! The life-peerage innovation could of course only bo worked out by degrees ; but it would most decidedly tend to bring the hereditary notables of the country more under the control of the bureaux . Tho new plan would also tend to place tho Church more under the control of tho Executive . Tho last point is important , not only from its spiritual bearing , which must ' not go for

    nought , but for its political and social bearing . If a Bishop is getting old , and finds tho exercise of hia duties irksome , ho will be able to retire to leisure and a pension . So far good ! Wo seo no reason against tho arrangement . It is very proper that public servants should retire upon pensions , and a mean policy in such matters is never more for the real interest of states thau of individuals . But let us ohservo how thia will work with referonco to tho Executive . The

    clergy of the country aro a species of missionaries preaching respect for tho powers that ho—most usually in a reactionary sonso . It is in this that tho official clergy of tho English Church differ from tho Dissenting clergy . Their solo ground of superiority over Dissenting clergy baa consisted iu tho

    Untitled Article

    ggg r pa ^ LEA 1 > B IL [ No . 3 aQ » 8 AiTOJDAYa

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), July 19, 1856, page 686, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2150/page/14/