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    article in which it seem 9 to urge the Ministers to what they have by very alarming symptoms evinced themselves to be too much inclined to ; the introduction of a measure for the suppression of tbe Trades' Unions . Now it would be wise , if , before they commit themselves to a course of nolicy of which they cannot doubt that the consequences would be most

    serious , they would consider well the character of the step which they are exhorted to take . It will be received as neither more or less than a declaration to the working people , that is , to about four-fifths of the whole population , that the Government is their enemy ; that it is determined to keep them doum ; to keep them for ever poor , dependent , and servile , trainpled into the earth under the feet of their employers .

    We speak not , of course , m these terms , of anything which may or may not be done or attempted , for the more effectual prevention of violence , threats , or personal annoyance , when employed , as by many of the Unions they are said to be , to deter labourers from working for employers who do not comply with their rules . Against all such infringements by a part of the working population upon the just liberty of the remainder , the most effectual security ought to be taken ( if it does not already exist ) which is compatible with another liberty not less sacred ; the right of the working classes , not

    only to concert with one another , either for raising wages , or for accomplishing- any other end which they are permitted by law to pursue individually , but also to sanction their compact by giving free utterance to the disapprobation which it is natural they should feel towards those whom they consider as traitors to their caste ; and the expression of which should be no further restrained by law , than the expression of the most just horror at any undoubted crime is restrained by the laws of most civilized countries ; namely , by not being permitted to amount to personal insult or serums molestation .

    But any attempt to confine the liberty of combination among workmen within narrower limits than these , is systematic tyranny ; and the feelings of unconquerable resentment and abhorrence which it would most surely inspire in the whole of the labouring population towards the governing classes and the existing institutions of their country , would be natural and excusable .

    How could they view it , but as a measure of hostility taken against them as enemies by a superior caste , whom they regard , often most unjustly but often too truly , as actuated by the most hardened selfishness , and by all manner of evil teeling ; s towards them ; and whose grand object they believe to be , while living sumptuously on their labour , to withhold from them any but the scantiest share of its'produce for which they will consent to work ?

    In vain would the employers , and their organs in the press or in Parliament , put in requisition doctrines of political economy , true indeed , but which they themselves only half understand , to this effect , that combinations never in reality keep up the rate of wages . What then ? The working people are entitled to try : unless they try , how tre they ever to learn ? You , their employers , have not been wont to show either so infallible a wisdom , ° r so pure and disinterested a zeal for their interests , that you should expect them to take the proposition on your word , on the word of the adverse

    party . And we have yet to learn what you have done to assist the cultivation of their understandings , and the formation of vigorous intellectual faculties which should enable them to discern without trial what modes of bettering their condition are practicable and what are chimerical . And in 'ruth how could you impart what has never yet been imparted to you ? Miow us an occasion on which the higher classes have ever received , except through the lessons of bitter experience , any political truth opposed to the * l | £ gestions of their direct and immediate interest , and we will allow them to complain of the absence of similar perspicacity in the labouring classes .

    » Ve cannot conceive any conduct much more discreditable , though unhappily in perfect keeping with the mode in which the world is habitually governed , than this : altogether to neglect the promotion , by such means

    Untitled Article

    The Trades Union * . 247

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1834, page 247, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2632/page/15/