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    a progressive conviction of that increase on the part of their superiors , can be a sufficient inducement to the proprietary class to cultivate a good understanding with the working people ; to take them more and more into their councils ; to treat them more and more as people who

    deserve to be listened to , whose condition and feelings must be considered , and are best learned from their own mouths ; finally , to fit them fora share in their own government , by accustoming them to be governed , not like brute animals , but beings capable of rationality , and accessible to social feelings .

    But this is a mode of treatment which ruling classes never yet . could reconcile themselves to adopting voluntarily , with those who are subject to them . When they see a power growing up , which is not wholly under their control , their first impulse always is , fear ; their second , anger . The middle classes of London , through their organs the London newspapers , are now manifesting both these feelings , on the subject of the Trades' Unions .

    The Trades' Unions attempt to raise wages ; and must fail in the attempt . What then ? Surely it is highly desirable to raise wages . If it cannot be done by the means they adopt , teach them better means . But when were persons who had committed no crime , ever remonstrated with by any one who meant them well , in the manner which the * Times * has adopted , for instance , on the Tailors Strike ? la that a tone in which to point out to people who are pursuing a desirable end ,

    that the means by which they are pursuing it , cannot succeed ? It is obvious that the writer of the article in this morning ' s paper , is not roused to such excess of indignation because the means which the people are trying cannot succeed ; he would be ten times more angry if they could succeed . He actually compares the Unions to the landlords' monopoly , and complains that the rise of wages , if they could obtain it , would be a tax on the consumer ! Why , so much the better . Let there be no

    force or fraud , but , within the limits of an honest bargain , we are altogether for the bees against the drones . If a person who has a commodity to sell , can , without shutting out competitors , by mere voluntary agreement with those competitors , fix his own price , why should he not ? certainly it is no reason , that the sellers in this case are nine-tenths of the community in number , are ( to say no more ) the least favoured part of it in the present distribution of the produce , and are those who , by

    their labour , produce all commodities whatever . But the misfortune is , that they cannot , by any such contrivances , raise the price of their commodity . No combination can keep up the value of an article , when tne supply exceeds the demand . But instead of teaching them on what their condition depends , those who ought to be their instructors rail at them for attempting to better it . They say , indeed , that it is only , for using wrong means ; but so , from slave-traders upwards , those who wish to keep their fellow-creatures in a degraded condition , always say .

    The tone which we condemn , may be in a great measure the result of thoughtlessness , but it is not the less the index to a habitual feeling . This feeling must be got rid of , or the next generation , perhaps the pre sent , will severely suffer for it . 2 < J May . Sir Robert Heron ' s Motion * and Mr . Bidder ' s Amend ment . —Th * proposition of Sir , Robert Heron , fgr giving to the King

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    Sir Robert Heron ' s Motion . 437

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1834, page 437, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2634/page/55/