In their opposition to the system of piece-work, and in giving no encouragement to diligence and superior skill on the part of the workman, trades unions are wholly in the wrong. As an advocate of liberal wages for an equivalent in work faithfully and diligently wrought, I cannot too strongly express my conviction that the future of British industry depends upon our workmen being allowed to give full scope to their natural energies. If their native vigour be repressed by a baneful influence from without, the star of British commerce must soon decline behind that great continent in the West, peopled by our own descendants, and where we see already so many striking evidences of German and Anglo-Saxon energy and enterprise.

The subjugation of the individual to the arbitrary authority of a guild or corporate body is a cherished fallacy of the workmen of all countries. The right of every man to liberty of action, to be sovereign over himself, is absolute and inalienable. In Turgot's famous preamble to the edict of 1776, by which Louis the Sixteenth suppressed the guilds and monopolies established by Colbert, the freedom of labour was asserted in these memorable words :

:

When God created man, a being with many wants, and compelled to labour for his livelihood, he gave to every individual the right to labour; and that right is his most sacred possession. We consider that it is the first duty which justice requires us to discharge, to set free our subjects from all restrictions imposed on that indefeasible right of man-restrictions which deprive industry of the incentives derived from emulation, and render talents useless.

The report of the recent French Commission on the condition of the working classes concludes with a similar declaration.

I have pointed to the pernicious influence of trades unions in restraining the energy of our workmen. But the workmen are not solely responsible for the depression of trade. Neither in the cotton nor in the iron trades can it be alleged that the action of the operatives has been the main cause of the present collapse. The depression in the cotton trade is chiefly due to over-production.

The growth in the productive capacity of our cotton mills can be most accurately gauged by a comparison of the number of spindles in existence at successive dates. A table published in the Statist gives the following figures:

These figures speak for themselves. Within the last seventeen years

alone they show an augmentation of potential producing power of over 50 per cent.

The British manufacturers have gone far beyond their rivals abroad in the rashness with which factories have been multiplied. The proportionate increase may not be so great in the United Kingdom as in some other countries, which were in a singularly backward condition, as compared with ourselves; but, if we take the actual as distinguished from the proportionate increase, we find that we have added 10,500,000, while Europe and the United States have added not more than 12,000,000 to the number of spindles in operation in 1860. Our new spindles, in the seventeen years from 1860 to 1877, are more numerous than all the spindles, both new and old, existing at the present time in the United States.

If the condition of the cotton trade is discouraging, the depression in the iron trade is even more serious. As in the case of cotton, so in the iron trade, high prices led to excessive production. It is obvious that the demand for iron is not capable of being increased indefinitely, however low the price may fall. On the contrary, the more general use of steel must tend to still further limit the demand. It is satisfactory to know that, as producers of steel at moderate prices, our own manufacturers have nothing to fear from foreign competition.

The fact that our iron masters are fellow-sufferers with the makers of iron in every iron-making country is a poor consolation; but it supplies an argument in answer to those who contend that our trade has been ruined by the high price of British as compared with Continental labour. Messrs. Fallows, in their latest circular, state that labour has followed in the wake of prices, and is now lower than it has been for many years past. Iron-workers' wages have been reduced 52 per cent. since 1873.'

It may not be uninteresting to follow up in more ample detail the connection between the rise of prices and the rise of wages. In order of time it will be found that, after a period of depression, prices augment in more rapid ratio than wages; and that, on the other hand, after a period of inflation, the fall of prices is more rapid than the fall in wages.

Prices, like wages, are determined by competition, by the varying relation between the demand and the supply. High profits, however, have much more effect than high wages in raising the cost of production. In raising the price of commodities, the rise of wages operates,' says Adam Smith, in the same manner as simple interest does in the accumulation of debt; the rise of profit operates like compound interest. Our merchants and master manufacturers complain much of the bad effects of high wages in raising the prices, and thereby lessening the sale of their goods both at home and abroad; but they say nothing concerning the bad effects of high profits. They

are silent with regard to the pernicious effects of their own gains: they complain only of those of other people.'

Mr. Lowthian Bell has traced the fluctuations in the cost of the raw materials and the rates of wages in the iron and coal trades in the United States. His narrative supplies a striking instance of the practical working of the law laid down by Adam Smith. Upon the imposition of prohibitory duties a general rise of prices ensued, and the wages of miners rose very considerably; but the increased amount paid in respect of wages constituted a small proportion of the augmented price, which the consumer was required to pay for coals. Fabulous profits were made by the iron manufacturers. The profit on pig iron in a single year was sufficient to cover the cost of the furnace which made it.

In the United Kingdom, the rise in the price of iron, in the year 1871 and the following year, both preceded, and was greater in proportion than, the advance in wages. A table giving the prices of iron and of puddling from 1863 down to the present time has been published in the Statist. It shows that the manufacture of iron by the processes actually in use yields to the working puddler the value of one ton for every sixteen tons which he produces. The investigation established another deduction which, in justice to the workman, it is important to bring into view, namely this, that wages at the present time are at least as low as they were ten years ago. In 1868, when the price of pig iron stood at 6l. 58. 5d. per ton, the price paid for puddling ranged from eight shillings to six shillings per ton. In 1873 the price advanced to 13s. 3d.; in 1878, when the price of iron was 61. Os. 5d., the price paid for puddling was reduced to seven shillings.

In the coal trade, as Mr. Morley has pointed out, wages went up 18. 1d. per ton, while the price of coal at the pit's mouth had gone up by 158. 5d. per ton. The aggregate increase in the earnings of the colliers was calculated at 15,000,000l.; the increase of profits in the corresponding period amounted to 60,000,000l.

The downward movement in the wages of miners, from the inflation of 1873, has been unprecedented, both in extent and in the rapidity of the change. In a recent article in the Times we read:

It is difficult indeed to form even an approximate idea of the extent to which the wages of coal miners have been reduced all round since the trade began a downward course; but the aggregate must be enormous. Mr. A. Hewlett informed the Coal Committee of 1873 that in some of the mines under his charge during April of that year one man was making 24s. 1d. per day, another 26s. 10d. and so on. Mr. Isaac Booth proved that in the Oldham district the average rate of wages had advanced from 78. 3d. to 12s. 11d. per day. Mr. R. Tennant, M.P., quoted figures to show that the average had gone up in West Yorkshire from 38. 7d. to 78. 1d. per ton. In Northumberland, according to Mr. George Baker Forster, there was an advance all round of 66 per cent. Mr. Lindsay Wood spoke to an average rise in Durham from 48. 8d. to 78. 9d.; and in other districts the same, or a still larger, rate of advance occurred. But wages are now on an average below the range of 1871-in some cases they are even 20 per cent. lower; and we shall

therefore be justified in assuming that, taking one district with another, the miners are not now earning much more than one-half what they did in 1873. In Scotland, miner's wages now range from 20s. 6d. to 30s. a day. The average rates in Wales are about the same.

If we allow, with the writer in the Times, an average reduction of only 20s. per week in the wages of each miner employed, we shall arrive at the colossal sum of 25,688,000l. as the annual difference between the earnings of the whole body in the year 1873 and in 1878.

While an unprecedented fall has taken place in wages, the fluctuations in the numbers employed have been equally remarkable. The total number of male persons employed in our coal mines was 370,000 in 1871, 477,000 in 1873, 536,000 in 1875, and 494,000 in 1877.

The privations endured by the working population in the mineral districts, from the sudden fall in wages and cessation of employment, should entitle them to the heartfelt sympathy of the public. The conduct of the ignorant miner must not be judged too hastily. The responsibility for our commercial disasters rests with the capitalists and employers rather than the workmen. The comparatively small increase in pauperism reflects honour on the population, which has struggled against adversity with so much fortitude, and borne without a murmur or complaint such bitter distress and privation.

The discoveries of science are frequently attended with ruinous consequences to large masses of workmen. The Bessemer process has led to an almost complete discontinuance of the use of iron rails. Of the 45,000 puddlers formerly employed in the North of England and in Wales, less than half the number are now at work, and the more extended use of steel must lead to a still further diminution of employment in the iron trade.

In the cotton, as in the metallurgical industries, the rise of wages was not proportionate to the rise in prices in the years of prosperity, and wages have not fallen in proportion to the fall of prices during the subsequent reaction.

When, after a long depression, trade begins to recover, an upward movement in wages will shortly follow. As soon as the first ray of light begins to penetrate the gloom, the operatives hail the promise of improvement with thankfulness. They are not curious to ascertain whether their employers might have given a larger advance; it is sufficient for them that a reaction has commenced. Presently the competition of employers begins to tell on the price of labour, and the advance of wages, already described, commences. The upward movement will probably continue until the advance of wages becomes fully proportionate to the advance of prices. The vigilance of those who guide the conduct of the operatives might often secure a more immediate participation in the improving re

turns from industry. But their influence is pernicious rather than beneficial, when the operatives are urged to make a stand against a reduction, at a time when the interest of every coal owner and manufacturer would be promoted by an absolute and prolonged cessation of production. It is the wrong moment to fight a battle. It is when trade is profitable, and employers would lose money by suspending operations, that an organised pressure may produce concessions to the working people. In point of fact, a reduction of wages is generally postponed by employers as long as possible. It is the last remedy to which they have recourse.

Regrettable as they are, we must look for a repetition of those oscillations in prices and wages which have been so frequent in recent years. Trade has become international in a larger sense than before. The fluctuations in prices depend on the state of foreign markets, and foreign politics, and on the stability of governments, which do not rest on the solid foundations on which our liberal and venerable constitution has been reared. Trade is now organised on such a scale as to admit of the influx of vast and uncertain amounts of loose capital, whenever the course of prices turns in favour of any particular branch of industry, and renders it for the time being exceptionally profitable. As prices and profits vary, so there must be a continual higgling in the labour market. When trade is less busy, wages will fall. We see this occur more frequently in England and Belgium than in France. In the latter country many branches of trade are monopolised by a few large firms, who are not easily lured by an ephemeral prosperity in trade to excessive competition and to over-production. So, too, when the trade is limited to the home market, and goods are chiefly made to order, accumulations of stock will be less frequent than where large quantities of goods are manufactured on speculation, and for the foreign markets.

Many alternations of poverty and abundance have been experienced by the working classes of England during the whole course of the present century. The fluctuations in the wages of hand-loom weavers, as shown in the tables published in Porter's Progress of the Nation, may be examined with advantage by the operatives of the present day, employed in large concerns, carried on by the application of more or less considerable amounts of individual or associated capital. The wages of the hand-loom weavers of Bolton fell from 248. per week in 1815, to 98. in 1817, and 58. 6d. in 1829. Capital tempers the severity of adverse seasons, equalises the condition of the operatives, and shields them from the rude shock of a sudden revulsion in the commercial value of the commodity they are employed in producing.

The accumulation of capital has the same beneficent effect in modifying sharp fluctuations in prices. The operations of speculative merchants, who buy when goods are cheap, and sell when they are