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bearing of late facts upon two of my former warnings, in reminding my readers, first, that we have been under the management of Ministers, who, rightfully or wrongfully, wisely or unwisely, have changed the spirit of British policy; who, in doing this, and by their mode of doing it, have given great offence and, as far as can be yet discovered, have achieved no beneficent aims, but have created or exasperated bitter enmities in three quarters of the globe; who, in the pursuit of this course of action, have increased expenditure heavily and enhanced taxation somewhat, though how much no one can predict and few have the courage honestly to calculate, but enough at least to change a surplus into a deficit;—and who (which is to our more immediate purpose), in acting thus and entailing these consequences on the country, have been supported, cheered, hounded on, and glorified, not only by the residuum,' but by a majority of those electors whose ignorance, thoughtlessness, and excitable temperament I ventured to point out as valid reasons against too hastily endowing them with that electoral franchise which in the judgment of all Liberals they have so sadly misused.

The second point relates to the various dangers which I enumerated as threatening the economic and productive supremacy of Great Britain, unless our artisan classes could be warned and moralised in time. These warnings were unhappily disregarded for the most part by those classes themselves, and made light of or absolutely denied by too many not only of their professional leaders, but of their more sanguine advocates and advisers among philanthropic natures. The probability of foreign rivalry was not believed in, or was treated as at least distant and problematic; the alleged deterioration of British labour was stoutly contested; in the undeniably unfortunate disputes between the workmen and their employers it was maintained that the former were generally right or that the objects they aimed at were at all events desirable and probably attainable; while it was confidently urged that the artisans might be trusted to understand and manage their own interests better than their masters could do for them. The experience of the last two years, and more especially the disastrous proceedings of 1878, have lowered the confident tone of the soberer among the workmen's friends, and brought about, more speedily than I had hoped and far more painfully than I could wish, a recognition of many facts once noisily denied, and justified assuredly nearly all the neglected warnings of Cassandra. The state of trade has been stagnant, gloomy, and disastrous in the extreme, and it cannot be denied that much of its deplorable condition has been immediately traceable to the specific causes which I pointed out as so ominous in the approaching times. But still less can it be controverted-indeed it is almost universally admitted-that this condition has been enormously aggravated by the almost incredible blunders and perversity of the working classes themselves, all the more disheartening because

the true facts and bearings of the case have been fairly and anxiously laid before them by friends whose sincere and well-proved sympathy should have secured at least a patient hearing.

It has been shown by practical proofs and special instances that the possibility and even imminence of foreign competition in more than two or three of our established industries, which I asserted some years ago, has turned out anything but unreal or exaggerated. It is needless, and would perhaps be tedious, to cite examples or to go into details; they are notorious to all who have followed the disturbances and conflicts which led to such ruinous losses and so much ill-blood during the last year. Orders and contracts, which might have given adequate, and possibly even profitable, occupation to our artisans, had over and over again to be declined by capitalists here, and were taken up in continental countries, simply because the men, while fully recognising the disastrous state of trade, obstinately refused to accept adequate reduction in rates of wages which were legitimate and possible only in prosperous times, and virtually insisted on a selfish and unjust exemption from sharing in the misfortunes of their employers. It has proved ineffectual to remind them that the loss of orders and contracts, thus caused and thus begun, means in the end, and probably an early end, the loss of the entire trade thus rashly played with; and that foreign rivals, thus gratuitously despised, will not readily give up what our folly has once thrown into their hands.

Similar incomprehensible and suicidal errors have pervaded the proceedings of nearly the whole of the artisan classes during the past year, and, curiously enough, of many of the best paid miscellaneous labourers as well. Some of their most energetic friends have endeavoured to persuade and enlighten them, but hitherto almost entirely without success. Strikes have been all but universal; at least, they have been the rule rather than the exception. They have been attended by two peculiar features, both condemnable, but one certainly, though not quite unprecedented, never so general or so prominent or so incontrovertible as of late. The first is, the extent to which the funds of the Unions have been lavished on strike-pay,' I might say unwarrantably lavished, because the original intention of these funds was to lay up resources for interrupted employment, or 'bad times,' or failure of earnings during sickness or accident, though often no doubt, of late especially, levies from wages have been ostensibly made and avowedly collected distinctly for the purpose of supporting trade disputes and strikes. The amount of these funds thus wasted must be reckoned by hundreds of thousands of poundstaking in the whole, perhaps by millions. To this extent have the

We have no reliable means of knowing the aggregate amount of the funds collected by these Unions, nor the mode of their expenditure. One of their principal defenders, however, has given some figures which show how large they must be. VOL. V.-No. 27. 3 I

savings of the operatives been simply thrown away; the operatives themselves impoverished and disheartened, and prevented from in time becoming capitalists, which some at least of them no doubt must have looked forward to.-The other feature is, that these strikes against a reduction of wages (here and there even for an advance, incredible as it may seem) were almost universally and obviously hopeless, and usually recognised avowedly as such by the leaders of the workmen themselves. They had no justification whatever, not even a plausible one, nor, as far as could be discovered, any distinct meaning whatever. The mere fun of fighting seemed to some the motive cause. Other less charitable observers were inclined to regard the real causa causans to be the necessity felt by their official chiefs for assigning in action a presentable reason for their own existence. But without recurring to any such discreditable suggestion, this much at least is certain, that while, in times of brisk trade and large demand and scanty supply of labour, strikes are often warrantable and usually successful-if indeed differences between the contending parties are then suffered to reach the point of strikingstrikes in periods of stagnant and unprofitable business like 1878, when mills, and collieries, and furnaces, and foundries by the score are stopped or put upon short time, are foredoomed to failure, and are therefore self-condemned. In a word, they indicate and establish one of three conclusions-often and probably all three; either grievous misguidance of the artisans by their advisers; or, that the artisans have altogether escaped from the control of their recognised leaders; or, as is more frequently the case than is believed, that the wiser counsels of the older men have been overpowered by the rashness of the younger unmarried men, who either do not remember or have refused to profit by the experience of former struggles and the sufferings they entailed.

The more buoyant of the critics who contested my former warnings, even while admitting the basis of truth they might contain, insisted that they were unwarrantably over-coloured; that the people were growing wiser and better educated year by year; especially were becoming rapidly conversant with sounder notions of political economy; that I had no right to appeal to past blunders as indicative Mr. George Howell states in a recent article in Fraser's Magazine, that the expen diture of four of the greatest of these associations in 1877 reached 215,6647., ' exclusive of strike-pay' he says. Of this 126,000l. or more than one-half was distributed to men 'out of work.' The accumulated 'funds in hand' of these four societies he states to be 446,3237. The payments which produce these funds are said to be only 1s. a week per head, and the strike-pay to vary from 108. to 158. (Fraser's Magazine, January 1879.) The great masons' strike in London, which collapsed after a conflict of thirty weeks, began, it is reported, with a special levy of 3001. a week, and a balance in hand of 15,000l., and after spending, it is calculated, about 50,000%, has left nearly 500 men permanently out of work. (Capital and Labour, March 20, 1878.) Another return, but evidently an imperfect one, gives 250,0007, as the annual income (aggregate) of the larger Unions.

of future ones; and that the new generation would be certain to bring a more sensible class of operatives to the front. To a considerable extent I shared these hopeful prospects, though less sanguine than most as to the rapidity or thoroughness of the advance predicted. I confess now to sad and heavy discouragement. Never during the experience of a generation and a half can I remember to have seen the artisans throughout the length and breadth of the land acting so entirely in defiance of common sense and right feeling, and with so total a disregard of plain and repeated warning. This may be said of the employés in nearly every branch of industry-spinners and weavers, colliers, dock-labourers, iron-founders, builders, shipbuilders, engineers, and a host of less important avocations. Labourers, perhaps even in want of a meal, will be idle rather than accept 28. 6d. where they have been accustomed to earn 38. 6d. Nay, much more than this: they have constantly resorted to lawbreaking and outrage in order to prevent fellow-workmen more sensible, peaceful, or nearer to starvation from availing themselves thankfully of the earnings they had spurned. They have forced inaction and want upon thousands who were eager and clamorous for offered employment simply because they needed to be fed. In many places, and systematically in Liverpool, in Sheffield, in Blackburn and Durham, they have carried on their contests by unscrupulous intimidation (which is naked cruelty and injustice) because only by such means could strikes under existing conditions be sustained. Even this is not all: the roughs have been let loose against the property and persons of the employers, and violence and incendiarism have prevailed on a formidable scale in districts where such scenes had previously been almost unexampled. This is a harsh and positive indictment, but who can say that it is in any particular overcharged? And what has been the object and significance of it all? Simply, in naked exactitude, because these artisans, who we hoped were so advanced towards better sentiments and sounder views, were determined not to bear their portion-usually a moderate as well as a deferred portion-of those disastrous times and grievous losses which had hitherto fallen exclusively upon their employers, but which those employers felt unwilling and often unable longer to sustain. How, under this combination of disheartening spectacles, are we to keep our confidence in the timely wisdom of our operatives, either to make head against the foreign manufacturing rivalry which lies before us, and which every year becomes more severe, or to use soberly and righteously the growing power which is being put into their hands? As to the first question, do not let us deceive ourselves as to its precise bearings. I am not prepared to contend that the general depression under which we are now suffering is not primarily a reaction from the sudden inflation which preceded 1873, and that it may not therefore soon pass away. I will not even doubt that in spite of the

competition of energetic rivals rising all around us, and of the shortsighted protectionist legislation which has been resorted to in order to foster it, England may still for many years be able to keep her manufacturing productiveness and exports up to the level they have attained. But this, as I pointed out some years ago, will not be enough, or nearly enough. We need not only to maintain our present height in these respects, but to advance year by year. England's continued prosperity is dependent upon her continuous progress. Her population augments at the rate of about one per cent. per annum. If the well-being of those increasing numbers is to be secured, her industrial production must increase pari passu, and her commerce and her exports must go ahead in the future as they have done in the past. She has reached her present wealth by maintaining her industrial supremacy. It will not suffice to keep where she is; she must continue to advance as she is used to do; that is, to keep in front of the trade of the world. But even this statement does not comprise the whole gravity of the position. Year by year our imports are increasing at a very rapid rate, and those imports are purchased and paid for by our exports. Now of these a larger proportion every year, consists of articles of food. I am not, as many are, inclined to feel or to affect alarm at this dependence on foreign lands for our supplies. On the contrary, I feel enhanced security in the vast extent of the area from which we draw them. But

2 Mr. Caird, the great authority on these subjects, writes as follows (Landed Interest):- The progressive increase of foreign supplies during the past twenty years (1857-78) is marvellous. The value of foreign cereal and animal food imported into the United Kingdom has increased from 35,000,000%. in 1857 to 110,000,000l. in 1875. The greatest proportional increase has been in the importation of animal food. Living animals, meat (fresh and salted), fish, poultry, eggs, butter, and cheese, have risen (1857-76) from 7,000,000l. to 36,000,9007. per annum. More than one-half of the farinaceous articles imported, other than wheat, are used in the production of beer and spirits. When the price of meat in this country, about fifteen or twenty years ago (1858-63), began to move steadily up, rising in a few years from 5d. to 7d., 9d., and even 12d. a pound, enterprise, with skill and capital, were called into rapid action to meet the growing demand. . . . The cost of transporting live animals from great distances is obviously considerable. This could be abated by the importation of fresh meat, and by the aid of specially contrived steam conveyance large quantities of fresh meat have come from America during the colder part of the year. The Americans are greater consumers of meat, man for man, than the English. The English producer has the advantage of at least 1d. a pound for cost and risk of transport, as against his American competitor -an advantage equal to 4l. on an average ox. Of this natural advantage nothing can deprive him, and with this he may rest content. In 1868, the foreign supplies of the principal articles to the people of the United Kingdom were 20 per cent. (onefifth) of the whole. In 1878, it has become 40 per cent.; as regards wheat we now receive our bread in equal proportions from our own fields and from the foreigner. . . . In the United Kingdom we appear to have approached a point in agricultural production beyond which capital can be otherwise more profitably laid out than in further attempting to force our poorer class of soils. It has become cheaper for us, as a nation, to get the surplus of the richer soils of America and Southern Russia, or India. A valuable return of the Board of Trade called for by Sir George Balfour, gives the following figures of the consumption per head of imported articles of food

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