to earn only seven shillings a week, adds to his income one shilling and sixpence or two shillings for each child whom he can bring to the manufactory and by the united wages of the family a moderate subsistence may be eked out.*

As a counterpart to the injustice long practised by the masters against the operatives while the combination laws existed, we are now afflicted by attempts at equal injustice on the part of the operatives against the employers, in the form of trades unions. These are great combinations of the working-classes, by the rules of which each workman contributes a portion of his wages to a general fund, to be employed in supporting their interests against those of their masters. They resolve on terms and rates of wages; and if the masters do not comply with them, the operatives strike work, are supported out of the collected fund, and subject their employers to all the losses naturally attendant on the suspension of their business.

Combinations of workmen are legitimate and beneficial as long as they are conducted on moral principles; but many of them, in their constitution and action, are not so, but are engines of oppression. Some of them, for instance, insist on limiting the number of apprentices who may be received into an establishment, allowing only one apprentice to a certain number of journeymen employed. This is a clear infraction of the rights of the young, who are seeking to enter a trade by which they may gain their bread, and of the rights of the masters, who have a just title to employ that class of persons best suited to the purposes of their manufacture.

Not only so, but the unions persecute, sometimes by waylaying and beating, and almost universally by annoying and ejecting from their workshops, those individuals among themselves who decline to join in their combinations, and who are satisfied with the terms offered to them by their employers. This course of action is tyranny and oppression, an outrage on the rights of the operatives themselves, as well as on those of their masters, and it cannot benefit those who pursue it.

The operatives are clearly entitled to combine and to

*Recent legislation has corrected this evil by limiting the age at which employment may be entered upon, and by applying educational tests.-ED.

collect a general fund for the protection of their own just rights, but they are not absolved from the obligations of the laws of God or from the consequences of infringing them. The moment they endeavour to promote their own class-interests by injustice and the denial to others of the right of self-judgment, they become tyrants, and force all good men to resist them. By such conduct they infuse the elements of inevitable evils, of ultimate disappointment, and dissolution into their associations, and no human sagacity can save them from these consequences.

A practical faith in the doctrine that the world is arranged by the Creator in harmony with all the faculties, the moral sentiments and the intellect governing, would be of unspeakable advantage to all men; for they would then be able to pursue with greater confidence the course dictated by moral rectitude, convinced that the result would prove beneficial, even although, when they took the first step, they could not distinctly perceive the issue.

In

Dugald Stewart remarks that Fenelon, in his "Adventures of Telemachus" makes Mentor anticipate some of the profoundest and most valuable doctrines of modern political economy, respecting the principles and advantages of free trade, merely by causing him to utter the simple dictates of benevolence and justice in regard to commerce. Fenelon's day, such ideas were regarded as fitted only for adorning sentimental romances; but they have since been discovered to be not only philosophical truths, but beneficial practical maxims. This is the case, apparently, because the world is really arranged on the principle of the supremacy of the moral and intellectual faculties, so that when men act agreeably to their dictates, the consequences, although they cannot all be foreseen, naturally tend towards good.

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CHAPTER XII.

THE MORAL LAW AND LABOUR.

IN the whole system of the education and treatment of the labouring population, the laws of the Creator are either neglected or infringed. Life, with this class, is spent to so great an extent in labour, that their moral and intellectual powers are stinted of exercise and gratification, and their mental enjoyments, in consequence, are too much confined to the pleasures afforded by the animal propensities. Their existence is too little rational. The chief duty performed by their higher faculties is to communicate so much intelligence and honesty as to enable them to execute their labours with fidelity and skill. I speak, of course, of the great body of the labouring population: there are many individual exceptions of men who possess higher attainments, and I mean no disrespect to any portion of this most useful and deserving class of society; on the contrary, I represent their condition in what appears to me to be its true light, only with a view to excite them to amend it.

Does human nature, then, admit of such a modification of the employments and habits of this class as to raise them to the condition of beings whose pleasures shall embrace their rational natures ?—that is, of creatures whose bodily powers and animal propensities shall be subservient to their moral and intellectual faculties, and who shall derive their enjoyment from the harmonious action of all their powers. To attain this end, it would not be necessary that they should cease to labour; on the contrary, the necessity of labour to the enjoyment of life is imprinted in strong characters on the structure of Man. The osseous, muscular, and nervous systems of the body all require exercise as a condition of health, while the digestive and sanguiferous apparatus rapidly fall into disorder if due exertion be neglected. Exercise of the body is labour; and labour directed to a useful purpose is more beneficial to the corporeal organs, and also more pleasing to the mind, than when undertaken for no other end than the preservation of health.*

*See Dr. Andrew Combe's "Physiology applied to Health and Education," 15th edit., chap. vii.

Commerce is rendered advantageous by the Creator, because different climates yield different productions, and different nations excel in different employments. Agriculture, manufactures, and commerce, therefore, are adapted to Man's nature, and I do not under-value them. But the prosecution of them is not the chief end of human existence, even on earth. Labour is beneficial to the whole human economy, and it is mere folly to regard it as in itself an evil; but in order that it may be enjoyed, it must be moderate in intensity and duration. I say enjoyed, because moderate exertion is pleasure-and it is only the suffering attendant on labour carried to excess which has given rise to the common opinion that retirement from active industry is the goal of happiness.

It may be objected that a healthy and vigorous man is not oppressed by ten or twelve hours' labour a day; and I grant that, if he be well fed, his strength may not be so much exhausted by this exertion as to cause him pain. But this is regarding him merely as a working animal. My proposition is that after ten or twelve hours of muscular exertion a day, continued for six days in the week, the labourer is not in a fit condition for that active exercise of his moral and intellectual faculties which truly constitutes him a rational being. The exercise of these powers depends on the condition of the brain and the nervous system, and these are exhausted and deadened by too much muscular exertion; the foxhunter and the ploughman, after a full day's work, fall asleep when they sit within doors and attempt to read or think. The truth of this proposition is demonstrable on physiological principles, and is supported by general experience; nevertheless, the teachers of mankind have too often neglected it. The first change, therefore, needed for the improvement of the working-classes is a limitation of the hours of labour,* and the dedication of a portion of time daily to the exercise of the mental faculties.

So far from this limitation being unattainable, it appears to me that the progress of arts, sciences, and society is rapidly tending towards its adoption. Ordinary observers appear to conceive Man's chief end, in Great Britain at least, to be to manufacture hardware, broadcloth, and cotton

* Whether this limitation should be compulsory and the result of legislation, or should be effected by each man in his own interest, is a different question.-ED., 1893,

goods for the use of the whole world, and to store up wealth. They forget that the same impulse which inspires the British with so much ardour in manufacturing will sooner or later inspire other nations also; and that if all Europe shall follow our example, and employ efficient machinery and a large proportion of their population in our branches of industry-which they are doing more and more--the four quarters of the globe will at length be deluged with manufactured goods, only part of which will be required. When this state of things shall arrive-and in proportion as knowledge and civilisation are diffused it will approach-labourers will be compelled by dire necessity to abridge their toil, because excessive labour will cease to be remunerated.

The admirable inventions which are the boast and glory of civilised men are believed by many to be at this moment adding to the misery and degradation of the people. Powerlooms, steam-carriages, and steam-ships, it is asserted, have hitherto all operated directly in increasing the hours of exertion, and abridging the reward of the labourer! Can we believe that God has bestowed on us the gift of an almost creative power solely to increase the wretchedness of the many, and to minister to the luxury of the few? Impossible! The ultimate effect of mechanical inventions on human society appears to be not yet divined. I hail them as the grand instruments of civilisation, by giving leisure to the great mass of the people to cultivate and enjoy their moral, intellectual, and religious faculties.

To enable Man to follow pursuits connected with his higher endowments, provision for the wants of his animal nature is necessary—namely, food, raiment, and comfortable lodging; and muscular vigour, intellect, and mechanical ability have been conferred on him, apparently with the design that he should build houses, plough fields, and fabricate commodities. But we have no warrant for believing that any portion of the people are doomed to dedicate their whole lives and energies, aided by all mechanical inventions, to these ends as their proper business, to the neglect of the study of the works, and obedience to the will, of the Creator. Has Man been permitted to invent the steam-engine, and to apply it in propelling ships on the ocean and carriages on railways, in spinning, weaving, and forging iron-and has he been gifted with intellect to discover the astonishing powers of physical agents, revealed by chemistry and mechanics--only that he may be enabled to build more houses, weave more