THE TYRANTS OF THE LOOM AND SPINDLE.
COMBINATION is. the order of the day. With the exception of the Radical Members of the House of Commons, all classes of men seem convinced, that those only can act with effect who act in concert.
Thus we see, that the Landed Aristocracy combine together to levy a tax upon the food of the whole community, for their sole advantage ; and in this combination they are determined to persevere. At the Buckinghamshire agricultural meeting, held last week at Aylesbury, the Marquis of CHANDOS enlarged upon the necessity of the landowners uniting for the purpose of resisting an attempt that would be made in the next session of Parliament to repeal the Corn-laws he recommended that the Agricultural interest should bestir itself without loss of time; and thtst petitions should be prepared in all quarters, for that the Commercial and Manufacturing interests were on the alert, and it was impossible to say which side of the question MinisLrs might adopt. We believe Lord CHANDOS was perfectly right. There will doubtless be a strong vote against the continuance of the existing Cornlaws : the representatives of trading constituencies, or at any rate all who have not made up their minds to be thrown out at the next election, will combine together for their overthrow. We shall thus behold an example of combination—the Commercial men on one side, the Agricultural on the other—afforded in the proceedings of the Supreme Council of the land. As it is now, so it was in times past. The history of mankind, in all ages and countries, proves the necessity of combination to accomplish purposes of magnitude, whether good or bad. In our own country, the Barons banded themselves together to bully King Jonze out of Magna Charta ; CHARLES the First saw the Throne, the Church, and the Aristocracy, prostrated by the combined energy of the Middle classes ; in 1688, the Nobles and the hurch dignitaries, moving in one phalanx, effected a revolution n spite of the King, and, there is reason to believe, a great majority of the nation ; the Duke of WELLINGTON and Sir ROBERT PEEL yielded Catholic Emancipation to the united Irishmen of the present (lay ; and lastly, the Reform Bill itself was carried mainly by Political Unions. In all these instances, patience and long-suffering, and the righteousness of their cc use, availed the complainants nothing; their united moral and physical energy, brought into action, effected every thing. The leaders of the Trades Unions, and the other combinations of workmen, which cause 50 much anxiety at present, know these facts well. It is not surprising, therefore, that they should strive to obtain their ends by the same means which they see their superiors in rank habitually employ with success. By following the example set them by Catholic Associations and Political Unions, they hope to reap similar results. In this, indeed, they will be disappointed; for it is allowed on all hands, that those branches of trade which are not absolutely carried on at a loss, yield so slender a profit, that any considerable advance in the rate of wages would utterly destroy them. The knowledge of the advantages which union confers has been imbibed too late by the operatives to be of much service to them, —unless a change, extremely improbable, should take place in the mode of conducting business, and the days of high profits should return. The Times, indeed, says that, "from an increased demand for goods, a regular and proportionate rise of wages would follow naturally without any combination whatsoever." But the Times will find it hard to convince the Manchester and Leeds spinners of this. During the past year, the demand for our manufactures has been extensive and regular almost beyond precedent; and yet the masters assert, that the increase of trade has not been attended with an increase of profit, and. that they cannot and will not pay their men the advanced wages which it is the aim of the Trades Unions to wring from them. This is what the masters declare : but the men recollect, that in former times, a brisk demand was always attended with good profits : they recollect, too, that during the war, when the PEELS and MaesHau.s made their enormous fortunes, the work-people were frequently in bitter distress; and that the latter then complained loudly of the small share* of the produce of their labour, which was allotted to them. The reply made by their masters then, as now, was" We really cannot afford it; we are making nothing by our busi * They had, indeed, good reason to complain. The principal witnesses examined by the late Committee on Commerce and Manufactures affirmed, that the wages of the operatives were as high now as during the war, when the necessaries of life were so much dearer. But these dear times were those of vast profits to the men who gave this evidence. It seems plain, therefore, that advantage was taken (naturally and necessarily) of the unprotected state of the workmen to deprive them of their fair share of those profits. ness, the times are so bad." Liut toe wurtaueinittuw Walt wiling these so-called bad times, their masters amassed fortunes which enabled them to take their places among the grandees of the land. It is very natural, therefore, for these partially-informed men to suppose, that the assertions of their employers respecting the rate of profit are as devoid of truth now as they were during the war. It is very natural also for them to suppose that they have only to employ the same means—force, and union—which have prevailed in other cases, in order to compel an acquiescence to their demand: they are determined, in short, not to be bamboozled as their fathers were.
The means which the Unionists adopt to gain their object are some of them fair enough ; others are decidedly unlawful. They have a perfect right, we imagine, to agree among themselves not to work for less than a certain rate of wages : their resolution may be prudent, or the reverse, but they have a right to make it. The case, however, becomes altogether different when they intedsre with the free-agency of others, and compel them to become their unwilling asseciates. In this, as in every other civilized country, threats and violence are punishable by the existing laws. That these laws should be strictly enforced against the workpeople, no prudent man can doubt. But to pass new laws against combination, would be a very hazardous proceeding. The Courier of Monday last has the following judicious observations upon this part of the subject.
" Supposing, as we do, that the law, which derives its force from consent, cannot be very powerful when opposed to the great mass of the workmen, it becomes of great importance to direct it only against what is obviously wrong, and to discriminate between_combination and the acts of injustice to which it leads. We therefore call for a vigorous, but a very careful enforcement of the law. Let nothing be said or done against combination ; for that will convert what is in fact the crime of one or two desperate men into the deliberate and approved proceedings of the mass. Let the Magistrates punish those individuals who interfere with others; let them protect to the utmost the men who choose to work at lower wages; let them punish with the utmost severity of the law every infraction of individual liberty; but let them not excite the whole body of the workmen to take part with a few wrongdoers, instead of supporting the law, by directing it against those mere combinations for which the workmen have a warrant n the general proceedings of their superiors."
In these remarks we entirely coincide : the Government, indeed, had better beware how they say or do any thing against combinations—meaning thereby such associations of the workmen as are not contrary to the existing law, or to the practice of men in the higher ranks of life ; who, as we have already observed, constantly associate together to obtain their own ends ; many of which, to say the least, are to the full as unjustifiable as those which they consider it criminal in their humbler brethren to pursue by the same means.
Reform should begin with the upper classes : we should strive to " make our betters better." Let the Government set an example of yielding to sense and reason, instead of force : let the Landholders abandon their combination against the other classes of society, and give up their mammoth monopoly of bread : let the Shipowners, the West India merchants, and the other great monopolizers, cease to conspire together for the attainment of their own sectional and anti-national purposes : and then, perhaps, they may preach with effect to misguided mechanics, and legislate with decency for the repression of Trades Unions. At present there is scarcely any party or description of men in Parliament who can come to the discussion of this subject with clean hands.
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