a leading position in the iron trade, declared to the Trades' Union Commissioners that he would never consent to reduce puddlers' wages below 7s. 6d., and that he should prefer the present rate of 8s. 6d. to be the minimum. 'I do not wish,' he very justly remarks, 'ever to see a puddler working at a less. rate of wages than he is at the present time, even though, unfortunately, the price of iron should have to be reduced; because the moment you bring a class of men like the puddlers, who are very hard-worked, below a certain rate of wages, that moment you rid the community of the best men.'

'I believe,' remarks an iron-moulder, that nothing but England's well-paid artisans maintained our position during the great struggle and crisis of revolutions on the Continent. And you will recollect further, that at the moment when the Chartist agitation was going on in the country, their cry was, "Only pull down the artisan class of the country to the level of the labourer, and the charter would have to be granted."

In a remarkable speech delivered in the House of Commons on the 7th July, 1869, and subsequently republished in a pamphlet with additional statistical details, by Mr. Thomas Brassey, Junr., who, as our readers may be aware, has a hereditary title to practical experience of the conditions of labour in some of its most stirring skilled departments during the last twenty years, we find the same disinclination expressed by one versed in the profitable employment of labour to regard the mere figure of money wages as decisive of the cheapness or dearness to the employer of the labour for which those wages are paid. Mr. Brassey maintains unhesitatingly that, daily wages are no criterion of the actual cost of executing works or carrying out manufacturing operations. In the construction of the Paris and Rouen Railway, where some 4000 Englishmen were employed, though these English navvies earned 5s. a day, while the Frenchmen employed received only 2s. 6d., it was found, on comparing the cost of two adjacent cuttings in precisely similar circumstances, that the excavation was made at a lower cost per cubic yard by the English navvies than by the French labourers. the Delhi and Umritsur Railway, it has been found, as I am informed by Mr. Henfrey, my father's resident partner in India, that, mile for mile, the cost of railway work is about the same in India as it is in England, although the wages, if estimated by the amount of daily pay, are marvellously low.'

On

Mr. Lothian Bell is cited by Mr. Brassey as having given in a recent address read at a meeting of ironmasters in the north of England, the result of his investigations as to the cost of smelting pig-iron in France, which he said distinctly established the fact

that

that more men were required to do an equivalent quantity of work in France than in England.

Taking into account the saving in respect of fuel, the cost of producing pig-iron in France was twenty shillings, in some cases even thirty shillings, more than that exhibited by the cost-sheets of the manufacturers at Cleveland. So too, Mr. Hewitt, an American ironmaster, stated that the price of iron was one pound sterling per ton higher at Creuzot than in England. And M. Michel Chevallier, in his introduction to the Reports of the Jurors of the French Exhibition, says, that rails are from twenty-five to thirty francs dearer per ton in France than in England. To the same effect, Mr. Lothian Bell says that whereas labour in Westphalia costs from twenty to twenty-five per cent. less than with us, the labour-saving arrangements are much neglected; and a ton of iron smelted in the Ruhrort district cannot be produced for less than fifteen shillings a ton above the cost upon the Tees. A similar difference is shown in the price of the rails recently purchased for the Mont Cenis Railway, the price of which at the works in France was from seven pounds twelve shillings to eight pounds per ton, while the price in England was seven pounds per ton. In proof of the conscious inability of the French ironmasters to compete with our manufacturers in an open market, I may mention that the import duty in France on rails is two pounds eight shillings per ton.'

The twin assumptions that there is no principle of justice applicable to any rate of wages which may be agreed to between employers and labourers, and no permanent interest influencing the employers of labour to respect any such principle, or regard any rule towards the employed but that of paying their labour at the lowest rate at which it can be constrained to sell itself, would certainly constitute, if they were but a little better established on facts, a moral apology more than adequate for any coercion the employed can put on the employers. On such assumptions there is room for no other than belligerent rights in the relations between employers and employed. The next task is to show that the belligerency of the Unions has on the whole been successful. And to show this another enormous assumption is called in aid-viz., that every rise of wages in the various branches of industry of late years has been directly or indirectly due to the action of Trades' Unions.

Mr. Thornton indeed admits that every protracted strike of late years has been unsuccessful in its object. He admits further that every protracted strike must be unsuccessful, if only the masters hang together with the same tenacity as the men. Evidently therefore a strike, or the threat of a strike, on the part of the men can effect its object only in cases in which the masters

do

do not think it worth while to oppose lock-outs to strikes. Then the question arises-Can all the cumbrous and costly machinery of national, nay international, labour leagues—really be required to constrain masters to yield points to their men which the latter are resolute to obtain, and which the former are not resolute to refuse? Mr. Thornton himself, in one of those lucid intervals, the recurrence of which in his writings throws the suspicion of artistic artifice on the Rembrandt shadows of other passages in them, acknowledges that Masters are generally fond of peace and quietness. Their hearts are in their business pursuits; they are eager to be doing, and dislike proportionably to be checked in mid-career. They are in consequence so averse to industrial strife, and incur so much inconvenience and risk so much loss by engaging in it, that, great as have been their past concessions for tranquillity's sake, they would not improbably concede a good deal yet, if they could believe that any concessions would suffice, or could see any end to the exactions continually practised on them.'

Mr. Thornton asserts roundly that, it is indeed notorious that in all trades whatsoever in which Unionism prevails, the Unions have of late years been able materially to raise wages.' This involves, as we have observed, the assumption, that wherever wages have risen, they have been raised by Unionism. But, as a matter of fact, wages have not risen, of late years in all trades whatsoever in which Unionism prevails.' It is stated by Mr. Brassey, and the statement is confirmed by an unimpeachable Unionist authority, Mr, George Potter,* that between 1851 and 1861 no advance took place in the wages of the engineers, though theirs is the most powerful of the Trades' Societies; but in the case of the boiler-makers wages rose from 26s. to 32s. 6d., in consequence of the extension of iron ship-building, and the great amount of iron bridge-work.'

Mr. Brassey cites the evidence of Mr. Moult, the Secretary to the Master Builders' Association of Birmingham, before the Trades' Union Commissioners, that of the 900,000 men employed in the building trades not more than 90,500 were members of the Trades' Unions; and that while the Trades' Unions professed to aim at securing uniformity of wage throughout the country, yet the wages of masons varied in different parts from 4d. to 7 d. per hour, the wages of bricklayers from 44d. to Sd., and those of carpenters from 4 d. to 8d. per hour. These figures conclusively prove the fallacy of the idea that Trades' Unions can secure for their clients an uniform rate of wages,

* Contemporary Review,' June, 1870, Art. 6, above cited.

irrespective

irrespective of the local circumstances of the trades in which they are engaged.'

Who, indeed, can imagine that the rise of wages during the last twenty years in the building trades has been due to the stupid savagery of the Manchester Bricklayers' Union, or to Messrs. George Potter and Co's. periodically replenished windbags, and abortive though stubborn strikes in London? The reason why wages in the building trades had risen is sufficiently explained in the following answer of Mr. Trollope, the eminent London builder, to the Trades' Union Commissioners-'I am bound to say that hitherto there has been such an enormous pressure for work, that almost every man who can handle a tool has been taken on at an unreasonable rate.' 'Again,' says Mr. Brassey:

'Speaking of the advance in wages in the building trades in the provinces, Mr. J. Mackay, an experienced agent in my father's employ, says in a report he has made to me on the subject-" Wages have risen during the last twenty years from 20 to 25 per cent.; but, by the force of circumstances, they would have risen as much or more if Trades' Unions had never existed." To the same effect, Mr. Robinson, the Managing Director of the Atlas Works, Manchester, in his evidence before the Commissioners, says "I do not think the Unions have altered the rate of wages; the changes are rather due to the demand for labour in particular branches."

'Statements,' says Mr. Brassey, 'have been widely circulated, and largely accepted by the public, to the effect that there has been a greater advance in the wages of operatives in recent years in England than in the corresponding period abroad; this increase being, it is alleged, entirely attributable to the powerful organization of the Trades' Unions. Whereas on the contrary, "the advances which have occurred in the rate of wages abroad prove that, without the introduction of Trades' Unions, and solely in consequence of a greater demand for skilled labour, through the development of manufacturing industry on the Continent, the wages of the working classes have risen more rapidly than in any industry in this country."'

Mr. Brassey cites in support of his statements on this head the official correspondence with Her Majesty's missions abroad which had been published before the date of his speech. We find these statements further corroborated by the subsequent publication of the Reports from Her Majesty's Diplomatic and Consular Agents respecting the condition of the Industrial Classes in Foreign Countries.' Mr. Phipps reports to Lord Clarendon, on the position of the artizan and industrial classes in Würtemberg, that 'the average increase in the rate of wages in eight branches of industry during the last thirty years amounts to from 60 to 70 per cent.' In the building trade in

particular,

particular, 'in the case of masons, bricklayers, carpenters, and painters, may be observed a remarkable rise in the rate of wages of 80 or 90 per cent., to be accounted for simply by the unusual activity in the building trade during the last twelve years, especially in the capital. The wages of a mason or bricklayer are, at present, 3s. to 3s. 4d., and first-class workmen receive even more.' Würtemberg has hitherto rejoiced in combination laws as rigorous as any that ever existed in England, and has not yet learned to rejoice in the equally rigorous code of Unionism for its opposite objects. Yet these objects seemed gained more effectually in Würtemberg without Unions than in England with them, in those trades in which the extraordinary rise of wages in late years has been set down unhesitatingly to the artificial operation of Unionism.

The pessimism of Mr. Thornton's representations of the sheer unmitigated selfishness of all actual and all possible relations between labour and its employers-so long as labour shall continue simply to be paid wages-is made with artistic contrast to lead up to the optimism of his fancy pictures—which blossom at length into rhyme-of Labour's Utopia in the future, when labour shall be conducted (and land also, it would seem, cultivated) under conditions of purely co-operative association— 'destined' in time to beget, at however remote a date,' something superior to itself'-and that something a healthy socialism. But he adds (and here, at least, we agree with him) that for the forthcoming of such offspring it is indispensable that there be no violent shortening of the natural period of gestation.' The natural period of gestation of a healthy socialism must be protracted indeed! In the meantime the whole course of modern civilization seems running in the direction of giving ample room and verge enough for the pioneer operations of a healthy individualism. The cabin and rifle of the latest emigrant to the backwoods are human nature's protest against all artificial socialisation.

Mr. Thornton would be content to rest for awhile, and be thankful, at the half-way house to his industrial Utopia of pure co-operative association (which, as we have seen, is itself only to be regarded as a half-way house to the millennial beatitude of a healthy socialism), which he considers as provided for our present poor and purblind workday world by industrial partnerships' between employers and workpeople.

With reference to the various modifications of this system, the Trades' Union Commissioners, in their eleventh and final Report, have expressed themselves with a wise reserve on the shape assumed, in some few instances with success, in France and in