nation Laws were a safeguard; and while it exists-what better, what other safeguard has society against the recurrence of such evils? Would it not have been wiser to wait till that ignorance was enlightened or dispelled? And what reason have we to believe that that period will soon arrive? The artisans of England are not an uneducated set of men. On the contrary, it is the creed of almost all the eminent writers of the day, that they are better informed by far than the agricultural labourers. Still they do not know, it too often appears, their own interest, and it would be presumption in any writer to expect that, after all that has been written on the principles regulating the rate of wages since the days of Adam Smith, and after all the lessons of experience which have been read to them, that his lucubrations, however excellent, should very soon direct their understandings to such a clear and steady perception of the abstract truths of the science as shall stand in the room of law, and at once teach and induce them to square their conduct, under all temptation, to the rule of justice and right reason. Mr M'Culloch then asks how Government can interfere in any question respecting the rate of wages that may arise between master and workman? "Shall Government,” he asks, "apply for information to the masters or to the workmen ?" He says they may as well apply to the workmen, for" that their opinion is just as deserving of attention as the other;" and he says so, immediately after having told us that the workmen are in a state of total and universal ignorance with respect to the circumstances that determine the rate of wages!

It was remarked some years ago, in a paper on this very subject, that "whatever may be the case with an individual, a corporate body has no rights except what the laws may please to give it. Now the workmen of a trade form themselves into an actual corporation,-obtain the complete control of labour in that trade -fix its price-prohibit all persons from being employed who are obnoxious to them-render the capital of their former employers useless subject the poor to severe privations" -and finally, bring on themselves, as it is on all hands allowed, frequent

ruin. It could not be said that the colliers at the Iron Calder Worksthe shipwrights of London—and the seamen of Sunderland had a right to act as they did act; but it is about such conduct as theirs that the question is-and it is not to be settled by any general maxim about the right of property, which, in itself a truism, may, in its application, be a falsehood. "A criminal act can never be generated by the mere multiplication of acts that are perfectly innocent," says Mr M'Culloch meaning thereby to shew, that if one man may, without blame, decline working at wages he thinks unsatisfactory, a hundred may combine to do the same. But this is not sound Philosophy. For there are many actions that change their very nature, under varying accompanying circumstances-and which, when performed by one person, are blameless, or even praiseworthy become, when performed in concert, very much the reverse. Thus it may be very proper for the most pious man to take an evening walk after divine service, on a Sabbath, for the purposes of relaxation or meditation. But were he to collect together all his friends and acquaintances in the parish for the same purpose, the cavalcade would be indecorous, and contrary to the observance of the sacred day. It would be so-even if the whole party marched along the high-road with due regularity and subordinationbut how much would the spirit of each man be necessarily by the very aggregation of numbers changed, so that, without any overt act, the whole party would be violating the spirit of the Sabbath. But is it not more than probable-that, although each individual came, or thought he came, to meditate or enjoy the calm of the day of rest, the entire tone of his feelings would be altered-and that the conduct-that is, the act of the whole-would be the very opposite of the conduct or act of any one individual who had been taking his evening walk by himself, or with his wife and children. A workman, of himself leaving his employer and seeking higher wages elsewhere, is not performing the same act, as when in league or combination with five hundred others. The aim and object of the combination is different-the

means which it employs to effect its object are different-the spirit in which it acts is different-and Mr M'Culloch's maxim or apophthegm falls to the ground.

In our opinion, Mr M'Culloch has grossly exaggerated the bad effect of the Combination Laws on the spirit of the workmen towards their employers-and of the employers towards their workmen. "They taught them," he says, "to believe that there was one measure of justice for the rich, and another for the poor. They consequently set the interests and the feelings of those two great classes in direct and hostile opposition to each other; and did more to engender hatred between the different orders of society to render the masters despotic and capricious, and the workmen idle and turbulent, than can be easily conceived or imagined by those who are not pretty intimately acquainted with the state of society in the manufacturing districts. Instead of putting down combinations, they had the effect of rendering them universal, and to give them a dangerous character. For the fair and open, though frequently foolish and extravagant proceedings of men honestly endeavouring to advance themselves in society, and to sell their labour at the highest price, the Combination Laws gave us nocturnal meetings, secret cabals, and oaths of privacy." The statement is in part by much too highly coloured. That the workmen occasionally were irritated by laws which they did not understand, and generally disliked, is certainly true; that their whole tempers, dispositions, and state of mind, were thus disturbed, agitated, incensed, and rendered fierce and savage, is what cannot be granted by any one intimately acquainted with the character of the working classes in Britain. It is all along admitted by Mr M'Culloch, that the Combination Laws were in truth harmless-or nearly harmless, in as far as the rise and fall of wages depended upon causes altogether out of the power either of workmen or their employers long to control. Now, ignorant of political economy as the working classes are, and long will be, is it not plain, that they never do suffer themselves, for a long se

ries of years, and without any abatement of their feelings, to be exaspe rated by any law, that is not in itself both theoretically unjust, and practically pernicious? A law must bear upon them and their comforts, and pursuits, and pleasures, before we can admit that its influence on the whole temper and character can be such as Mr M'Culloch has described. There are few such laws in this country, but perhaps the Game Laws were of that kind; and they produced such effects. Manyin our opinion, most of the nocturnal meetings alluded to-the oaths of privacy-and secret conjurations, among the idle, the profligate, and the disaffected-were meetings of a very different character-for different objects, and for the concert of very different means. They were meetings of a political charactersuch meetings as will often take place, whether there be Combination Laws or not, in such a country as ours, where, from the very nature of our prosperity, there must be severe fluctuations in the condition of the people-where, from the very nature of that people, licentious as well as free, there never will be wanting dark spirits to aggravate distress by disaffectionand where, from the nature of our civil polity, incendiaries and demagogues are long suffered to plan their nefarious machinations against the peace of the poor, rather than that Government should, in its anxiety to guard the social blessings we enjoy, do in any danger aught to violate that liberty which is our safeguard while we are good citi zens, and a shield even between the agitators of the public peace, and the infliction of punishment on political crime.

It is true, that unjust and pernicious legislation produces the very crimes it cruelly and inexorably punishes. But the Combination Laws, however objectionable, cannot be spoken of by any judicious person, as partaking of that character. The enor mities alluded to must have proceeded from causes altogether unconnected with Combination Laws. Sober, honest, industrious workmen do not become drunken, idle, unprincipled, and profligate, because they are exasperated against their

masters, by laws leaning too much in favour of those masters. Such persons may be dissatisfied, and may act, under the impulse of occasional irritation, more violently than otherwise they would have done-but the evils we talk of were not the sins and crimes of such classes of workmen, but they were chiefly the work of the thoroughly bad, whom the opportunities of the times brought forth into warfare, secret and savage, against the interests and welfare of those whom they pretended to befriend.

But, is any man entitled to say, from his acquaintance with the character and conduct of the working classes, that before the repeal of the Combination Laws, they were possessed with this sullen or ferocious spirit towards their employers? Quite the reverse.

Dr Chalmers, in his Civic Economy, argues, that masters have little or nothing to apprehend from any combinations among workmen. He speaks of a system of prevention, namely, "to engage their labourers for a service of months, instead of weeks or days, and then to put forth a legitimate strength to compel their fulfilment of the stipulated period. To make the security more effectual, they could hire their workmen in separate classes at all separate periods, so that, at the worst, it could only be a partial, and never a universal strike at any one time." This suggestion is not original; neither could the plan proposed be carried into effect without great difficulty and inconvenience, and frequent dissatisfaction on the part either of master or workmen, when, owing to the alternations in trade, the one or the other might be paying or receiving more or less than the state of the trade would, but for the long bargain, have of itself caused. The plan would be a bad one, and could only be resorted to to prevent the greater evils of combination. But better surely to prevent an evil by law, than to attempt it by circuitous, clumsy, and, we must say, impracticable modes of hiring and paying labourers.

But the Doctor maintains, that besides this system of prevention, "such is the plenitude of the master's means for the counteraction of his associa

ted workmen, that he can afterwards find compensation for any losses which he may have sustained by the suspension of his works. Masters and manufacturers can lay an assessment on the wages of the readmitted workmen, or, which is the same thing, can take them in again upon reduced wages, till they have received, by the difference, a complete indemnification for all that they have suffered by the interruption of the manufacture." Nothing more easy than to make such an assertion with all possible seriousness and gravity. But is it not surprising that Dr Chalmers did not suspect that this indemnification was not of such easy accomplishment, when he himself adds, in the very next sentence, that "this has often been held out as a threat, although we are not aware of any instance in which it has been put into execution!"

But Dr Chalmers is determined that masters shall not suffer by any imaginable combinations, and advances the somewhat startling doctrine," that in the mere working of such a transaction, as a strike among workmen-there does naturally and at length cast up a most liberal compensation, I will not say to each individual master, but certainly to the general body; so that their interest, viewed as a whole, does not suffer by it. The master, in truth, is only the ostensible, or at most the temporary sufferer by this conspiracy of his workmen; and if there be any sufferer at all in the long run, it is not he, but the customer. He loses profit for a season; but it is all made up to him by the eventual rise of profit that ensues on the production of his commodity being suspended. This is the well-known effect of a general strike among operatives; it relieves the overladen market of the glut under which it labours, and by the time that workmen at length give in, the manufacturer enters upon what to him is the most enriching of all harvests, the harvest of a brisk demand upon empty warehouses. These cessations are the very calms that not only precede, but ensure the gales of prosperity that come in between them."

Now, suppose this doctrine to be sound-it follows, that the loss which is generally and universally

supposed to fall on the employers of workmen from a strike, falls on the consumer. What the better is society at large of that? The loss is incurred and the main question is, not who bears it, but what is its amount? But Dr Chalmers has not shewn that the additional profits of the manufacturer, when the men return to work, will more than compensate for the loss he sustained by the non-employment of his capital during the strike. He has merely said that profits will rise, because there will be a brisk demand on empty warehouses-and because the cessation of the workmen from labour had relieved the overladen market of the glut under which it had laboured. But what right has Dr Chalmers to assume that the overladen market had laboured under a glut? It had done no such thing; for in most cases, and certainly in the cases to which he alludes, the strike had taken place when there was a great demand, and an inadequate supply, and therefore when the workmen were making high wages. The very reason why the workmen struck was their knowledge of that fact; the knowledge that their work was wanted-and therefore they would not give it except its price was considerably augmented. Had there been a glut in the market, the masters would not have complained of a strike among their workmen surely, but they would of themselves have diminished their number.

But it is altogether a mistake to think that the profits of the masters would be greater in consequence of the strike. The demand had not been supplied-but after the supply again answered the demand, the demand would not be greater because of its former disappointment ofsupply. I do not burn more coals in my family this month, because I had been obliged to burn fewer the month before. I do not wear two pair of shoes this month because I did not wear out one the month before. The consumers are not increased in number-and their wants are the same as before-therefore the demand cannot be greater and the master's profits cannot be greater than before the strike. Therefore there is no compensation

provided for him for the loss sustained during the strike.

Dr Chalmers confines himself solely to what the combiners may suffer-and is of opinion with Mr M'Culloch, that great as that suffering may be, it is better that they should be taught by experience than fettered by law." It is," he thinks, “altogether misplaced and unnecessary for Government to meddle with the steps of a process that will so surely terminate in the very result which it can be the only object of Government to effectuate." That is to say, that it is and ought to be indifferent to Government whether the people suffer frequent and severe distress, since things are so sure to come right again, or whether the natural course of trade and manufactures, agriculture and commerce, be undisturbed, and permitted to proceed by the direct laws by which the interests of all classes are regulated and guarded. So confident is Dr Chalmers in the soundness of all his doctrine on this subject-that he treats it almost in a style of jocularity-and talks of all the distress, misery, and vice and wickedness, that attended the combinations, as mere exercises and discipline, and schooling which it was advantageous to the community that the working classes should endure. "We are aware," says he, " of the spirit which is going forth in succession through the manufacturing districts of the land. But truly, we contemplate the progress of these outbreakings with no other feelings, and no other anticipations, than we should regard the progress of an ambulatory school, whose office it is to spread the lessons of a practical wisdom over the face of the country, and the peace and meekness of wisdom will be the inevitable result. In some places they have acquired the lesson, while in others they are only learning it. The country is still at school upon this subject, and it were a pity she was not permitted to finish her education."!!!!!!!!!

It is admitted by all, that every kind of violence used to force workmen into combinations is unlawful-and by the new act enacted after the repeal of the old lawit is punishable as it is at com mon law." The truth is," says Dr Chalmers, most eloquently, “ the

truth is, "that the workmen require the strongest protection from a still more odious and oppressive tyranny than that which they so often denominated the tyranny of their masters, which is apt to spring up among themselves. We can confidently appeal to the experience of many workmen, whether they ever felt so grievously thwarted and overborne out of their own free choice, as by the terrors of their own association, whose secret and mysterious power wielded a far more despotic sway over their imaginations than ever did the old law in the plenitude of all its enforcements. We venture to affirm that the dread of ruin to their families, and of injury to their persons, has been far more frequently inspired by their new despotism, within these few months, than has been done by the statutes against combinations among all the working classes put together for a whole century. An act for the further protection of workmen from this regime of terror, so far from even the most distant approach to a re-enactment of the Combination Laws, would in fact be tantamount to a grant of additional liberty; and notwithstanding all the clamour and jealousy of the obstinately disaffected among them, would be substantially felt as such by the body at large."

Nothing can be more justly and forcibly said than this; but if such conduct be so deserving of the severest inflictions of the law, so destructive of all freedom, all comfort, and consequently so destructive of the interests of society, what would Dr Chalmers, or any other enlightened man, say of the crime of driving others, against their will, into combinations by another kind of despotism as dreadful as this-and of which the quiet, the simple, the sober, the sensitive, the timid, the home-loving, and the respectable, are in general the victims? That kind of despotism the law, as it now stands, cannot punish or prevent; it works precisely the same evil that Dr Chalmers so indignantly denounces as a fit object of severest punishment. But the combinations are still called voluntary-and every man, forsooth, has a right to the disposal of his own property-his labour-and under the brutal power of such a tyranny he

does dispose of it, often to his own ruin. The old Combination Law guarded workmen against this sort of evil, just as the new law for the protection of workmen affects to guard them against open and direct violence; and if the latter be worthy of Dr Chalmers' most eloquent panegyric, or rather, if in his panegyric he point out the necessity of imbuing the law with a still sterner and more unsparing spirit, on what principle must we withhold our approbation from the old law that had the same object in view, and guarded against both classes of the evil at once?

Not once during the whole of our argument, have we mentioned the Trades' Unions. They have refuted the speculations and assertions of Mr M'Culloch and Dr Chalmers, with other weapons than ours; and have made worse than ridiculous the predictions alike of lay and of clerical prophet. They have smashed all that pseudo-science which was sold to them at a penny a-pound, or given gratis; their "effervescence and extravagance," eight years and more after the recovery of their rights, of which the Combination Laws had deprived them, has got hotter and wilder, and more "grotesque;" the "ambulatory schools" are in more active motion than ever; the country is still attending them, even by night; and does Dr Chalmers continue to think that "it would be a pity she were not permitted to finish her education ?" Some of the aptest scholars-and who had made the greatest proficiency-though not long ago simple clod-hoppers, and still given to the singing of psalms-have most tyrannically been hindered by a Whig Government from finishing their education in this country, and shipped for Botany Bay; though guiltless, says Mr Roebuck, who bounds over an impediment in the way of an argument, as his namesake would a paling in the season of lovethough guiltless of either moral or legal offence. The punishment does, indeed, seem a sorry and savage substitution for that of the mild and merciful old Combination Law. But a fearful field lies before us—and we must contemplate it steadily to understand and describe it.