Great insecurity results, in some cases, from a misconception of rights and duties. Every member of a community claims for himself the right of fixing the value of his own labour, but while doing so, many are disposed to forget that it is accompanied by the duty of permitting all others to exercise the same right for themselves. Labourers have an unquestionable right to combine for the purpose of raising their wages, and if they confined themselves to the assertion of their own claims there could be no possible objection thereto; but, unfortunately, such associations, while asserting their own rights, generally forget those of others, and compel men who are fully satisfied with their wages to quit work, on pain of being excluded from all fellowship. In the United States, such combinations have existed at various times, but to a small extent compared with England. In the former they have rarely produced acts of violence, and they have never been of a character to entitle them to much consideration. A reason for this is to be found in the fact that the demand for labour is generally so great, that men do not remain long in the town in which a strike has taken place, and there is not the same opportunity for the production of irritation leading to violence. In England, disturbances of a very serious character have resulted from this unfortunate misconception of rights and duties. "Acts of singular atrocity," says Dr. Ure,* "have been committed, sometimes with weapons fit only for demons to wield, such as the corrosive oil of vitriol dashed in the faces of the most meritorious individuals, with the effect of disfiguring their persons, and burning their eyes out of the sockets with the most dreadful agony." In other places, it has been necessary to garrison houses and mills, and the persons and property of their owners were in imminent danger of destruction.† Populous districts have been for * Philosophy of Manufactures, p. 283. + "The demonstrations of vengeance, carried into effect in some instances, have at times forced the masters to arm themselves-to garrison their houses and mills, and have placed a whole district in a state of siege, with all the disorganization of social ties incident to civil warfare. No man was safe-no family secure from midnight disturbance; shots were fired into the rooms where it was believed the master had his resting place. By day, he had to use every precaution to avoid falling into the hands of an infuriated mob-his family reviled, hooted, and hissed wherever opportunity offered; no wonder that feelings of bitterness were roused against those who thus wantonly violated all the forms of decency and justice."-Gaskill, Artisans and Machinery, p. 280. years in a state of confusion and excitement.* In others,† it has been scarcely possible for decent people to walk the streets. Assassinations have taken place on several occasions. Such proceedings are destructive of the true interest of those concerned; they lessen the power of production, and diminish the proportion of the product retained by the labourer. In both countries security is affected by the existence of privileges confined to certain classes. Thus, in England, the desire to preserve game for the use of those classes, has led to the passage of laws which forbid the farmer from killing or selling that which fattens upon his land. It leads to the formation of preserves, guarded by spring-guns and man-traps, in which the innocent are as liable to be taken as the guilty. The gamekeepers go armed, and rencontres, resulting in death, are of not unfrequent occurrence.§ In the southern States of the Union, the existence of slavery produces effects precisely similar. The proprietors will not brook interference with their rights, and death has, in several instances, resulted from the attempt having been made. These occurrences have, however, been almost altogether confined to the new States of Mississippi, Alabama, &c., in which population is widely scattered, and in which the habit of submission to the law has scarcely yet obtained. "At no period during the last seven years, has the district (Manchester) been without the confusion and excitement of turn-outs, caused by these associations." -Wade, Middle and Working Classes, p. 276. +"Our streets (those of Amersham,) at night used to be in a state of great disorder. As a constable, for two years I was constantly three or four times a week out of bed to quell disturbances. Decent people could scarcely pass through the streets after dark.”—First Annual Report of Poor Law Commissioners, p. 276. "It transpired on the trial that the prisoners had no personal ill-will to Mr. Ashton, but had undertaken his assassination in consideration of receiving £3 68. 8d. each-ten pounds in the whole-from the Trades' Union, to which Mr. Ashton had become obnoxious."-Companion to the Newspaper, Vol. II. p. 191. "A more ferocious system of hostility has prevailed in many game preserving districts, between squire and clown, landlord and labourer, than is acted in open war, by any civilized belligerants. "The poacher is led to offend by a powerful temptation, and driven to desperate resistance by the dread of the consequences in the event of apprehension; his violence begets violence again on the other side; or each, anticipating it in the other, resorts to it before the occasion arises, and thus the parties spring at each others throats, in the manner of animals prompted to a mad conflict by natural antipathy."-Fonblanque, England under Seven Administrations, Vol. I. p. 123. In both countries, when outrages have been committed in defence of the property thus recognised by law, it is exceedingly difficult to cause punishment to follow the offence. In England, the nomination of the magistrates has always been in the hands of the aristocracy*—the preservers of game-and in the southern States, it rests with the aristocracy, who are the owners of slaves. In neither case is there much disposition to punish those who have executed summary justice. Freedom of action has never been interfered with in the United States. Every man may travel from north to south, from east to west, without a passport, and without visiting police offices, as required on the continent of Europe, and without consulting overseers of the poor, as has until recently been required by the poor laws of England. There are no apprentice laws, and a man may change his trade as often as he thinks proper. There are no corporations possessing exclusive privileges, so that he may exercise any trade in any place that he thinks likely to yield him a proper return for his exertions.§ In an advertisement of the sale of a crown estate, by order of the Commissioners of Woods and Forests, we find the following: "The owner of this manor and lordship (Havering atte Bower,) has the sole nomination and appointment of two of the magistrates, the tenants within the manor and lordship appointing the third, who exercise an exclusive jurisdiction, the magistrates for the county at large being prohibited from acting within this lordship.”— Fonblanque, I. p. 192. + We exclude from consideration here the question of slavery, proposing to notice it fully on a future occasion. In many of the States, taxes have been most unwisely imposed upon those avant courriers of civilization—the pedlers. In some cities and towns, laws are enforced against hucksters. These are the remains of old modes of thinking, that will, it is to be hoped, soon pass away. “No cause has, perhaps, more promoted, in every respect, the general improvement of the United States, than the absence of those systems of internal restriction and monopoly which continue to disfigure the state of society in other countries. No laws exist here, directly or indirectly confining men to a particular occupation or place, or excluding any citizen from any branch he may, at any time, think proper to pursue. Industry is, in every respect, free and unfettered; every species of trade, commerce, and professions, and manufacture, being equally open to all, without requiring any regular apprenticeship, admission, or license. Hence the improvement of America has led not only to the improvement of her agriculture, and to the rapid formation and settlement of new States in the wilderness; but her citizens have extended their commerce to every part of the globe, and carry on with complete success even those branches for which a monopoly had heretofore been considered essentially necessary.”—Gallatin. "If he be a subject in all that concerns the mutual relations of citizens, he is VOL. II.-5. In England, on the contrary, a constant strife has existed as to the right of settlement, and immense sums have been squandered in law proceedings, to determine whether parish No. 1 or No. 2 should support the unfortunate pauper; and even when a demand for labour existed,* so much apprehension has there been of permitting a settlement to be gained, that it has been customary to limit engagements to eleven months, in order that, before the expiration of the year, the man might be returned to his parish to take up a new departure in quest of employment. Uncertain of obtaining the means of subsistence elsewhere, and certain of support out of the poor rates at home, the indolent had every inducement to remain, even when there existed a reasonable prospect of employment abroad.† In some cases corporate privileges prevent him from exercising his trade, or calling, in a particular place, without the pay free and responsible to God alone for all that concerns himself. Hence arises the maxim that every one is the best and sole judge of his own private interest, and that society has no right to control a man's actions, unless they are prejudical to the common weal, or unless the common weal demands his co-operation. This doctrine is universally admitted in the United States.”—De Tocqueville, Vol. I. p. 80. "The enterprising man who has fled from the tyranny and pauperism of his parish, to some place where there is a demand and a reward for his services, is driven from a situation which suits him, and an employer to whom he is attached, by a labour rate, or some other device against non-parishioners, and forced back to his settlement to receive as alms a portion only of what he was earning by his own exertions. He is driven from a place where he was earning, as a free labourer, 12s. or 148. a week, and is offered road work as a pauper at 6d. a day, or perhaps to be put up by the parish authorities at auction, and sold to the farmer who will take him at the lowest allowance."-Report of Poor Law Commissioners, p. 86. "The Rev. R. R. Bailey, chaplain to the Tower, who has had extensive opportunities of observing the operation of the poor laws in the rural districts, states: 'I consider that the present law of settlement renders the peasant, to all intents and purposes, a bondsman! he is chained to the soil by the operation of the system. Very frequent instances have occurred to me of one parish being full of labourers, and suffering greatly from want of employment, whilst in another adjacent parish, there is a demand for labour. I have no doubt that if the labourers were freed from their present trammels, there would be such a circulation of labour as would relieve the agricultural districts.'"-Mr. Chadwick's Report. "If higher wages were offered from a distant parish to the labourers in your parish than they now get there, do you not think they would move out of it?— No, I am quite sure they would not, because, in addition to the usual parish relief, they have a very large charity there: it is some lands bequeathed in Edward the Sixth's time, for the repairs of the church, the roads, and the use of the poor. We expend that portion with relation to the poor in clothing, and coals, and rents, ment of a heavy fine.* In others, the mode in which the business shall be performed is restricted,† while in others, the construction of the machine to be used is the subject of regulation.‡ In other cases, the quantity of time to be devoted to labour has been restricted, and thus laws have been repeatedly passed fixing the hours of employment, under the title of "Factory Regulation Bills," justly characterized by Dr. Ure as "an act of despotism towards the trade, and of mock philanthropy towards the work-people who depend upon trade for support." At the present time efforts are being made to obtain the passage of a law limiting all factories to ten hours, the workmen believing most absurdly that they can earn as much by ten hours' labour as they now do by that of twelve.§ They have, most and some in educating their children. At times it occasions desperate swearing to get settlements in the parish, and at all times it is a very great hinderance to people going out of the parish. I do not blame them for remaining in the parish, and sticking to their settlements; I should do so myself, if I were in their place." *“The toll_paid upon every non-freeman's car entering the city at Holborn bridge, and the other city bars, is 2d. each time. For liberty to ply for hire in the city, it is necessary to obtain a license from Christ's Hospital, and to belong to the Carmens' Company. Within the last few days, (February, 1836,) the following iniquitous charges have been wrung from John Sumption, a poor carman :"License from Christ's Hospital, £ 6 6 0 "Freedom of the city £5, with fees to the officer of the court £9 118., "Freedom of the Carmens' Company, 17 4 14 11 0 31 9 8 £53 4 1 "At the Thames police office on Wednesday, the captain of the steamboat Adelaide, which has recently been running between Hungerford market and Greenwich, for the conveyance of passengers, to the great injury and annoyance of the Thames watermen, was fined £5, under a law of the Watermens' Company, for acting as master of the steamboat, without being duly approved and licensed by the Watermens' Company. It is further understood that this verdict will go to put a stop to any further steam conveyance to Greenwich, as it is the intention of the Watermens' Company not to grant a license to any steamboat which shall only run to Greenwich.”—Westminster Review, July, 1834. "The insecurity of the wherries that ply for hire on the Thames is notorious; yet if a waterman wish to build a safe boat he is compelled to petition the Navigation Committee to be allowed so great a privilege."-London Review, No. V. p. 79. § At a meeting of the working men and their friends, held November 25, 1833, London and Westminster Review, April, 1836, p. 42. |