I am delving into the history of "Western" thought, criticism and rationalism, which arose in the Age of Enlightenment — Protestant thought, which enabled the end of Superstition, and the consequent rise of Freethought, which threatened the end of Authority, Religion and Tradition.
GENTLEMEN who visit clubs and drink sherry cobbler— who read mongrel reviews, always contemptuous of substantial liberty and human rights— may sneer at the " everlasting negro," whose race inhabits one of the largest sections of the globe—who himself never wandered into Europe or obtruded his presence. By a series of crimes unexampled in human wrong, carried off under the Christian flag, and after running the gauntlet of a passage fatal to millions, he stood a barbarian slave for sale, as did the ancestors of Britons in the Roman market.
The bondsman of ancient days oppressed was nevertheless commonly regarded as a man ; but the blacks have been treated only as beasts of burden, and with an injustice inexpressibly unjust. When liberated, they have been expected to display all the docility of affectionate service—to rise at once into all the chaste relations of married life, for which the law itself disqualified them until a period within our own recollection in the British dominions—a law which still survives in all its virulence in the statute-book of America.
The " everlasting negro " is now an offence to his oppressors. He is their perpetual remorse and accusation, and nothing but the gentleness of his nature prevents him from being their terror and their scourge. There are, however, circumstances which break down all forbearance and rouse the dark passions that slumber in every breast, or rather those natural resentments which have often rescued nations from thraldom and constituted part of the animating power of the patriot who has vindicated his country and his race. We confess ourselves to be among THE FANATICS whose sympathies all turn towards this oppressed race— who look upon their oppression with inexpressible detestation— who believe in retributive judgment— and that a day of wrath is reserved for every nation, by which moral laws are violated, and especially where they are violated under legal sanction merely for the purpose of gain.
What has come upon America now has been foretold by her own moralists and statesmen. These " fanatics " predicted that slavery would debase the national character— would ruin the national constitution —would kindle the flames of civil war —and would perhaps one day arm the oppressed against the oppressors. Is there anything wonderful in such predictions or in their accomplishment? The oldest Book in the world tells us of a people who were bondsmen in the land of Egypt. Their masters set the example of that kind of "chivalry" which has been adopted, improved, and aggravated by the American people. Warnings were followed by visitations, and these by heavier, until by and bye the first-born of Egypt had to make atonement for the first-born of Israel. The horror of the increase of the Hebrews upon the Egyptian mind was solaced by the destruction of the Hebrew children. The Hebrew children nevertheless increased as under the power of oppression the African race seems everywhere to multiply. All, however, was in vain. Warnings and plagues lost their terror, and even hardened with their aggravation, until by and bye the "everlasting" Hebrews became the terror of the Egyptians, and thrust them out. But reanimated by their covetousness as well as their contempt, the hosts of Egypt pursued — they overtook — they almost captured—when, descending into the bed of ocean, its waters covered them and they were seen no more.
These are lessons for all time. They are lessons for that great nation now agonizing in the struggle between two great principles— whether these are inscribed upon their flag or not—and the " everlasting negro," as he is called, will rise, perhaps, amidst their ruins and their impoverishment and desolation.
The cry of " fanaticism " does not alarm us. King WILLIAM THE FOURTH, when he first appeared as the Duke of Clarence in the House of Lords, treated the nation to a speech in which the word " fanatics" was prominent.
“Fanatics" was the word applied to those of whom PITT became the legislative leader—who denounced the slave trade of Africa, and put down the accursed thing. WILLIAM THE SAILOR thought the British navy was nourished by the slave trade, and that we should ruin our maritime power if we did not rob Africa of her children. We are old enough to remember the same cry of " fanaticism " against all who were for the abolition of slavery in the West Indies. Who has not read the eloquent denunciations of Lord BROUGHAM, when the missionary SMITH was condemned to death by the "chivalry" of Demarara. It was the fanatics of those times, with whom we rejoice to have been associated, who won the emancipation, we will not say of the African, but of the British Empire, from the thraldom of that system, long supported by our British "chivalry;" defended too often by our ministers of religion, who invented all those commonplaces by which the South at present defends the oppression of the negro race, and which now read to every Englishman like blasphemy. Let any one who doubts this look back to the discussions upon the subject, and they will find that the articles in our leading journals and reviews are, to our national disgrace, simply reproductions of those which, with less criminality because with less experience, were issued by the enemies of man during the heat of our glorious struggle. All who believe the negro race destined to Christian civilisation and the enjoyments of human rights, are treated from day to day with " the everlasting negro." Caricaturists distort his features to hideous proportions in order to play upon the antipathy of race for which Englishmen are renowned. His religious sentiments— the great barrier to his resentment and the balm of his affliction— furnish topics of ridicule, because he expresses the emotions of his heart in the broken language of his down-trodden people. Every philosophical mind acquainted with the history of humanity is aware that uneducated men of all races express with vivacity all their emotions, and that between this fervour of utterance and no feeling at all there are in their case but few intermediate stages. The TROLLOPE'S, and men of that class who talk upon this subject, pander to the base spirit which is as incapable of philosophical appreciation as of Christian sympathy. Why should the negro, because his utterance of his religious feeling is loud and unclassical, be represented as a mere ape, while the same manifestations are seen in every part of the world where religious sentiment is expressed by uneducated men. The result of our over-civilization is not only to disguise the feelings, but to make the outer expression the very reverse often of the inward sentiment. But these are refinements from which the negro race are necessarily remote. We are, however, at the beginning of the end. The idle literature which is opposed to the grandest movements of our times will pass to the trunkmakers, while those who are strenuous for the assertion of human liberty will be remembered as benefactors of their own as well as the African race. The curse of slavery sinks deeply. It embraces all who touch it. It demonises their character ; it makes them not only insensible, but opposed to the claims of right. And yet strange enough the very men who are loudest in their declamations about the brutal instincts of the negro the moment the slave becomes free, expected from such a population as Jamaica the chastity which they do not find in the counties of their own country or on the Continent. Statistics prove this. What is still more humiliating is that the demoralisation of the blacks with respect to their social relations, has not only been regularly organised by slave-holders as a property interest, but promoted— never discouraged by the licentious habits of the whites themselves. Can we in the face of a creole population, everywhere advancing upon the distinct races, pretend that the African is licentious, and the African alone? The rights of these millions of human beings appear to us to be the grand charge upon the sympathy and effort of all mankind. To secure them we have in our own country made a sacrifice, paltry as it now turns out compared with the penalties exacted by Providence in America. We talk of the £20,000,000 we paid for the emancipation of slaves as though we had laid the slave under a lasting obligation. Let it be remembered that this £20,000,000 went to the slave-holder and not to the slave. It was not the price paid by a nation for the ransom of brethren from the hands of aliens ; but the price settled among themselves in composition of a common wrong. That price was well, and, in some of its aspects, nobly paid. Happy for England that it was so. Her prosperity has never been retarded for an hour. The ruin of the sugar plantations, long watered with tears and blood, in Jamaica is a small deduction from the great national account. Had the question been in the hands of the slave owners this price would never have been paid, but the weight of bondage would have been increased with every effort to destroy it. America has had the power of resistance and the will, and now war is exacting not only the first born of the population but millions sufficient to pay the price of every slave under the Stars and Stripes. These are events which can only be interpreted one way, and supercilious and heartless sneers at the oppressed will not retard their Avenger for an hour.
It was the judicial condemnation of JOHN SMITH, who was sentenced to death, that finally destroyed the slavery party of Great Britain. It was the execution of JOHN BROWN, for his ill-judged effort— that of a man driven mad by years of family and personal oppression, but whose heart was full of the noblest aspiration— that ushered the great war now raging in America. It is said that his last act upon earth just before he ascended the scaffold, which was to ensure his name the everlasting remembrance of Africa— was to take from the arms of a negress her infant child and leave upon its brow the last kiss of human affection ; thus signifying the cause for which he suffered before he yielded up his great indignant and heroic spirit.
Mr. Henry Taylor, the Honorary Commissioner of Emigration, gave an address on " The Farm Labourers' Revolt in England." The chair was occupied by Mr. James Weeks. A small book, entitled "Songs for Singing at Labourers' Meetings and Homes," was put into the hand of each person upon entering the Hall, and the proceedings were initiated by all present joining in a song selected from this book. Its opening verses, sung to the tune of "The Fine Old English Gentleman," were as follow : —https://www.youtube.com › watch?v=P7pFP2iQnVU
“Come, lads, and listen to my song, a song of
honest toil,
'Tis of the English labourer, the tiller of the
soil;
I'll tell you how he used to fare, and all the ills
he bore,
Till he stood up in his manhood, resolved to
bear no more.
This fine old English labourer, one of the
present time.
" He used to take whatever wage the farmer
chose to pay.
And work as hard as any horse for eighteen
pence a day ;
Or if he grumbled at the nine, and dared to ask
for ten,
The angry farmer cursed and swore, and sacked
him there and then.
This fine old English labourer, &c.”
He used to tramp off to his work while town
folks were in bed.
With nothing in his belly but a crust or two of
bread ;
He dined upon potatoes, and he never dreamed
of meat,
Except a lump of bacon fat sometimes by way
of treat.
This fine old English labourer, &c.'.
Mr. Taylor, upon rising, was received with loud and prolonged cheers. He said :— I don't apprehend at all any difficulty with you this evening. For the life of me I cannot see what we have to quarrel about, because what I have to say to you is simply a matter of fact — a matter of history, consequently it is not a matter for debate at all. I think I may say that the most important event in the social history of England, and one by no means unimportant to the political life of the mother-country during the present century, is the revolt of the farm labourer ; and when you through your Secretary invited me amongst you I thought it would not be uninteresting to you to hear something of the " old folks at home," feeling quite sure that none more than yourselves would rejoice to know of the elevation of the poorest and most dejected of our fellow-countrymen, of the liberation of the slave, and of the breaking asunder of the bonds of the British serf. It was in the month of February, 1872, that the warcry of the labourers was raised, and before proceeding to speak further of the movement we will briefly glance at the condition of the labourers immediately prior to that time, and look at the causes which led up to and made the movement a possibility. The condition of the rural population was that of almost complete subjection—of serfdom—to the village magnates—the lord, the squire, the parson, and the farmer. Badly housed, miserably clad, and working for starvation wages, their case seemed to be getting worse and worse, for in the olden times there used to be some show of a supplementary wage in the systematic bestowal of perquisites and parochial relief ; but these were failing, the farmer ceasing to recognise any responsibility beyond the payment of the nominal wage, be it ever so meagre or insufficient; and the poor law was becoming such a huge and expensive machinery, the screw being put on forcibly to throw the people upon their own resources ; and thus it was that in the "darkest part of the night" the daybreak of unionism dawned upon them, giving them hope and courage sufficient to successfully break the chain and demand the "liberty of the subject." The wages of farm labourers in the beginning of 1872, prior to the revolt, were as nearly as possible as I will state ; and I will take care not to exaggerate anything, for in very truth there is no need to do so. In Warwickshire—the county which the movement centres, and in which it took its rise—the men were receiving from 9s to 12s. per week, the difference, as in most other cases, being largely in proportion to the proximity of the village to towns and manufacturing centres; in Oxfordshire, from 8s. to 10s. ; Worcester, Dorset, Hereford, Wilts, Somerset, Devon, Essex, Beds, Cambridge, Herts, from 7s. to 10s. ; Surrey and Sussex, 1s. or 2s. higher ; and these sums you must understand to represent the wages independent of "tucker"— on the contrary, house rent, tucker, clothing, and other necessaries had to be miracled out of these wages into providing not only for the man who received it but often for a wife and family. I will not waste your time in any attempt to divide up these amounts and explain how they were made to meet domestic requirements, for hitherto I have failed, and it will be better as an exercise that you should go into the matter for yourselves. The social condition was very low ; the ignorance of the people was deplorable, and superstition abounded beyond belief. With little or no society beyond his intercourse with one or two others in the field, who were often kept at considerable distance apart to prevent conversation, he had no exercise for his mental faculties beyond the mechanical plodding about the farm or in the field, or if he once thought of his relation to society he would discern that he was a nonentity — no one noticing him or caring for him so long as he worked hard, kept off the rates, and refrained from “picking and stealing.” The farm labourer knew comparatively little of the world outside his own village, either as to the geographical relationship of our own country with others — anything beyond the boundary of England being to them " foreign parts,” whether it be America, Canada, the Cape, or the Australias — nor knew he anything of the condition of the labour market to enable him to make the best of his labour; nor could he well avail himself of any opportunity which might present itself at a distance, being continually in debt to the baker, who, as a matter of course could no longer supply the wife and family when the breadwinner had left, fearing lest he should lose what he had already advanced, for the beggardly condition of the labourer was such as to induce him to fraud and dishonesty — for who amongst us is prepared to hunger in a land of plenty ? In parish matters he was never consulted, nor his rights and privileges either known or recognised by himself or his " betters," who are frequently found fighting him now that he realizes and asserts them in the vestries and other parochial assemblies. Politically, of course, he was nowhere: having no vote, he was never consulted upon any matters whatever, however closely his interests were connected. There were a few exceptions, in the case of agricultural boroughs such as that of Woodstock, the seat of the Duke of Marlborough, and created for the special benefit of noble lords and used accordingly, and where at one time either farmer or labourer would as soon dare to dispute the right of His Lordship to exist as to oppose him politically. Legally, he received plenty of attention: but lures and rabbits were protected to a much greater extent — the farmer who ran a dungfork into the behind parts of a labourer being fined five shillings for assault, whilst the snarer of a coney would receive two months' imprisonment as a felon. Cases arising from differences between master and servant, being in all cases decided by the employer class, were much the same as when the wolf caters for the lamb; for the labourers were mostly too poor to procure the defence which a lawyer would afford them, and the cases not being reported, or being reported by a ”local” entirely under the thumb of the magnates, there was no public opinion to operate as it is found to do so wholesomely in large communities where the Press is free; so that the law was frequently twisted and strained to pay off the grudges of bumptious J.P.'s whose dignities may have been assailed by the assertion of the liberties and independence of an exceptionally intelligent labourer who might feel the yoke too oppressive for his advanced stage of manhood. Such has been the conduct of the “great unpaid,'' and so infamously have they betrayed their trusts and privileges that they have become a byword and a reproach in the country districts that law in many cases is not so much respected as the invasion of it, and a Magistrate with a white necktie is regarded as about synonymous with a tyrant. And, verily, the revelations which have been brought to light through the operations of the National Agricultural Labourers' Union are such as to justify the people in their contempt towards such an institution, which has been such an engine of tyranny as to call forth denunciations from all communities, not excepting the Lord Chancellor himself, who, in the most severe language, rebuked a certain landlord, magistrate, barrister, and esquire named Wilberforce — a name he disgraced for summarily flogging two boys until the blood flowed in streams from them for having been in the field pursuing rabbits. We have taken care, since the labourers' movements have given us facilities, to expose and denounce many of the most flagrant injustices of these lordly tyrants ; but we have not been able to cope with one half of them. What was done in times previous when there was no one to keep a look out God only knows, but it was something terrible. The law in the hands of the rural J.P.'s was as the rod in the hand of the schoolmaster of the olden times, and was used as recklessly. The following song, composed by the Editor of the English Labourer, is a fair representation of the regard in which the labouring classes view the J.P. portion of their betters : —
My name it is Squire Puddinghead,
A Justice of the Peace, Sir,
And if you don't know what that means,
Just ask the rural p'lice, Sir.
When culprits nabbed for petty crimes
Within my Courts assemble,
If I am sitting on the bench
Oh ! don't I make them tremble
At the great unpaid,
Ask anything but justice
Of the great unpaid.
The cases that I have to try
Are mostly small transgressions.
So small, the Court in which I sit
Is called the Petty Sessions ;
A sort, of legal smalltooth comb,
The offences are so tiny,
You'd laugh at them, but you'd not laugh
When I commence to fine ye.
Oh ! the great unpaid, &c.
If Polly Brown but takes a stick
From Farmer Giles's fences,
I fine her twopence as its worth,
And fourteen bob expenses ;
And if a tramp sleeps in a field,
Such is my lordly bounty,
I find him lodgings for a week —
Provided by the county.
The Union leaders I would hang
'Twould be a task delightful.
But since I can't, I am content
To do the mean and spiteful ;
And if my colleague, Captain Fair,
Would be the poor's protector.
The vilest things I dare to do
Are backed up by the Rector.
Oh ! the great unpaid !
Ask anything but justice
Of the great unpaid.
This condition of things has given rise to a great agitation in favour of a better administration of justice, and for a Stipendiary Magistracy. The religious condition of the rurals was such generally as to afford little anxiety to the national shepherds, the clergy of the Established Church, who appeared to be “asleep in Zion.” They imagined that their flocks were well fenced in, and all that was necessary was an occasional walk round : their dogs, keepers, police, J.Ps., &c., were entrusted with the rest. For the most part the villages possessed the cardinal virtues ; they were “ poor, humble, and meek,” and rarely raised themselves beyond those boundaries. I noticed lately a paragraph in the English Labourer, giving as the Rev. G. Congrene's ideal of a Christian life an example in the Life of a Cornish farmers lad, who was so advanced in spiritual perfection that at last he gave six hours a day to devotion. This young man found the spiritual life in "fasting and early rising, six hours' daily prayer the mortification of the flesh, living on plain food, dressing in the cheapest clothes, dwelling among the poor, giving up all his means, and maintaining himself by daily labour on his father's farm, and constantly in spiritual anatomization." I need hardly tell you that there are no priests or clergy of any denomination who have faith enough in this kind of thing to live it themselves, and I must confess that I am quite as sceptical ; and yet there are hundreds of men getting good livings by preaching this and similar impracticable rot and falsehood to the poor of my country. The clergy of the Established Church are not alone responsible for thus teaching poverty, and submission to what was libellously called Divine Providence; it was preached week by week by dissenters, itinerant and local preachers, who seemed quite sincere ; and the tongues of those who held clearer views of the Divine will were silenced, because there seemed to be no way of escape. Now and then we heard a voice crying in the wilderness, a few solitary prophets denouncing the social wrongs, and doing what they could to improve the condition of the people; such was that venerable and godly man Canon Girdlestone, who for years stood out on the side of the oppressed, enduring the calumny and reproach of his neighbours. He assisted as many as he could to emigrate and migrate to better fields of labour, and so has earned the right to live in our memories, revered and respected; but, good man as he was, Canon Girdlestone could never understand what we meant by freedom for the labourer; and although he worked, and was prepared to co-operate with others to assist and benefit the poor, yet he could never realize the independence of the people and the possibility of their doing for themselves what he had recognised as the duty of other classes to do for them. And let me not be misunderstood to underestimate the kind feeling and benevolence of many who in their own way and through pity, did much to alleviate the sorrows of the poor, when I say that many of these their apparently greatest friends were the greatest opponents of the labourer's efforts at self-help and independence—threatening those who dared to assert such a position with all kinds of penalties involved in the withdrawal of their patronage. Whilst all these things were so there was a gradual and continual work going on— unnoticed but none the less sure— which must ultimately produce its fruits. Through the dames' schools and the parish schools, inefficient as they were, and with all the stumbling-blocks and barriers raised by a bigoted directorate mostly centred in the parish clergyman, there was and had long been a leaven of education which had done some thing amongst the naturally shrewd peasantry. That bugbear dissent had made sad havoc against the law and doctrine of "constituted authority;" and with all the strange doctrines preached by an oftimes illiterate local preacher in the "conventicle," there was the seed of revolt against a condition of things which seemed wrongs in the light of a growing intelligence. We shall not be likely to attach too much importance to the work of dissenters in the villages, to whom we are indebted very largely for the life and energy which were remaining to the labourers prior to 1872. Where dissent was most rife, there was found the most spirit and courage in the people ; and where only the Established Church predominated, there was most servility and cowardice, unless in some very exceptional cases where the clergyman was a better man, and not a worse, for holding such a position. Another force was at work. The railways were being carried in every direction through the rural districts, making it possible for men in the towns and cities to come more in contact with each other. The penny Press soon found a growing circulation in the villages; and thus Reynolds, Lloyd, and others commenced to talk strange things to enquiring disciples, which gradually made them very uneasy. It occasionally told them of cruel injustices which were practised, and how the perpetrators had been punished and held up to reprobation; and in comparing the reported case with their own circumstances they often found their own case the worse of the two, which made them restless and anxious for redress. They read of Trades Unions and strikes, and their hearts burned within them when they read of the triumph of the worker, and sank when the men were defeated. Now, men in the villages — the most plucky of them — had commenced working for railway contractors for a better wage ; some had gone to cities and towns — had dared to tear themselves away from their old associations: the village church and steeple, with its chiming bells on the Sabbath, was no small thing to sacrifice: and as each man wrote home, and forwarded to his wife and family the means of maintenance, or re-visited his village, the spirit of revolt was sown. All these things could be clearly seen by those who watched the signs of the times and who study cause and effect. Professor Beesley, in a pamphlet written five years prior to the starting of the movement, predicted that in that space of time in all probability there would be a rising of the farm labourers : and so it happened. Subsequent events proved how effectually the above causes had been in operation, for at the blast of the first trumpet men came forth from all parts of the oppressed rural districts, possessing such a power of natural eloquence and intelligence, though with a scanty education, which surprised everybody. It is a disputed question as to where the first sound was heard, nor does it signify much ; the field was ripe for the harvest, and whilst Joseph Arch was holding forth as much to the surprise of himself as of his neighbours, Teddy Haynes in Warwickshire, George Ball in Lincolnshire, and numbers of others in other directions were busily engaged in calling upon the poor to revolt against their miserable condition and demand a livelihood more compatible with our civilization. I cannot refrain from mentioning the name of J. E. Matthew Vincent, who at the risk — and no small one as that time — of the withdrawal of patronage, hurried to the assistance of Joseph Arch in making his voice heard in the country, and who, together with William Gibson Ward, a fierce and powerful writer, started the first paper which espoused the cause of the labourer in such a way as to command the attention of all classes. I do not mention these individuals and their work with less pleasure than I feel regret that they have not shown themselves more stanch to the principles which they at first professed to advocate. These have now no part in the matter, the English labourer having superseded the first. The labourers of Warwickshire had no sooner conceived the notion of uniting than the farmers, clergy, and squires, with Sir C. Mordaunt at their head, met in solemn conclave to consider this shocking ingratitude of the men, spoke of their kindness to the men in charities and perquisites, declared that they must " nip it in the bud," the Rev. Canon Holbeach declaring that it was "seditious and wicked," and resolutions condemnatory were passed by this "union of the powers" to stamp out the union of laborers, and they decided to give a week's notice to all who belonged to the movement to leave their employ. This they carried out, and at the end of the first week some 300 men were without means of subsistence, and many of them under notice to quit their homes. In the meantime I had been solicited, by some labourers in a village near Leamington, to address them on Unionism, and help them to start. Why they came to me I know not : I had never been in public, nor was I in the least a speaker, but a quiet homely man. Nevertheless I could not refrain, and with my shopmates we went over after our day's work was over, and, meeting a vast audience of labourers and their wives and daughters, we started a branch of the Union. I had the honour that week — the week the men were under notice to leave — to write the first appeal to the Trades Unionists and the country for help, which was liberally responded to, and which saved the men from submission, or perhaps a more violent rebellion. The Daily Telegraph and the London Daily News at first, and then other influential newspapers, espoused the cause of the labourer, and from almost all classes expressions of sympathy, as well as practical help, was forthcoming. Politicians of the advanced school imagined that they could see a power arising which might be of service to the party of progress. Social reformers rejoiced at the ''shaking of the dry bones,'' and conceived a grand change in society as a result of the movement : and thousands who have no sympathy whatever with workmen's combinations came forward to assist the labourer to a bigger loaf and his social and political rights. But there was another party, of immense strength, who, whilst they did not deny the labourers' right to sufficient food, were not prepared to concede any social or political position, knowing full well that in proportion as the labourer's influence and power was increased, theirs must diminish. This cut them to the core, and it was not to be wondered at if they resisted what they considered an encroachment on their “divine right” to govern. The farmers, upon whom the demand for a better wage was made, resisted upon two pleas — it affected their profits, and to them it presented itself as an interference with his right to decide for himself what he should pay his men — as though the seller should abide by the price fixed by the buyer for his commodity ; but, however absurd the arguments and notions of these employers may appear to us who can look without prejudice upon the question, there is no doubt of the sincerity of those who held them, who were quite satisfied that they were rendering a service to the poor men themselves if they could only destroy this most seditious Union and protect them from the seductive influences of the agitators. Who were the agitators ? Mostly labouring men from the field— men of power in speech who were pained with the smarts of the oppression which in common with those to whom then appealed they had been subjected in the past; and men who, if their knowledge of political economy was not of a sound order, were yet decided in their faith that their condition was not such as industrious men were entitled to. These expressions were uttered with tongues of fire, and they appealed effectively to tens of thousands of awakening souls, who aforetime were cast down and hopeless. These agitators were, as a rule, morally, the best men of their class, of good repute, chosen by the people themselves as their philosophers and guides, and far away from them I am happy in testifying to their industry and integrity; for I believe there were never so many men so hurriedly called forth to so important a work who acted more faithfully in their calling. Great and good men allied themselves to the movement in its early stages ; some of them are still stanch and tried friends. Mr. J. S. Wright, Alfred Arnold, and Jessie Collings, of Birmingham ; Rev:. F. S. Attenborough, of Leamington ; J. C. Cox, Mr. S. Morley and others in London are amongst the number who have rendered us valuable assistance, and to whom the labourers of England will be always indebted. In March, 1872, the first district was formed in Warwickshire, and in June the movement, had so far spread as to justify a union of the various districts in the country, which took place on the 29th, when a National Union was formed, with Joseph Arch as President, with an Executive Committee of 12 labourers, and a Consulting Committee of gentlemen who were known to be favourable to the movement, and myself as the General Secretary; There were also elected a number of men known as delegates, whose duty it was to go into the villages and invite those who were ready for union, and stir up those who were not. Now the war was raging. The farmers declared that they would not be interfered with by outsiders, but would manage their business in their own way; they averred also that their men were stirred up by designing politicians, socialists, and men of disrepute. All kinds of tyranny were practised ; whole families turned headlong out of their homes irrespective of legal process, thousands discharged from employment, poor relief cut off from the sick and infirm relatives of Unionists, parish doles were cut off, damnatory sermons preached at them, all kinds of threats were used, and the conspiracies of the farmers who amalgamated to crush the Union made the thing quite lively. Union poets arose who wrote songs reminding the men of bondage and inspiring them to patriotism. These were sung at thousands of meetings by tens of thousands of poor men and women who were looking to the Union as their only hope and refuge, and the greater the persecutions the greater were the bonds of sympathy and cause for united effort. There were numerous stand-up fights, and what with the courage of the new-born enthusiasts and the financial assistance of the members and friends of the Union, backed by public sympathy, the men almost invariably won ; and notwithstanding reverses and defeats, which were often as beneficial as victories, the Union soon succeeded in making some 50,000 members, with an average rise in the wages of agricultural labourers of 3s. per week all round. In 1874 there was a dead stand made against the Union in Suffolk, where at one time there were some 6,000 men thrown on the funds. The farmers combined ostensibly for the purpose of resisting certain rules of the Union and a rise in wages— the rate then being paid was 13s. — but the disguise was soon removed, and it was soon seen that it was against the Union itself they were fighting; and they declared that until the labourers gave up their newspaper and the voices of Arch, Ball, and Taylor were silenced, they would come to no terms with the men. The contest lasted for some months, costing us many thousands of pounds, which was raised from members' contributions and public subscriptions, which flowed in from all sources. Through want of energy in the men, which I can well excuse, and the season being favourable to the farmer, we could not claim a decisive victory, although we maintained our Union, and are stronger in that country to-day than ever; but it cost the fanners to such an extent that it is doubtful if they lightly undertake such another job. Moreover, whilst this battle was going on the farmers in other parts of the country were awaiting the results, whilst the men were strengthening their Union. Doubtless, if the farmers in the eastern counties had had an easy triumph there would soon have been attacks all round the lines. It was during this conflict that I conceived and carried out the idea of marching some 70 farmers' labourers from Newmarket to the North, finishing at Halifax, where the Trades Unionists organized a demonstration with 15 brass bands, and a procession of the whole of the Unionists — many thousands. To the credit of the Trades Unionists of England in each town we came to they met us right nobly, and so besides sending to the funds a net of nearly £800 Relief Committees were formed from which we received weekly contributions of money. There are continually little squabbles occurring in different parts of the country which waste a good deal of money, but which resists the tyrannical powers of the farmers, who have many of them yet to learn that there must be two to a bargain in lieu of one, as in former times. A great deal of money has been expended in law in resisting legal oppression, and the “ powers that be” have been quite surprised to know ; the law, having been in the habit of dealing with questions according to their own notions or feelings. Large sums of money have also been expended in the removal of its members from badly-paid districts to places where labour is in demand. Large numbers have also been assisted to emigrate, and I am glad to say that our emigration policy has been very satisfactory, simply because, as a rule, the members are such as an agricultural or new colony requires. We have been gratified to receive so many testimonies from those who have emigrated to the effect that their position and prospects have been improved. I have received one during the past week from a couple from our Society, which is very pleasing. Our agricultural labourers at home are, in my opinion, far too numerous for their own good, and it will be well when they have the world for their market. The National Agricultural Labourers' Union has been a great success: it has been and is still a great educational power, and although the labourers have much to learn which has been gained by others through experience, and which can be secured through no other channel, I know of no means so likely to educate them economically, socially, or politically as the Society afforded them in their organization. They will blunder as all others do; but their aims are good, and under the direction of men in the future as good as those who have hitherto assisted them there need be no fears entertained as to the future. You will be glad to know that a work much greater than could possibly have been done by private benevolence for the poor has been performed by the poor for themselves by the application of the principle of self-help. The Union is now in healthy condition, having in its funds upwards of £8,000 accumulated out of the contributions of its members, who pay 2d. per week; it has given to the labourer a place in society which was hitherto denied to him: it has freed their labour and made the markets of the world accessible to them: its eye is vigilant upon those who would otherwise disregard the just claim of its members, and through its instrumentality the enfranchisement of the rate payer in the village as in the city is only a thing of the immediate future. Lord Suffield some time since, speaking of the Union, remarked, " Let us pinch them with hunger — that will bring them to their senses." And so it is, although not in the sense in which that bloated aristocrat meant it. It was the pinching which caused the revolt, and now that they have realized the power of combination they will never be content with anything short of what their growing intelligences teach them is right; and thus they will only share with all other classes of society the laudable desire and ambition to advance with the times.
South Australian Register (Adelaide, SA : 1839 - 1900), Wednesday 10 January 1877, page 7
At the Social Science Congress at Bradford on the fifteenth of October, the Earl of Shaftesbury presiding, Sir J. Kay Shuttleworth read a paper on this subject, which is well worthy the consideration of colonists.
Sir John began his address by a reference to the gradual changes which, notwithstanding the apparent stability of nature, were observable in the condition of the earth, its atmosphere and temperature. He then proceeded as follows: — The history of nations exhibits analogous phenomena. To confine our necessarily brief survey to our own country, we have in its progress, in like manner as in nature, successive eras of development. Each era is marked by the operation of some new force on our domestic and social habits, internal organisation, civil or religious polity — all tending to produce that form of civilisation which we now enjoy. Before the invasion of Cæsar the southern part of England had probably made as much progress in civilisation as the Gauls. The Britons maintained a considerable commercial intercourse with the coast of Gaul. They had discovered and worked some of the metals, and the commerce of Cornwall had from a very early period a connection even with Phœnicia. They were therefore much raised above merely savage life. The Druids as a priesthood had probably quite as much learning as the Roman augers. The resistance of the Britons to the Roman legions, the rigor with which they even assaulted the Roman camps, the successive insurrections by which they disputed the Roman power, their war cars armed with scythes, the remains of their camps — all prove that South Britain was inhabited by a race which had within itself the germs of civilization. At the same time a large part of the country was in a condition of forest and morass ; there were few roads deserving the name ; probably no walled towns ; the fastnesses of the Britons were almost impregnable by the depth of forests and bogs in which they were secluded— the abattis, fence, ditch, or rampart by which they were surrounded ; and the difficulties of the Roman army consisted as much in a conquest of nature as in a struggle with the valour, stratagems, surprises, and wiles of a fierce race inhabiting a wild country, with the resources of which they were familiar. With this invasion ceased the British power in the greater part of England in the century before the Christian era. The first step in the succeeding 2000 years is the Roman occupation of England for 400 years. We read the characteristics of this Roman dominion (according to Ptolemy) in 56 walled towns, some of which still exist in the ruins of theatres, villas, baths, and other public or private buildings now found in the neighborhood of many towns, and giving proofs of the introduction of the arts and luxury of the empire ; in many military roads, penetrating the primeval forests and leading from camp to camp and town to town ; in the supremacy of law and order over the disputes and raids of tribes ; and in the foundation of municipalities, though these, in the withdrawal of the Roman power as one of the signs of the decay of the empire, probably left little trace in our customs. The arts, the literature, the law of Rome penetrated to the cities which it founded, and which became centres from which the civilisation of the masters of the world even in that corrupt age tended to diffuse itself. The great eras in the history of mankind resemble the geological in this, that while they are attended with the introduction of new forms of life and organisation, they are destructive to a large extent of those which preceded them. As the tide of Roman civilisation, art, and law receded from Great Britain, it was succeeded by a period of mingled colonisation and conquest by the northern European tribes of the Saxons and Danes. This era of Teutonic occupation, extending without more than transient disturbance over 700 years, has had a more marked influence than any other on the race, the local institutions, and the social organisation of England. The Saxons and Danes, following the era of Roman organisation from seats of military power, penetrated the forests, destroying, expelling, or taking captive and making slaves of their barbarous occupants, slowly subduing nature and taming man. Their first great gift was to introduce into the corporated mass of social life throughout the Roman empire the idea of the individual dignity of man as the member of a family. This prepared them to become the founders of enduring Christian States. The authority of the father in the household and over its branches and dependents was the centre whence the rudiment of our civil state evolved. Having described the old Saxon institutions, he proceeded : — The mass of laborers in every craft and of the herdsmen and tillers of the soil in the Saxon era had no political or social rights. They could be bought and sold. They were adscripti glebœ, and conveyed with it under the comprehensive phrase "mid mete and mid mannum." They received, like the beasts of burthen, food and lodging for their toil, but they were absolutely in the "mund," that is, under the protection and power of their master, who might kill them at his pleasure. They were reduced to this form of slavery either as captives in war, (and thus it is thought a large part of the ancient British population were held in thraldom) or as a consequence of marriage with a serf, of settlement among a servile population, of crime, by surrender, or superior legal power, or by oppression. The modern system of tenancy seams to have had its origin in the leases for life, or the shorter periods called " læ'an," or loan. We have thus in the Saxon era some of the constituent elements of English society more or less defined — in the "theoves," or serfs, the laborers and handicraftsmen in a condition of thraldom ; in the "ceorls," churls, or villeins, a class destined ultimately to emancipate themselves from the condition of villenage to that of an independent yeomanry ; in the freemen, the free occupants of the læ'an land, the types of our present free laborers and tenantry ; in the thanes of marks and lords of hundreds, one form of that English rural gentry which struggled for existence with the Norman power, and partially survived. The mission of St. Augustine in the sixth century occurred at a time when the forms of Saxon civilization had prepared the country for the dawn of Christianity. The Christian missionaries were first received in the circle of the Saxon kings, and their influence was soon felt in diminishing the frequency and ferocity of war, in mitigating the fierceness and bloody character of the right of feud, and substituting the vergyld, as settled by law and administered by authority, for the unlimited exercise of the lex talionis. The Germanic races treated their "theoves," or serfs, with humanity ; but with the introduction of Christianity the traditionary tendency to soften the hard lot of the slave was fostered by the example and counsels of the early bishops and the influence of the clergy. They urged manumission on the wealthy as an act of piety, and as a penance for sin, and on the dying as a means of propitiating mercy in the hour of judgment. Successive Christian kings likewise restrained by laws capricious excesses, and sought to improve the condition of the slave. With the sentiment grew up the institutions of Christian charity. The germ of the provision now made by law for the relief of the indigent was planted by the Christian Church, in the devotion of a third of its tithes, ratified by the express enactment of the Witan, to that charitable aid which was administered by the clergy to the poor. Penance, fine, and voluntary contributing also furnished assistance. Before gross abuses crept into the monastic establishments, their xenodochium, hospitium, and alms relieved the wayfarer, so as probably to promote the emancipation of serfs, by providing for a circulation of labor, otherwise impossible, and mitigating the hardships of an often ineffectual struggle for the independent life of a freeman. By teaching the equality of all classes, as purchased to an eternal inheritance by the blood of Christ, by proclaiming the brotherhood of mankind and the right of all to that Divine charity which sought the outcast, forgave him who owed the most, and pardoned the penitent, the Christian Missionaries introduced into the Saxon heathendom the transforming force of the Christian faith. The idea of a provision for indigence by a charge on all fixed property was of much later growth. That was a regulation of police which gave security to life in order to protect property by suppressing vagabondage and crime. Under the Anglo Saxon rule every man by the system of frankpledge was part of an association of neighbours whose mutual bond was an assurance for each member. If, however, he had no means of his own he was required to put himself under the protection of a lord, and thus to have someone to answer for him. If a serf, the State regarded him as the chattel of his owner, who was only responsible to God for his treatment of him. He therefore who had no means, and could find no one to take charge of him, was an outlaw — had no civil rights of any kind. To such a system Christian charity was a new element of civilisation ; it sustained the hopes and efforts of those who strove to purchase their freedom ; it helped them when in the struggle for subsistence ; it received and fed the sick and aged whose strength failed. Thus, it was not a simple consolation, though that is much, but a means of inspiring the hope of freedom, encouraging the effort to obtain it, and making it an act of piety to promote it. Notwithstanding the despotic violence and usurpation of the Norman Conquest, its effects on the constitution of English society were felt rather among the governing classes than the governed. The rural lords and thanes were so fiercely dispossessed of their estates that probably one half, if not two thirds, of the land of England changed hands. The free tenants of the læ'an land, the ceorls of churls holding land in villenage, the cotsetla or cottarii, and the theoves or serfs had harsher and more exacting masters. The whole country was held in the iron gripe of the Conqueror as a modern city in a state of siege. The military strength, the Norman magnificence of the new court, the charge of a vigilant ruthless police, were all supported by subsidies which were wrung by the lords from their dependents of every class. No tyranny could be more absolute, cruel, and relentless, than that with which the Norman king and his nobles crushed the spirit of the Saxon people into subjection. But under even this ruthless rigor the constitution of society remained essentially the same. Under the successors of the Conqueror the Saxon people, in the comparative laxity of a less able and more corrupt rule, breathed more freely. Gradually the two races were mingled. The Norman, in whom the quick, impulsive, Gaulish blood had its vivid imagination tempered by the Teutonic, came to create the English race, in which the solid, stubborn, but slowly moving Saxon constitution was awakened to enterprise and daring by the infusion of qualities without which it might have sunk into a sensual sloth. The nation gained also by the introduction of many of the arts, of a more refined style of living, of literature as the occupation of the classes professing leisure, and of more polished manners and habits of intercourse. The nation thus rose in civilization, and "early in the 14th century the amalgamation of the races was all but complete, and it was soon manifest, by signs which could not be mistaken, that a people inferior to none existing in the world had been produced by the mixture of these branches of the great Teutonic family with each other and with the aboriginal Britons." — (Macaulay.) These several causes tended to increase the number of freemen by the growth of population, the increase of commerce and handicraft trades, and the influence of Christianity acting on the Saxon sense of individual responsibility and right. Nevertheless, the rigour of the feudal institutions, the selfish luxury of the barons, the wild license of their retainers, who mercilessly plundered the people and devastated the country, and the not unfrequent disorder from the contentions of nobler issuing with armed retainers from their castles, tended to give great insecurity to the possession of freedom, to harass the growing middle classes by vagabondage and by bands of marauders. Thus in successive reigns follow a series of enactments, carefully chronicled by Sir George Nicholls in his valuable history of the poor law, showing that the emancipation of the serfs from slavery was attended in these rude ages with disorders requiring the restraints of authority. This was doubtless more vigilant in the prescriptions of the laws than vigorous and just in the regular action of a well ordered police, of which, indeed, the country knew little. In the middle of the fourteenth century the great plague swept through England, destroying one-half the population. Hence a scarcity of labor — migrations of the freeman to places where this scarcity was greatest and the wages highest — the escape of serfs to establish their freedom by service for a year and a day. The laws during the remainder of this century endeavor to prevent change of service — to enforce its obligations — to settle the rates of wages, and to give summary means of enforcing them. All these are signs of the awakening of a spirit of independence and enterprise. One new element had fostered this spirit. The long reign of Edward III. had sedulously promoted for the first time a domestic woollen manufacture, and the coincidence of the rise of this employment with the manifestation of a greater eagerness for freedom is not without its significance. Between this reign and the close of that of Henry VII. a series of enactments were passed, intended to promote the growth of wool and to encourage the settlement of foreign artisans, though not untainted with a jealousy of foreign merchants. The manufacture of woollens and worsted fabrics grew so steadily that efforts were made to restrict the exportation of English wool. During this time serfdom step by step tended to merge into a yearly hireling — apprenticeship to handicrafts increased — laborers still flocked to the towns and secured their freedom — the towns grew, and with them personal and municipal independence, under the guidance of a middle class whose wealth and social power augmented in every reign. A little later, in the 33rd year of Henry VIII., the preamble to an Act of Parliament (chap. 15) thus describes the state of Manchester : — " The inhabitants thereof are well set a-work in making cloths as well of linen as of woollen, whereby the inhabitants have obtained, gotten, and come unto riches and wealthy living, and have kept and sat many artificers and poor folk to work within the said town, and many poor folks had living and children and servants there, virtuously brought up in honest and true labor out of all idleness." The sumptuary laws of the 15th century seem to have originated chiefly in a desire to keep up the distinction of ranks by costume, which the growing wealth of the burgesses, tenantry, and freemen tended to confound. . . . We were on the eve of the Reformation, and that great event ushered in an era in our literature which produced Shakspeare. Before, however, that modern age of the last 360 years had established its characteristic features, new forms of evil had to be subdued. The system of frank-pledge, combined with the condition of serfs and villeins, had long prevented the migration of the people. We have seen how these restraints were dissolved, and how, in the appropriation of one third of the tithes to the relief of the poor, and in the succour administered by the monasteries and churches, migration was fostered, and the inevitable hardships of a struggle for freedom were mitigated. But this charity was liable to abuse, and in an age when the corruption of the monastic communities prepared the nation for their general suppression, and a large secularisation of ecclesiastical revenues, an ill-regulated charity cherished idleness, vagabondage, and crime. The laws, therefore, through a series of reigns, became more and more stringent against sturdy beggars and vagabonds. The rigor of these enactments tended even to defeat the object in the absence of a legal provision for indigence, and of an efficient police to prevent disorder and pursue crime. But by degrees the distinction between the impotent and able-bodied poor was established ; the former were to be relieved, the latter were to be set on work. The dissolution of the monasteries by dispersing the crowd of idle and useless persons who were fed by the abused charity of the Church, and releasing from the vow of celibacy great numbers of monks, is supposed to have added at least 200,000 persons to the effective stock of the population. This in the prevalent corruption of their manners could not occur without disorders, and therefore we may feel surprise, considering the despotic authority and the ruthless provisions of the criminal law, that in the reign of Henry VIII., 72,000 persons were executed for theft and robbery. The relief of the poor was transferred from the charity administered from the resources of the Church without the restraints of police and law, into a legal assessment giving security for life, so as to increase public order and with it the security of property. It was essentially a measure of police, and every step of its development was accompanied by positive enactments for setting the able-bodied poor on work, and for the suppression of mendicancy and vagabondage. Among these remained that which survives to this day among the last features of the original condition of the Saxon serfs and villeins awaiting the final acts of their emancipation. The law of settlement represents by its interference with the migration of labor (without which the manufacturing system could not have been built up) the condition of the serf when he was the chattel of his lord and lived on his land as one of the beasts of burden, and the state of the villein, who, though he had a right to his land so long as he acquitted the service, dues, and obligations by which it was held, could not remove from it, and was conveyed with the estate as part of the inheritance, sold "mid mete and mid mannum." As the reformation in religion was the sign of an independence of thought which dared to set up the rights of conscience to the interpretation of the Holy Scriptures in the place of the authority of the Church, sundry consequences immediately followed. The Bible must be made accessible to the vulgar, and for that purpose the version in the vulgar tongue was chained to the pillars of the churches and read aloud to the people at stated hours. The Liturgy must be adapted to the change, and homilies issued to be read by the clergy. A national church, in a State which recognised the right of private judgment, had been founded, and might be regulated by the Legislature. Hence, on the secularisation of the ecclesiastical revenues, Cranmer desired to devote a large portion of them to a new episcopal organisation, providing extensively for the education of the people. In the reign of Edward VI, part of this plan was adopted in the foundation of numerous grammar schools, and the same design was from time to time carried out in the reigns of Elizabeth, James I, and Charles I. Probably the schools thus founded by the Tudor dynasty and sanctioned by the Stuarts themselves, reared the sturdy yeomanry and middle class who fought the battles of the Long Parliament against the usurpations of the Crown, and who, whatever errors or crimes they committed, handed down to us the institutions of our Saxon forefathers strengthened by the civilisation of 1000 years. From the end of the reign of Elizabeth, at the beginning of the 17th century, to the present time, three great objects have chiefly occupied the domestic Legislature of Great Britain, though they were never separated in action, so as to divide these two centuries and a half into three distinct periods. These three objects were constitutional freedom, colonisation and commerce, and, lastly, the development of manufactures by invention and art. . . .
IN a leading article in a previous issue we dealt at some length with an article in the October number of an American Review entitled "Foreign Affairs," by its Editor, on "Power Politics and the Peace Machinery." After examining in detail the faults and virtues of the post-War peace settlement in Europe, it indicated some measures calculated, in the writer's opinion, to pave the way to peace in Europe in the time to come. Foremost among these were economic adjustments as between classes and individuals, lowered tariffs and a lessening of rigidity in regard to race and population borders, and the spread of educational forces with a view to the promotion of a truer international understanding. The alarmist note in some sections of the Press, not always wisely, or ingenuously sounded, will render a calm and discerning examination of the case, at least in one important quarter, welcome to a large number of readers. Another article, under the general heading, "Italy and Ethiopia," and dealing with the "Inter-racial implications" of that unfortunate situation, in the same issue of the same publication, sets forth the danger liable to arise, or at least the problem requiring to be solved, in the conditions and attitudes of the coloured races of the world. The writer is Mr. W. E. B. DuBois American Negro Leader, formerly Editor of "The Crisis," and now Professor of Sociology at Atlanta University; and he presents what a sub-title calls "A Negro View." Outlining the history of Ethiopia —the older name of Abyssinia — and sweeping on past the Middle Ages when as yet no race problems existed, he sees the rise of the present problem in the expansion of the factory system in the new land of America. With the end of the slave trade there, the race problem instead of disappearing, was only transformed. Europe also dealt in the importation of slaves from Africa, and afterwards exploited African subjects in Africa itself. Plausible "rationalism" was employed to make this seem justifiable, but the real motive was that of monetary gain. It is of interest specially to Christian people to be told that even Christianity was used by the exploiting forces "as a smoke-screen to reduce the natives and to keep them from revolt." Missionaries were misled into seeking what they took to be the natives' own advantage in inducing them "to become docile Christian workers under the profit-makers of Europe." Germany, Belgium, and Italy, followed in the trail of other European nations— even Britain not being free of the stigma — and founded their colonies on more-or-less similar lines. Belgian slave-trading on the Congo is notorious, and the atrocities of slave-raiding have passed into history. Africa, the West Indies — British and French — were the chief sources of slave supplies — though parts of South America came under the bane in a local and a more modified form. Apart from slavery came the exercise of political dominance, with economic exploitation always as the dark and forbidding background. Parts of Asia fell under the sinister order, notably India. And so the story has gone on— Britain's act of slave emancipation forming a healing light upon the scene. The "domestic" slave system of Abyssinia, too, is said to be of another and a milder description. And now these politically, socially, and economically discredited races are coming of age, and are beginning to claim their share of the general human inheritance. War on their part would seem to be out of the question—except possibly by the help of Japan. Lack of unity, organisation, money, and military equipment would preclude that. Let this writer put it in his own way. Italy's probable subjugation of Ethiopia will, he thinks, be likely to cost the world dearly. India, China and Japan, Africa in Africa and in America, and, he even thinks, "all the South Seas and Indian South America," will rise and say of the white races: "I told you so! There is no faith in them even toward each other. They do not believe in Christianity and they will never voluntarily recognise the essential equality of human beings or surrender the idea of dominating the majority of men for their own selfish ends. Japan was right. The only path to freedom is force, and force to the uttermost." It is not an inviting picture. But it is a picture on which the gaze of the Christian Churches should be steadily and thoughtfully fixed. A pertinent question, and one which the Churches must answer, is this: Do the Churches care? Would some outsider visitor, say, from some other planet, moving about among the Churches of to-day, taking stock of their doings and deportment and endeavouring to estimate the burden of their message, come to the conclusion that matters of tremendous and desperate moment were thus taking form under their very eyes? Would he deem their method — and, much more, their spirit in pursuing it — to be those of men and women thrilled and inspired by the conviction that they held in their possession the only remedy of the world's ills, and that their first and foremost motive in life was that of bringing the world around them into its possession?
Among the Socialist slogans "class struggle" is the one which most gets on the nerves of the bourgeoisie, even upon politicians possessed of horse sense. Socialisation of the means of production is a theme which is debatable, declare some of them, but class struggle, that is civil war, "blood and war," and to their imagination it is like barricades and other like defences of 1848. By this time, though, they should have learned enough from our literature, press, and history to know that we, in saying "class struggle," have as little in mind the shotgun and paving stones as when using the word "revolution." Classes are economic groups with antagonistic interests and possessing social power. The struggle for these interests can be carried on in many ways, and in fact has often been carried on with out a drop of blood having been shed, since private property and individual mode of earning a living has brought about the division into classes. If two competitors fight with each other to get each other's customers, this is not a class struggle, but a struggle between private individuals; for the rest this is also a struggle for economic power and interest, but it is not of the same importance as the struggle between classes. Since Olim's time conflicting interests and powers between classes have been settled through struggle, through a class struggle. And the whole development of civilisation moves, since the dissolution of primitive communism, through class struggles as stated in the "Communist Manifesto." How absurd it is then to say as Ethical Culture some time ago stated: "Class struggle is a cur that one must tie outside because, otherwise it would soil the room." Max Nordau, the Paris physician and renowned author, not a Socialist but judging Socialist matters more intelligently than the great lights of the Progressists, wrote an essay some years ago about the historic and the present day class struggle, in which he said: "Those who attribute improved conditions of labor to the magnanimity of the ruling class, or to the initiative of a monarch, suffer— granted their sincerity— from intellectual deception." Nothing that was ever done for labor has been done voluntarily. Not one measure which improved labor's condition was a voluntary concession of the ruling class. Everything was wrung from it either by force or threat; every thing was granted after it recognised the futility of further resistance : everything is the result of struggles, without which the proletariat would not have gained a thing. All history makes for the axiom : Never did a ruling class, out of sympathy for the oppressed give up one particle of its advantages, nor anything, were it ever so little, was conceded, unless it itself derived some benefit thereby. Sympathy,justice, neighborly love play no role in the mutual relation of classes. These are virtues of individuals but not of classes. These are dominated by relentless laws of "interests." That is the reason each class had to fight a life and death struggle for concessions gained from the other class. The author describes the judicial rights of the Roman slaves, which were not improved in the least during a full ten centuries, and he also describes conditions during Feudalism. The land-owners who united in the class of nobility had no more feeling for their serfs than the war-hardened Romans had for their slaves. The general laws, the regulations in various feudal domains make one shudder. The serf found in the secret possession of a weapon had his hand chopped off. The same happened to one who failed to salute his master, where he was not hanged, as in Normandy. Refusal to work, flight, and poaching were punishable with death. The master recognised no duties towards his vassals; in years of famine he let them starve to death. The church only protected them as far as its interests demanded. These fearful conditions only improved when the outlawed farmers began to feel as a class and risk a class struggle with the propertied class. In England conditions were a little better, but only to the benefit of the barons. Still in the year 1515, Thomas Bacon complained : "Where formerly human beings could live comfortably, there are now only sheep and rabbits. Animals created by God to feed men now eat them up. . . . And the cause of this misery ? The greed of the nobility, who became raisers and cattle dealers and thought only of increasing their own wealth. (See Kautsky's "Thomas Moore:") True, on the renowned night of August 1, 1789, the French nobility gave up "voluntarily" its class privileges. Voluntarily? Yes—when everywhere throughout the land the baronial castles were in flames or demolished, and dozens of murders had enlightened the court aristocracy of what was in store for them; if they resisted longer the demands of the farmers. This is clearly proven by Comrade Cunow by publications of that period. It is not true that there was even one case of voluntary grant in this long development. Each right that the enslaved class conquered was mostly at the price of a bloody encounter in the class struggle. From the class struggle proceeding the founding and development of cities, the farmers' revolts, the Puritanic movement, the settling of North America, the Commonwealth— the English republic (with Cromwell as Protector), and of course the French Revolution, the Thirty Years' War, the war in the Cevennes, the taking of the Bastille, etc. The history of the industrial proletariat is line after line the history of slavery and serfdom, says Nordau. In the beginning of industry on a large scale the wage workers were the enslaved class under the domination of a reckless master and employing class. So long as the new "industrial aristocracy" felt fully its immense superiority, it did not hesitate to enslave the defenceless proletariat. The "code Napoleon" contained at its promulgation, 1804, the article 1781, according to which the simple statement of an employer was positive proof in court against a wage-earner. The penal law made every combination of workers illegal. The wage-worker had to have a "work book" if he did not desire to be jailed as a vagabond. He had no right of migration, no right to strike, no right of free speech and assemblage, no franchise and even in the press he was muzzled, because Guizott still ordered that a political paper had to give a bond of 200,000 francs. This was the situation in the land of the taking of the Bastille and the convent. In England things were not any better. As long as the proletarians relied upon the reasonableness of the employer, they worked from 14-16 hours daily in factories which were horrible prisons, and for starvation wages. Only the class struggle of the workers carried on with determination, and threatening the position of the dominant class, brought them some relief. "Have," asks Nordau, "those, who see in Socialism a danger to culture, ever asked themselves how civilisation would look if the proletarian had not, for the last hundred years, carried on a class struggle against the ruling class?"—The metropolis would consist of a small quarter of marble palaces and scattered suburbs of horrible hovels (London slums.) The workers would work daily 18 hours and earn just enough to live on potatoes and tea, to die at the age of thirty with tuberculosis and bring into the world a progeny of rickety dwarfs. Art, poetry and science would be exclusively in the service of blase, neurotic, hysteric, or totally crazy patricians. Europe would have become like China, but without the patriarchal concern for the coolie. Or does one believe that the white man's nature is of a better make-up? Remember then that in America chattel slavery still existed in 1861, and that the class interest of the Republicans caused its abolition, like in Russia Czaristic "state reasons" caused the ending of serfdom in 1863. The age of machinery would have brought a new Roman decline, a new medieval dark new over the world if the proletarian class struggle had not prevented this misfortune for mankind. And the numerous social and political remnants of by-gone ages, some of which still disgrace the world, as in Prussia and Russia — what else can conquer them but the proletarian class struggle ? — Hamburg Echo.
International Socialist (Sydney, NSW : 1910 - 1920), Saturday 6 August 1910, page 2
