WE hear a great deal at the present day, not only from pretended philanthropists, but from well-meaning and conscientious people, about the 66 Rights of Labour." In fact, the term has become so hackneyed that very rarely is any popular speech delivered from a hustings, or elsewhere, without its occurrence as a marked and leading principle, which the speaker is determined to uphold.

But general terms are almost always susceptible of wide and contradictory construction; and when we come to analyse this phrase, "the rights of labour," and to consider the different interpretations which have been passed upon it, we are forced to arrive at the conclusion, that very few of those who use the words have any distinct idea of the meaning which they ought to convey. One man considers "the rights of labour" as identical with the operation of the maxim which exhorts us "to buy in the cheapest, and to sell in the dearest market.' Another defines those rights to mean, "a fair day's wage for a fair day's labour." And so the term is bandied about among us, repeated and reiterated, until it has fairly lost the semblance of anything like clear significance.

Meanwhile labour, in this country at least, is loudly calling for the recognition of its rights, whatever those rights may be not for the shadow, but the substance; not for the name, but for the reality. Labour in Ireland is struck down and paralysed-paralysed in its first natural function and duty, the production of food, although millions of acres, capable of yielding large returns of cereal produce, are either unbroken or withdrawn from the tillage of the plough. Labour in Scotland is becoming daily less remunerative; the northern population is driven to emigrate by thousands, or to take refuge in the cities and towns already redundantly supplied. Wages are decreasing in the Lowlands; the poor-rate is multiplying fast; and the greatest source of

our wealth, the iron trade, is in a state of lamentable prostration. Labour in England, by far the richest country of the three, is scarcely better remunerated. In the rural districts, we hear of lowered agricultural wages and growing discontent; in the towns, we are told of mills closed or put upon short time; and, from the metropolis and the larger cities, we have accounts of misery and destitution which, did they reach us from missionaries in a heathen land, would fill our souls with horror, and our hearts with righteous indignation.

To that call, proceeding from the labourers themselves, we cannot and we dare not turn a deaf ear. We must listen to it, appalling as it is; and examine into the cause of it, if we wish society to remain as it has been. We must allow no preconceived ideas or impressions, generated, perhaps, by the delusions of the last few years, or of many years, to stand in our way when so frightful a calamity approaches as the destitution and demoralisation of the working and producing classes of this mighty empire; for we may as well expect a fabric to stand after its foundations have been worn away, as suppose that a state can exist without the support of those who are, in reality, the artificers of its whole wealth and produce.

Would to heaven we could persuade men to throw aside, not for a time, but for ever, their party notions, and, what is still more difficult, their selfish interests; and induce them to look this great question broadly and fairly in the face! They will not find it treated of in their politico-economical treatises-those wretched collections of sophisms compiled by the dullest and most blear-eyed of mankind, which have been accepted in our day as monuments of transcendant wisdom. They will not find the question mooted at all in the tomes of their conceited statists: but if they step beyond that dreary range, and go forth into the scenes of busy life, they will hear it discussed, always eagerly,

sometimes ably, sometimes incompetently, in the workshop, the forge, the factory, the cottage, and the mine; and they may then form some idea of the importance which the workingclasses attach to that much-abused term-" the Rights of Labour."

The mere general discussion of such a point implies that there is something amiss, either in our social or in our commercial and national system. With regard to the first, we think there can be no argument. Unless some totally new evangel has been reserved for these latter days, Socialism, as it is understood on the Continent, and even partially among ourselves, is a wild and miserable delusion. It has been tried, over and over again, under circumstances far more favourable for its development than any which are likely to occur again, and has invariably failed. Nay, the tendency of Liberalism has been to sweep what modified Socialism might exist in a civilised community away. Guilds, corporations, the chartered privileges of burghs, have all vanished, or been reduced to shadows, and nothing is now permitted to stand between the employer and the employed. Socialism, through the law, can have no existence. It may, indeed, lawfully rear and extend itself, if it can, on its own simple merits; but, tried by that test, it simply resolves itself into a new form of labour, liable to competition as before, and powerless to affect prices, by which labour must ever be estimated.

Our firm and fixed belief is, that what are termed social grievances are simply the consequence of a faulty or erroneous commercial and national system. Vapid and superficial writers have talked a great deal about what they are pleased to call the "Laissezfaire" tendencies of modern statesmen-intending thereby to convey the impression that Government is not active enough in its regulating and modifying functions. According to our view, this is a most unfounded charge, as against either the Government or the Legislature. We can discern no lack of activity-no want of interference: on the contrary, we are inclined to complain that changes are too common and rapid. This is

VOL. LXIX.-NO. CCCCXXIII.

an evil to which governments, based on the popular representative principle, are peculiarly liable; and the skill and prescience of the modern statesman will be more conspicuously shown in restraining than in encouraging the spirit of change. Why complain of want of activity, or of culpable negligence, when the fact is before us that, during the last few years, the whole of our commercial system has undergone a radical change, which has affected, more or less, every source of labour, every branch of industry, every application of capital throughout the British empire? We have been the reverse of idle, both at home and abroad. At home, not one single interest has escaped the ordeal of experiment; abroad, we have subjected the colonies to forced operations, from the effects of which it is exceedingly doubtful if they can ever rally, at least under our tutelary care.

These alterations and changes were no doubt intended by their devisers to be productive of good, but they may in reality have been productive of evil. It is impossible to foretell with certainty the effect of any sweeping change, even when the elements of calculation appear to be within our own control. When they are beyond it-as must be the case whenever we assume the co-operation of foreign independent powers, without securing it by treaty-the uncertainty is still greater. It cannot be denied that the late commercial changes proceeded upon the assumption of reciprocity, and that this assumption has been proved by experience to be utterly wrong. So far, then, they have not answered the expectations of their framers. Free imports may be advantageous or the reverse; but they have at all events failed in producing reciprocity, and in converting foreign nations to our insular commercial doctrines. It would be, to say the least of it, becoming in those who advocate the maintenance of the present system to remember this, and to mitigate the arrogance of their tone; for, undeniably, the most important half of their prophecy has fallen to the ground.

Still it remains to be seen whether, in spite of the absence of the pro

H

mised reciprocity, we have derived any material advantage from the change; and here men will differ according to their methods of estimation. Those who are determined, at all hazards, to cry up the advantages of Free Trade, will point to a balance-sheet of extended exports as a sure index of the prosperity of the nation. Is it, after all, a sure index? The whole amount of our national exports is but an infinitesimal portion of the annual creation of wealth in the country; it consists of the products of only a few branches of industry, and represents the employment, not of the masses of the population, but merely of a small section. Some of these branches, indeed the most important of them, do not possess the first guarantee for stability and endurance. They depend for their existence entirely upon the supply of foreign material. But for the cotton-wool of America, the factories of Lancashire would be shut up; and we shall presently have occasion to inquire what likelihood there is of an extended, or even a continued supply. Increased exports give us no account whatever of internal and home consumption. During the last year, with a limited supply of raw material, owing to a deficient crop, we have sent away more cotton goods than before. What is the natural inference from that, as to the capabilities of the home consumer?

Neither is it fair to select any two or three branches of industry which may be flourishing, and to parade these as an index of the prosperity of the whole country. If Free-Trade had not been productive of advantage to some classes, it would not have been tolerated so long. We know perfectly well, and are prepared to admit, that at this moment some trades are doing well; but then they are thriving at the expense of the great body of the community. Such, for example, is the linen-trade of Dundee, supported at the present time by a large demand from abroad for coarse textures, the origin of which demand may be traced to the Free-Trade measures. That cheap provisions, owing to the imports from abroad, should be a great advantage to the operatives engaged in this kind of manufacture, will admit of no doubt; but how does that affect the

general prosperity of the nation? Those operatives work for the foreigner, and are fed by the foreigner. Their contributions to the national revenue, through the customs' duties and excise, cannot be taken as an equivalent for their decreased consumption of British agricultural produce; yet how often is such an instance as this paraded as a proof of general prosperity! After all, it is, perhaps, the only branch of importance which is prospering at the present time. The woollen trade has been steady, but not more profitable than before. The cotton trade we know to be depressed; and the iron trade, one of our most valuable staples, because the raw materials of the coal and ore, as well as the manufactured article, are of British production, is at present worse than unprofitable.

We state these things, not as proofs of the inefficacy of Free Trade, but simply as tending to show that no sound inferences as to the general prosperity of the country can be drawn from the fact that exports have increased. The only criterion is, and must be, the condition of the working classes. We have already pointed out the vast depreciation of labour, and the want of employment which is visible over the three kingdoms; and we have alluded to the two most formidable symptoms-pauperism and extended emigration. How these unchallenged and admitted facts are reconcilable with the idea of general prosperity, it remains for our philosophers to show.

To what, then, is this owing? We can only attribute it to one causethe total disregard of the interests of the British producer. Politicians may attempt, as they have heretofore done, to explain away evident and startling facts on trivial and insufficient grounds; journalists may affect to sneer at the representations of the sufferers, and to turn their complaints into derision; economists may offer to prove the fitness of existing circumstances, upon certain immutable laws of which they were the sole discoverers; demagogues may strive to divert attention from the lamentable consequences of their misdeeds by attacking other institutions; but the fact of general depression and distress remains uncon

troverted and incapable of denial; and so it will remain until the national policy is altered.

It is now precisely twelve months ago since we drew the attention of the public to the actual state of British agriculture under the operation of Free-Trade prices. We then, and in subsequent articles, quoted the deliberate opinion of those who favoured and carried the repeal of the Corn Laws, as to what remunerative prices in reality were; we called as witnesses the late Sir Robert Peel, Mr Wilson, M.P. for Westbury, and others and showed that, according to their judgment, not that of Protectionists, wheat could not be grown with a profit in this country unless it commanded in the market from 12s. to 168. more per quarter than was at that time the average of England. We were told in reply, by our antaonists, that the depression was merely accidental. Hardly one of them ventured to say that they had anticipated such a result, or that such a result was desirable on the contrary, the farmers of this country were told to believe that the low prices current were simply the consequences of an exuberant harvest, combined with the first impulse of new importation, and that, from sheer want of material, the latter would speedily subside. At the close of another year, and after another harvest materially differing in quality, we find prices actually lower than they were at this time twelvemonths. Nor is this the case with grain alone, but with cattle: thus demonstrating how hopeless is the condition of the British farmer under the operation of the present law.

That the impending ruin of the agriculturists, who constitute by far

the most important body of British producers, and therefore of consumers in the home market, would speedily react upon every branch of industry, we foresaw and foretold; and the result is now before us, evident in each day's reiterated tale of distress.

Notwithstanding all this, we are assured in certain quarters, that at every hazard the experiment must go on; that, having once embarked in a career, however dangerous, we must persevere to the last; and that protection to native industry is inconsistent with the genius of a free and enlightened people.

Let us see whether it be so. And, as to judge of this question we must look elsewhere than to Britain, let us try to discover the extent to which the principles of Free Trade are acknowledged in other lands, where freedom, both of sentiment and action, is claimed quite as enthusiastically as in our own. It is worth while knowing how far our opinions on this commercial subject have been responded to, not by despotic states, wherein the popular voice might be suppressed, but by the most liberal and enterprising countries, which, we were told, waited only for our example to engage in the work of reciprocity.

Among these we are surely entitled to reckon Switzerland and Germanyincluding in the latter denomination that powerful confederacy, the Zollverein, which embraces the Hanseatic towns. These are Protectionistdetermined at all hazards to maintain their doctrine of fostering native industry, and meeting us, not with reciprocity, but with augmented customs' duties. The following extracts from the last modifications of the general tariff of the Zollverein may be instructive :

Iron, raw,

...

do.

Linen, viz.

OLD DUTY. £0 6 0 (Free.) 030

NEW DUTY. 90

0

0 1 0

0 4 6

60 0 15 0

0

bleached or dyed,

0 3 0

boiled with ashes,

The law which gave a tariff to Switzerland on the 30th of June 1849, commences by enacting "that all the articles which are imported into Switzerland, are, with certain exceptions, specified by the present law, submitted to an import duty," and proceeds to impose duties of various kinds on all conceivable articles of importation. So far from being in favour of Free Trade, the Swiss nation is distinctly opposed to it; because, as in France, the people engaged in those important branches of industry are fully alive to their interest, and exercise the power they possess to render the revenue laws subservient to it.

Next comes France, upon the example of which country, and its reciprocal sentiments, Mr Cobden almost perilled his case, when he undertook his crusade to stir up that enthusiasm for free imports which, according to his view, lay burning at the heart of every people throughout the civilised globe. We have reason to know that the accounts of his reception in France, which appeared in many of the London journals, were absurdly exaggerated; and that, beyond the circle of that small and despised clique of whom M. Bastiat is or was the head, it was the reverse of flattering, until he arrived at Bordeaux. There, indeed, the winegrowers of the Gironde prepared an ovation for the statesman who had opened or rather who, it was hoped, would open-the ports of England to the produce of their generous vintage. But when, in answer to one of his entertainers, more practical or suspicious than the rest, the hero of the League was compelled to avow his opinion that wine was a fair subject for taxation, the disheartening announcement was made that, if the wine duties were not repealed, Bordeaux did not interest itself at all in the question of Free Trade. Nor can we at this moment discover a country visited by Mr Cobden, whatever may be its form of government, that has fulfilled those "confident expectations" which he announced with such singular energy. It cannot be

said that democracy has made no progress in Europe since 1846. The gallant and mighty people of France are now in full enjoyment of all the rights of man, and have only to indicate their will to their representative governors, and it is obeyed. Have, then, free imports followed in the train of liberty? Englishmen are not likely soon to forget how the enfranchised people of France first made use of their newly acquired power; and, though with steadier and more regular action, the great French Republic has held on its protective course up to the recent opening of its Chamber, heedless alike of the lectures of M. Bastiat, or the example of England. Indeed, there appears to be a tacit agreement on this one subject among all statesmen and all parties. Once, it is true, the eloquent though unsuccessful voice of M. de Lamartine was heard prophesying, in mystical phrase, the speedy triumph of brotherhood and interchange; but, by some association of ideas which we do not pretend to understand, the Free-trader of Meudon shortly became chief of that government which established the communist National Workshops. We have waited in vain to hear from any statesman of note a criticism on the President's most Protectionist Message, or any decided expression of dissent; and why is this? Because the French people, the small proprietors, the peasantry, the workmen of Lyons and Mulhausen, the manufacturers "of woollen* cloths and tissues, of cotton cloths, leather, earthenware, glass, and objects of luxury, have found ready and advantageous markets" under the existing system, and are prepared to defend Protection to the last drop of their blood. The rulers of such a people. know, that to deprive their labour of Protection is but to inaugurate the reign of Communism, to establish anarchy, and to insure their own immediate downfall.

So much for the Liberal states of Europe. Let us next turn to America, wherein no corrupt aristocracy sheds its baneful influence upon society;