and then you find yourself amongst ample streets, stately squares, and the palaces of the great, with their columns and their statues: and if then you turn your thoughts to the complex varieties of modern life, and the progress of civilization and humanity, may you not see the same thing there; how all that is good, and merciful, and holy, is to be traced up to some cathedral truths, at first little understood, just restraining rude men from bloody deeds, and then gradually extending into daily life, being woven into our familiar thoughts, and shedding light, and security, and sanctity, around us? And, as the traveller’s first impulse, when he rises in the morning after his journey, is to catch a glimpse of that famous building which must ever be the thing most worthy of note in the city; so, in your travels, would you not look first for these cathedral truths, and delight to recognize their beneficent influence wherever you may meet with anything that is good in man?
And now, reader, I have come to the close of this Essay. I do not assert that I have
brought forward any specific, or even any new remedy of a partial nature, for the evils I have enumerated. Indeed I have not feared to reiterate hacknied truths. But you may be sure, that if you do not find yourself recurring again and again to the most ordinary maxims, you do not draw your observations from real life. Oh, if we could but begin by believing and acting upon some of the veriest common places! But it is with pain and grief that we come to understand our first copy-book sentences. As to the facts, too, on which I have grounded my reasonings, they are mostly well known, or might be so; for I have been content to follow other men’s steps, and so assist in wearing a pathway for the public mind. I am well aware that I have left untouched many matters bearing closely on the subject, more closely, perhaps, some of my readers will think, than the topics I have taken. In the fields, however, of politics, and political economy, there are many reapers: and the part of the subject which I have chosen seemed to me of sufficient importance to be considered by itself. I know that in much of what I have said, I have
touched with an unpractised hand, upon matters which some of those who are great employers of labour will have examined and mastered thoroughly. Still, let them remember, that it is one thing to criticise, and another to act. Their very familiarity with the subject may render them dull to the means of doing good which their position affords them. We pass much of our time in thinking what we might do if we were somewhat different from what we are; and the duties appropriate to our present position invite our attention in vain.
To others I may say, there is nothing in these pages, perhaps, that will exactly point out the path most fitting for you to take; still I cannot but think that so many have been indicated, that you will have no difficulty in finding some one that may lead to the main object if your heart is set upon it. If you throw but a mite into the treasury of good will which ought to exist between the employers and the employed, you do something towards relieving one of the great burdens of this age, possibly of all ages; you aid in cementing together the various orders
of the state; you are one of those who anticipate revolutions by doing some little part of their duty towards the men of their own time; and, if you want any reward to allure you on, you will find it in the increased affection towards your fellows which you will always have, when you have endeavoured to be just to them.
But I would wish to put more solemn considerations before you. Ask yourself, if making all allowance for the difference of times and countries, you think that the payment of poor rates, of itself, fulfils the command to visit the sick, clothe the naked, and feed the hungry. Depend upon it, our duties, however they may be varied by the different circumstances of different periods, cannot be satisfied by any thing that the state demands of us, or can do for us. We have each, from the highest to the lowest, a circle of dependents. We say that Kings are God’s Vicegerents upon earth: but almost every human being has at one time or other of his life, a portion of the happiness of those around him in his power, which might make him tremble, if he did but see it in all its fullness. But at
any rate, the relation of master and man is a matter of manifest and large importance. It pervades all societies, and affects the growth and security of states in the most remarkable and pregnant manner; it requires the nicest care; gives exercise to the highest moral qualities; has a large part in civil life; a larger part in domestic life; and our conduct in it will surely be no mean portion of the account which we shall have to render in the life that is to come.
APPENDIX.
According to tables of which Mr. Grainger states that he has ascertained the general accuracy, the proportionate numbers among the working-classes in the Birmingham district at present receiving education are as follows:—Out of a population of 180,000 persons,