done by the employers of labour in their individual and private capacity.
What an important relation is that of Master and Man! How it pervades the world; ascending from the lowest gradation of planter and slave through the states of master and servant, landlord and labourer, manufacturer and artisan, till it comes to the higher degrees of rule which one cultivated man has to exercise over another in the performance of the greatest functions. See, throughout, what difficulties and temptations encumber this relation. How boundless is the field of thought which it opens to us, how infinite the duties which it contains, how complete an exercise it is for the whole faculties of man. Observe what wretchedness is caused by a misunderstanding of this relation in domestic matters. See the selfish carelessness about the happiness of those around them of men not ill-intentioned, nor unkind, perhaps, in their dealings with the world in general, but lamentably unfit for the management of a home. Then observe the effects of similar
mismanagement in dealing with a country. Look at the listless loiterers about an Irish town: you would naturally say to yourself, “Surely this people have done all that there can be for them to do.” You walk out of the town, and find the adjacent fields as listless-looking, and neglected, as the men themselves. Think what a want there must be of masters of labour, that those hands and these weeds are not brought into closer contact.
It may be said that the distressed condition of the labouring classes is owing to temporary causes, and that good times, by which is meant good wages, would remove a large part of the evil. I confess it does not appear to me that a good harvest or two, or ready customers on the other side of the Atlantic, or the home demand that may arise from exhausted stocks, or any other cause of that nature which is simply to end in better wages, would of itself do all, or even any considerable part, of what we should desire. I do not, for a moment, mean to depreciate the good effects that would flow from an increase of
employment and better wages. But still I imagine that there are many cases in which, if you were, in ordinary times, to double the amount of wages, a very inadequate proportion of good would follow. You have to teach these poor people how to spend money: you have to give them the opportunities of doing so to advantage: you have to provide a system of education which shall not vary with every fluctuation of trade: and to adopt such methods of working as shall make the least possible disturbance of domestic ties. No sudden influx of money will do all these things. In fact, whatever part of this subject one takes up, one is perpetually brought back to the conviction of the necessity which exists for an earnest and practical application, on the part of the employing class, of thought and labour for the welfare of those whom they employ.
Some of my readers may think that I have spoken of the distress of the labouring population in exaggerated terms. Let them only read the details of it in the Report of 1842, on the Sanitary Condition of the labouring
population, or in the Report of last year, on the condition of the children and young persons employed in mines and manufactures. I scarcely know what extracts to give of these direful reports, that may briefly convey the state of things to those who have not studied the subject. Shall I tell them of children ignorant who Jesus Christ was; or of others who know no more of the Lord’s Prayer than the first words, “Our Father:” and whose nightly prayers begin and end with those two words? Shall I tell them of great towns in which one half at least of the juvenile population is growing up without education of any kind whatever? Shall I show that working people are often permitted to pass their labour time, the half of their lives, in mines, workshops, and manufactories, where an atmosphere of a deleterious kind prevails: and this, too, not from any invincible evil in the nature of the employment, but from a careless or penurious neglect on the part of their employers? Shall I go into a lengthened description of the habitations of the poor which will show that they are often worse housed than beasts of burden? Or
need I depict at large the dark stream of profligacy which overflows and burns into those parts of the land where such Want and Ignorance prevail?
How many of these evils might have been mitigated, if not fully removed, had each generation of masters done but a small part of its duty in the way of amelioration. But it was not of such things that they were thinking. The thoughtless cruelty in the world almost outweighs the rest.
“Why vex me with these things?” exclaims the general reader. “Have we not enough of dismal stories? It oppresses us to hear them. Let us hope that something will occur to prevent such things in future. But I am not a redresser of grievances. Let those who live by the manufacturing system cure the evils incident to it. Oh that there had never been such a thing as a manufacturing system!” With thoughts vague, recriminatory, and despondent, as the foregoing, does many a man push from him all consideration on the subject. It is so easy to despair: and the largeness of a calamity is so ready a shelter for those who