Truly, this is sad work! And yet legislation, we fear, though it may in some degree curb, will never reach the root of the evil. The only cure, we feel persuaded, will be found in social, not legislative reform. Better information on the part of the working-classes will do something to the attainment of this most desirable end; and Mr Warren, while paying a just tribute to the “keen mother-wit and right honest heart” of the English working-classes, says,—
“If many years’ observation and reflection entitle me to make a recommendation, it would be, that the working-classes would find it of the highest value to acquire, in a general way, as they could with a little effort,—as by plain and good lectures in this very place,—some knowledge of the circumstances which determine the rate of wages. That is a question, in its higher and remoter branches, of extreme difficulty; but its elementary principles are pretty well agreed upon now, and directly touch the only capital of the poor man—his labour, and teach him how to set a true and not a chimerical and exaggerated value on it, at times when the keenest dispute has arisen on that very subject. Oh, what incalculable benefits might arise from a knowledge, by the acute working-classes, of the leading principles agreed upon by great thinkers, statesmen, and economists of every hue of opinion, as those regulating the relation between employers and employed, and establishing, not a conflict of interest, but an absolute identity!”
Yet it is not Ignorance, but Selfishness—that passion the most abiding of our nature—that is the prime mover in these dire contests between the employers and employed; and along with every effort for the education of our working-classes, we should strive also still more assiduously to cultivate their moral nature and make mutual charity and forbearance more prevalent both among high and low. Very beautifully, and no less wisely and earnestly, does Mr Warren speak on this subject. Inculcating forbearance between master and man in hard-times, he says:—
“Each ought honestly to place himself, for a moment, in the other’s situation—when each might see causes in operation which he might not otherwise have seen—trials and difficulties of which he had not dreamed. Let the master look steadily at the position of the working man, especially in hard times, pressed down to the earth with exhausting labour, anxiety, and galling privations endured by himself and his family, often almost maddening him, as he feels that it is in vain for him to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrow: in moments of despondency and despair, he feels as though the appalling language of the prophet were sounding in his ears—Son of man, eat thy bread with quaking, and drink thy water with trembling and with carefulness! He cannot keep himself and those towards whom his harassed heart yearns so tenderly from the jaws of starvation, with all his patience, economy, and sobriety; and yet he sees out of the fruit of his labours, his employers apparently rolling in riches, and revelling in luxury and splendour! But let that workman, on the other hand, do as he would be done by: let his master deal with his capital, which happens to be money, as the workman with his, which happens to be labour—‘freely.’ Let him reflect on the anxieties and dangers to which his employer is often exposed, but dare not explain, or make them public, lest it should injure or ruin his credit: his capital may be locked up in machinery, or he may be otherwise unable to realise it, however desperate his emergency, without a destructive sacrifice: great but perfectly legitimate speculation may have failed from causes he could not foresee or control—from accident, from fraud, or misfortune of others—from a capricious change in public taste: he may have been running desperately, but with an honest spirit, along the black line of bankruptcy for many months, without his workmen dreaming of it, and yet has punctually paid their weekly wages to perhaps several or many hundreds of them, often borrowing at heavy interest to do so, while these workmen supposed him always the master of untold thousands! Now I say, let each party try to think of all these things, and pause before he commits himself to a rash and ruinous line of hostility. A strike too often partakes of the nature of a social suicide. Capital—that is, labour and money—at war with itself, may be compared to the madman who, in a sudden phrenzy, dashes each of his fists against the other, till both are bleeding and disabled—perhaps for ever.... Let each party sincerely try to respect the other; to find out and dwell on those qualities really, and to so large an extent, entitling each to the other’s respect and sympathy. Let the master reflect on the patience, ay the truly heroic patience, self-denial, fortitude, and energy with which the workman endures severe trials and privations; and let the workman reflect on the fairness and moderation, often under circumstances of serious difficulty,—on the generosity and munificence of his master, as could be testified by tens of thousands of grateful workmen, in seasons of sickness, suffering, and bereavement.”
Towards the close of his elaborate lecture, Mr Warren discourses nobly and cheerfully on the Dignity and Consolations of labour, and glances at the monster evils of Improvidence and Intemperance by which the daily life of the working-classes is robbed alike of its honour and its comfort. In this part occurs a passage so striking and so eloquent that we cannot but transfer it to our pages, and we trust the warning and appeal which it conveys will animate all who have the privilege of influencing the working-classes, with an enduring desire to banish the debasing and all-abstracting passion of intemperance from their ranks.
“I hope and believe that I must go out of this hall, to find a victim of Intemperance! Such a man, or rather wreck of a man, is not to be found here! I know, however, where to find him; there is another hall in which I took my seat this morning, have sate all day, and shall be at my gloomy post again in the morning, to see,—possibly,—standing trembling, or sullen and desperate at the bar of justice, one whom the untiring and remorseless fiend Intemperance has dragged thither, and stands grim but unseen beside his victim. He had been a man, might we say, well to do in the world, and getting respected by all his neighbours, till he took to drink, and then it was all up with him—and there he stands! disgraced, and in despair. I need not draw on my imagination for illustrations, especially before an audience which numbers so many men whose painful duty as jurymen it is to sit every sessions, with myself, engaged in the administration of justice. You have seen how often, in a moment of voluntary madness occasioned by drink, a life’s character has been sacrificed, the brand of felon impressed on the brow, and free labour exchanged for that which is profitless, compulsory, and ignominious to the workman, within the walls of your prison! It would be unjust, however, not to say that exhausting labour, and the companionship of those who are together so exhausted, supply but too many temptations to seek the refreshment and exhilaration afforded by liquor, and which soon degenerates, from an occasional enjoyment, into an accursed habit. Home soon ceases to be home, to him who returns to it under the guilty delirium of intoxication: there, weeping and starving wife and children appear like dismal spectres flitting before his bloodshot eye and reeling brain. As the husband frequents the dramshop, so he drives his wretched wife the oftener to the pawn-shop, and her and his children at length to the workhouse; or perhaps in her desperation—but I dare not proceed! The coroner can tell the rest.
“Look at yonder desolate little room, at the end of a dreary court; a funeral goes out from it in the morning! Enter this evening. All is silent, and a single candle on the mantel-piece sheds a dull flickering light on a coffin, not yet screwed down. Beside it sits morally a murderer; his bloated face is hid in his shaking hands; he has not yet ventured to move aside the coffin lid, but at length he dares to look at his poor victim—his broken-hearted wife! Poor, poor soul! thou art gone at last! Gone, where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest! ’Tis a happy release, say the friendly neighbours, who have contributed their little means to lay her decently in her coffin. Ay, besotted husband! let your bloodshot eyes look on that white face, that wreck of a face so sweet and pretty when you married her! Never fear! the eyes are closed, and will weep and look mournfully at you no more! Touch, if you dare, those limbs, which the woman who laid them out said, with a sigh, were mere skin and bone! Dare you take hold of her cold hand and look at her wedding-ring? Do you see how her finger is worn with the needle? During the day, during the night, this poor creature was your willing slave, mending your linen, and that of your wronged children, and what was left of her own, and which are nearly rags. Do you hear those children sobbing in the next room? Do you see the scar on that cheek? Look and tremble. Have you forgotten the blow that caused it, given by your hand of drunken and ruffian violence? Yet she never reproached you! And when at length, worn away with misery, starvation, and ill-usage, she was forced to give up the struggle for life, her last—her very last act was gently and in silence to squeeze your unworthy hand! Perhaps remorse is now shaking your heart, and you inwardly groan—
‘Oh, if she would but come again,
I think I’d grieve her so no more!’
She will come no more on earth, but you will have to meet her again! So, man, close the coffin lid! Go to bed, and sleep if you can! The funeral is in the morning, and you must follow the poor emaciated body close past your favourite dramshop!”