Painting by Sir George Hayter
TAKING THE OATH TO MAINTAIN THE PROTESTANT TRUTH
The old laws forbidding workmen from making combinations or “Covins” for the advancement of wages were passed in the fourteenth century, and remained in force until the year 1825, when they were at last repealed. You think, then, that nothing remained for the workpeople but to form as many combinations as they pleased. You are quite wrong. There was still the right of holding public meeting. Until that was acquired—it was only fully granted a few years ago—the repeal of the old law was practically valueless. The right of forming trades unions has been acquired entirely during the present reign. Now the trades union is not popular; it has been ruthlessly enforced; the treatment of blacklegs has been cruel; yet no one can deny that the position of the working-man has been enormously improved, his independence advanced, his wages increased, by the union. The Agricultural Union has not done so much: partly because the countryman is difficult to manage; partly because it would appear that he wants another kind of union. Thus the skilled agriculturalist is a man who knows a great deal, he cannot be replaced except by one like himself; the best chance, therefore, is to stimulate emigration and keep down his own numbers.
Painting by Sir David Wilkie
THE QUEEN’S FIRST COUNCIL
I have not mentioned among the forces making for advance the abolition of flogging. As a matter of fact flogging is not abolished, but it is only inflicted upon civilians as a punishment for robbery with violence. About thirty-five years ago there was a common form of robbery called “garrotting,” in which violence and brutality were commonly exhibited. By the advice of the judges the garrotter, on conviction, was flogged. It is maintained that the flogging practically stopped the garrotting. However that may be, there is no doubt that the ruffian who suffers that punishment dislikes it extremely. But this punishment did not affect the respectable classes. In the Army and the Navy, on the other hand, where flogging was practised continually, it did affect them; and it seems wonderful that, in the face of the prejudice against the service which these punishments created, we should have been able to maintain an Army at all. It is, however, just to state that flogging in the Army had been enormously reduced: in 1869 there were only 21 soldiers flogged out of our whole army of 150,000, while an able seaman of the first class could not be flogged at all; and in the same year, in the whole of the navy of 80,000 men only 8 were flogged. By the Army Discipline Act of 1879 flogging was finally abolished. But, I repeat, I do not consider this reform as affecting materially the mind of the English working-man.
Now read through this long list of reforms, every one of them exercising steady, continual, irresistible influence upon the individual. What changes do you expect to find in him?
