seller, is a sure sign of general happiness and material progress.* If we assume that one in twenty-one of our adult population is interested pecuniarily in the Traffic, which is somewhere about the mark, then we have twenty to one interested in its total and immediate abolition. § 165. The Working Classes especially have their interest and elevation wound up with the success of the Alliance. Only those who are base enough to fawn-men who flatter but to fleecewill compliment them, as a class, on their sobriety and self-control. Like every other class, they have their class-faults-and when these faults stand in the way of the social advancement and political power of the working men, only their worst enemies, or ill-judging friends, would counsel silence. Earnestly, then, and in all sincerity, we warn them against false hopes of sudden social elevation, and particularly against pothouse agitation and agitators. He that drinks for liberty Faster binds all tyrant power; But postpones the People's hour. Their rights, as laborers and citizens, can never be secured until they are men-temperate, self-respecting, and enlightened; and, therefore, united and powerful. Strikes' will never aid them, for they fight capital with unequal weapons; political agitation is still more feeble when arrayed against the privileged classes, who, if they were willing, dare not, in fact, trust the Chambers's Journal states that in forty cities and towns in Scotland, every 149 of the population support a dram-shop, while it takes 981 to keep a baker, 1,067 to support a butcher, and 2,281 to sustain a bookseller. A local illustration will perhaps bring this subject most distinctly to bear, which we extract from a model pamphlet, entitled Newcastle as it is; reviewed in its Moral Aspects, Social State, and Sanitary Condition. (Tweedie, London. 1854) Relative Proportion of Traders in Food, in Clothing, and in Strong drink. 67 Bakers and Flour Dealers. 131 Grocers and Cheesemongers 21 Eating-houses 509 103 Drapers (Linen and Woollen) 19 Shoemakers 27 Hatters 179 Tailors 507 44 Drink-manufacturers 55 Ale, Wine, and Spirit Merchants. 425 Public-houses 76 Beer-shops 600 In every large town in the kingdom, a similar enquiry should be instituted, and the whole relations of this question brought to bear upon the locality. laborer with the franchise. The working-men must help themselves first of all, and then their friends in other ranks will be able to help them too: until that first step be taken, the second is impossible. If we regard the condition of social environment of the mass of our artizans-if we take into account, not only the high wages of many sections of them, but, in contrast with the Continent and other countries, their universal freedom from taxation on the necessaries and simple comforts of life;* if we contemplate, also, the manifest willingness of other ranks to contribute to their social welfare, as they have already supplied so many appliances and means of education,-we shall perceive that the Working Classes of Britain possess unparalleled opportunities for social elevation. Why, then, are you degraded and helpless? Why the political Pariahs of the Constitution? The late Mr G. R. PORTER hit upon the solution in his celebrated paper on 'the self-imposed taxation of the Working Classes,' where he shows that, excluding wines and brandy consumed by the wealthy, the Industrial Classes expend upon Bacchus and Tobaccos, the enormous sum of £53,411,615 sterling! This fact at once furnishes a key for unlocking the social difficulties of the nation. The discussion of impracticable Theories of Population might be safely postponed for centuries, and problems concerning hours of labor, emigration, pauperism, and crime, receive a ready and natural solution-if the People would insist upon the removal of that which tempts them to this needless and profligate expenditure. The secret of the creation of a wealthy class is in capital saved, instead of capital swallowed : and the course by which some poor men have risen to riches, is open to all. Not that we recommend the insane pursuit of wealth, such as we sometimes behold it; competence and ease are the better conditions, acquired without that continual strain and care which in the end frustrate the enjoyments of the affluent. For the worthier pursuits of life, which furnish the most real and lasting happiness-for a life, simple, refined, and intellectual-wealth is happily not required; but it is one of the compensations of the large class lying at the basis of society, that, while the opulent are obliged to expend their means, not in natural channels which contribute to their own happiness, but in show and luxury, and modes dictated by a tyrannous Convention the self-imposed tax of the wealthy-there is "Whatever he contributes to the revenue is a purely voluntary contribution. If he confines himself to a strictly wholesome and nutritious diet, and to an ample supply of neat and comfortable clothing,-if he is content, as so many of the best, and wisest, and strongest, and longest-lived men have been before him, to live on bread and meat, and milk and butter, and to drink only water; to clothe himself in woollen, linen, and cotton; to forego the pleasant luxuries of sugar, coffee, and tea and to eschew the noxious ones of wine, beer, spirits, and tobacco,he may pass through life without ever paying one shilling of taxation. Of what other country in the world can the same be said?"-Edinburgh Review, April, 1851, p. 315. nothing to debar the masses of our people from the enjoyment of a competence.* It By a simple and frugal life alone, a people can put by a capital for securing their own general elevation and permanent prosperity. Such a course is the only practicable one for re-knitting the broken bonds of society, by narrowing that wide gulf which separates classes-diminishing the numbers of the very rich, and vastly increasing those of the comfortable and 'well to do.' is an undoubted evil that the capital of material civilization should be aggregated into masses, and held at the disposal of the few rather than the many, for the disparity of power, thus created, affects, at once, the objects of production and the direction of their distribution. This, in reality, is the evil of luxury— that forerunner of national decadence. It originates the loss of labor in the production of articles which are either worthless, or exceedingly limited in the circle which can enjoy them-it prodigiously augments the numbers of the unproductive classes, an evil comparable to the evil of standing armies or pensioners; thereby imposing an extra burden of toil upon those who must work. But this evil is insignificant compared with the selfinflicted one of the Laboring Classes, who expend, not only what might easily be put by for capital, but the very means of the daily bread and education of their families-expend £20,000,000 annually upon a selfish and sottish pleasure, enjoyed apart from their household-expend it in pernicious articles of luxury, which involve the waste of money, the misapplication of capital, the increase of an idler-class, and of paupers, criminals, and taxes-which, in fine, more than any other agency ever known, contracts the labor market, lessens the fund out of which wages must be paid, and, by necessity, augments the toil, while it diminishes the rewards, of labor. The Licensed Victuallers boast of the importance of their trade to the country, because it has a fixed capital of £20,000,000. But here are the Working Classes alone casting away annually a far larger capital-a capital imperiously needed for their own comfort and independence. It must be obvious to the least reflecting reader, that the only natural and efficient remedy for the evils which affect the Laboring Classes is the diversion of these means of elevation into legitimate channels of trade, manufacture, and commerce. Let one part of this enormous sum now only thrown into the caldron of mischief, be expended upon food, clothing, furniture, and education, increasing at once the happiness, dignity, and influence of your class, and another or surplus part be reserved, and, on the principle of association now legalized, applied to the purchase of the material To the many examples of Maine Law Districts already given in this work, let us add another: "DINORWIC, North Wales. Population, 800: chiefly quarry men. Wages of laborers, 15s. per week; quarriers, 20s. Almost all sober. In the Saving Club is deposited about £1,000 annually. Houses neat and clean. No paupers, save several very old people. No Public House for sale of Drink within two miles." and machinery of reproductive manufacture and commerce-in short, let the many as a body imitate the career of the few-and no power on earth can possibly prevent, or even long retard, your enfranchisement. We know indeed what is the immediate hindrance of the sobriety of your class. It is the temptation of the licensed Traffic-the TRAPS,' as they are truly called, amongst yourselves. If the PUBLIC HOUSE is your worst enemythe Alliance, then, must be your best friend. Its claims are before you you will consider them—and act befittingly. § 166. We have addressed the Working Classes with respectful freedom; but a word on their behalf is also due to the Wealthier Friends who desire their improvement-those who, while acknowledging the 'Claims of Labor,' do not forget the Duties of Capital. It is a pleasing sign of the Times, that the Laborer is cared for at all: that on his behalf Sanitary Commissions and Mine and Factory Inspectors are sent forth-that official enquiries are instituted into reported abuses of every description-that education is organized, and Schools of Art set up. But is there not one great drawback? We have charitable associations and legislative remedies for every possible variety of wretchedness-save the greatest of all, and the seat and source of most others. It is not better men we want, but wiser measures: measures which go at once to the root of the matter, and go in the right way. The relations of an effete feudalism cannot be revived and ought not if they could. We must appeal to the artizan as a man, and, by the removal of overbearing seductions on the one hand, and by wise aid and instruction on the other, help him to help himself, without destroying his sense of independence. "To distressed individuals of all ranks, we owe tender compassion and charitable aid; to the lower orders, as such, we owe not charity but justice,—not so much the open purse, as the equal measure. Advice, as far as they will receive it; guidance, as far as they will submit to it; control at times, as far as the freedom of the constitution will enable us to exercise it; education of the best quality, and to the utmost extent that our unhappy sectarian jealousies will permit us to bestow it. We owe them fairplay in everything; justice of the most even-handed sort,-full, unquestionable, and overflowing ;—the removal of every external impediment which prevents them from doing and being whatever other classes can do and be. We owe to them every facility with which we can surround their conflict amid the obstacles of life,→ facility to acquire temperate habits [instead of legalized temptations to intemperance]. We should enable them to get everything, but should profess to give them, as a class, little or nothing, save education."* The Alliance presents the opportunity for doing good to this class by wholesale-namely, by originating * Edinburgh Review. April 1851. acilities for repressing the temptation to wholesale ruin,-for the removal of social impediments to popular elevation, and the initiating of temperate habits-a thing utterly inconceivable amidst the machinery of the Traffic. This is an age when we ought to study at once the policy and the œconomy of Benevolence; for we need all our strength to cope with the complicated evils of society. Policy and Economy combine in this question; teaching the Philanthropist to go to the source of misery, to prevent effectually, instead of palliating imperfectly. Destroy the Traffic, and dirt and filth, ignorance and youthful depravity, will disappear more rapidly than if you issued a thousand Sanitary Commissions, or erected a hundred Reformatories. Compare the Education Census, Redgrave's Criminal Tables, and the Excise Returns, and at once the great fountain of mischief is disclosed: leading us to perceive the true and only remedy for our_social_evils. It is startling enough to know that Bucks, Beds, Hunts, Monmouth, and other counties with the greatest amount of Religious and Secular Teaching, are, nevertheless, nearly twice as criminal as some of our most ignorant counties! How is this? Because the School and Church have to contend with the Tavern and Beerhouse; so that, while Education has been ameliorating society in one direction, the Traffic has been corrupting it in another. We present a table, which will grow more instructive the more it is examined, showing the relation between the Drinking facilities and Crime in 24 of the English counties. Other counties might have been added, had we not preferred to give only the extremes of contrast, and to derive our illustration from official returns, and in reference to licensed houses exclusively. It could be shown that in the Cider counties, and some others, there are several baneful drinking facilities in addition to the legal ones. Besides illicit drunkenness in Hereford and Somerset, the farmers pay the wages partly in drink. (§ 125, § 131.) To simplify the documents as much as possible, we have fixed upon 100 as the average or mean of the 40 counties of England; and in reference to all the four Factors of (1) Attendance at Religious Worship; (2) Popular Education; (3) Public-houses; and (4) Criminality, and on an average of years. (Of course, the same proportion to population in all cases is expressed.) The symbols are the usual ones, viz., for plus, +; for minus, ; and for full,+. |