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CHAP. X.

FLUCTUATIONS IN EMPLOYMENTS.

Variations in Rural Labour--Fluctuations in Manufacturing Employments---the Commercial Cycle---Changes of Fashion and the Site of Manufactories---Effects of Machinery--Not lessened aggregate Employment of Society, but displaced particular Branches of Industry--- Shearmen, Flaxdressers, and Hand-loom Weavers--Enormous Increase of the Manufacturing, compared with the Agricultural Population---Specific Advantages of Machinery stated--Suggestions for Mitigating the Effects of Fluctuations of Employment---Tailors, Brushmakers, and Carpetmanufacturers---Methods adopted by Masters to meet temporary Stagnation of Trade---Novelty and Importance of the Subject to Statesmen and Economical Writers 252

CHAP. XI.

UNIONS OF TRADES.

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Classes of the Industrious confederated either for an increase of Profit or Wages---Origin and Downfal of the Trading Guilds and Fraternities--- First notice of Combinations of Workmen ---National Association for the Protection of Labour--Principles and Constitution of Trades' Unions---How far they are defensible---Examples of Combinations hurtful to Operatives---Better Wages should be high than Profits--Comparative Treatment of Factory Children now and Thirty Years ago---Proof that Wages are not always regulated by Profit, and that Industry sometimes needs legislative Protection---Foreign Trade not injured by Unions but Competition of Manufacturers---Effect of Extreme Low Prices on Masters and Workmen 269

CHAP. XII.

EMPLOYMENT FUND-SOCIETIES.

Principle of Supply and Demand mostly regulates Profits and Wages---Social Evils of Confederacies of Workmen---Effects of a Combination of Shopkeepers- High Wages of Tailors in the Metropolis the result of their Combination--Additional Objects which Trade Societies ought to Embrace--Employ

ment Fund-Societies---Suggestions for meeting Fluctuations in Trade---Proportion Wages form of Prices---Corn-laws.

CHAP. XIII.

RENT OF LAND.

290

Difference between the Practical and Scientific InquirerAnalogy between Rent and the Interest of Money-Origin of the Appropriation of Land-Increase of Cultivation with the Increase of Population-Effects produced on Rent and Prices by Cultivation extending from richer to poorer Soils -Dr. Anderson's Theory of Rent-Rent increases with the Increase of Capital and Industry-Component parts of Rent -The Machinery of Agriculture less perfect than that of Manufactures-Rent of Land determined by the Value of Produce, and the Value of Produce determined by the Cost of raising it on the poorest Soils-Tithe, Poor-rate, and Land-tax fall on Landlords-Abolition of Rent would not render Corn cheaper, nor Wages higher; it would only put Farmers in the places of their Landlords

CHAP. XIV.

TENDENCY TO OVER-POPULATION.

301

Mankind increase faster than Food-Limit to the Increase of the Species-Further Increase in all Countries checked by Poverty or Prudence-Religious Objection answered-Remedies of Over-Population-Natural and Artificial Checks -Deterioration of Society by the Operation of the Natural Check of Misery-Reasons for Marriage in preference to Concubinage Circumstances which make Marriage an Evil-Scriptural Injunction, "Be Fruitful and Multiply," considered-Obligation to maintain Children-Policy of further Legislative Restraints on Marriage-Decrease in the number of Marriages-Proposals for divesting Wedlock of its impoverishing Consequences-Emigration an unobjectionable Remedy of a Redundant Population - Symptoms of an Excess of People described-Question of the Relative Increase of Population and Capital during the last Thirty Years Decrease of Mortality-Over-Population results from defect of Moral Culture--Importance of the Subject, and the Poor more interested in it than the Rich -A Popular Knowledge of the Principles of Population the only permanent Remedy of Indigence and low Wages 317

PART I.

HISTORY

OF THE

MIDDLE AND WORKING CLASSES.

CHAP. I.

STATE OF SOCIETY UNDER THE ANGLO-SAXONS.

THE Conquest forms the historical horizon which marks the boundaries of authentic, and, at most, dubious history. All records antecedent to William I. comprise so much of the marvellous and improbable, that doubt is thrown over the entire narrative of the Saxon chroniclers. The most singular trait of this remote period is the slow march of improvement. The interval, from the invasion of the Romans to that of the Normans, exceeds considerably the eight centuries which have elapsed from the latter era to the present; yet what a contrast of events in the two historical terms. Science, laws, and institu

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tions have been almost created within the last 300 years; while the long nignt of darkness that preceded them presents only fitful gleams of social amelioration through a chaos of bondage and error. It shows how much the progress of nations depends on the uncertain gifts of nature, the appearance of men of genius, some useful discovery, or the ascendancy of enlightened government.

The era of the Anglo-Saxons has been mostly reerred to as the dawn of civilization in this country: but recent inquiries have tended to lower the previous estimate of the attainments of this period of our annals. It is true, we may trace up to the Teutonic invaders the germ of our language, our laws and local divisions; but could we accurately compare the seed with the produce, it is probable the disparity would not be less great than that which subsists between many of the wild fruits and flowers of the wilderness and the perfection to which they are brought by the arts of horticulture.

Untutored man is only a child in habits, the crea ture of impulse; and philosophy rejects, as illusions sacred to poetry, representations which would endow the savage with virtues inseparable from refinement. Except so far as they had been reclaimed by Chris+ tianity, the Anglo-Saxons continued in a state of comparative barbarism. Their institutions discover few signs of superior intelligence, and are only analogous to the attempts of all communities entering on the early stages of civilization. Neither per sons nor property were secure from violence; and rob

bery, from the absence of police, was tolerated as a legitimate vocation. So little delicacy was there in the relations of the sexes, that arreoy societies, for promiscuous intercourse, of the nature of those in the Polynesian islands, were common, and the utility of the marriage institute scarcely recognised, The code of laws ascribed to Alfred has been extolled as an extraordinary instance of legislative aptitude; but it appears to have been little more than a compilation of the decalogue, and the provisions of the Mosaic dispensation.

But what exemplifies most strongly the spirit of the Saxon institutions is, the civil inequality among different classes. Two-thirds of the people were either absolute slaves, or in an intermediate state of bondage to the remaining third. They might be put in bonds and whipped: they might be branded; and on one occasion are spoken of as if actually yoked: “Let every man know his team of men, of horses and oxen."* Cattle and slaves formed in truth the "live money" of the Anglo-Saxons, and were the medium of exchange by which the value of commodities was measured.

The predominant crimes of the age were of an atrocious character. Assassinations, female viola tions, the plundering of whole towns and districts, and barefaced perjuries, were offences of ordinary occurrence by persons of condition. The punishment of delinquents was either shockingly cruel, or

Turner's History of the Anglo-Saxons, vol. iii. p. 91.

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