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des pertes accrues, dans ce système par l'affaiblissement de l'intérêt des gérants." 1

CHAPTER VII.

Law for repressing Combinations among Workmen repealed in 1824-Impolicy of that Law-Its real effect-Voluntary Combinations ought not to be forcibly suppressed— Necessity of adopting vigorous Measures for preventing one set of Workmen from obstructing others in their Employments.

BESIDES the causes of variation in the rate of wages, specified in Chapter VI., they are supposed to be materially affected by the combinations which frequently exist among workmen ; and as this is a subject that has attracted much attention, and with respect to which there is a considerable difference of opinion, we shall examine it shortly.

From the reign of Edward I. down to a very recent period, it was the practice of the legislature occasionally to interfere respecting the stipulations in the contract of wages between masters and servants; and, as its deliberations were in most cases guided by the advice of the masters, it was natural that it should interfere rather in the view of promoting their particular interests, than of treating both parties with the same even-handed and impartial justice. But the gradual though slow advance of civilisation, and the dissemination of sounder and more enlarged principles of public economy, having impressed all classes with a conviction of the general impolicy of such interference, it is now rarely practised. The experience of nearly five hundred years has shown that, while every attempt to set a maximum on the price of labour is oppressive and injurious to the workmen, it

1 See the excellent essay of M. Clement, "Recherches sur les Causes de l'Indigence," p. 252.

is of no real advantage to their employers; for it has been found, that workmen have invariably become more persevering, sober, and industrious, according as their freedom has been extended, and as they have been relieved from the vexatious restraints to which they were formerly subjected.

But though the legislature has long since ceased to dictate the precise terms on which masters should buy and workmen sell their labour, a set of laws were of late much extended, and were very frequently acted upon, by which workmen were severely punished for combining together to raise their wages, or to oppose their reduction. These laws, which seem to us to have been in no ordinary degree partial and unjust, had their origin in a dark and barbarous period. The dreadful plague that desolated England, in common with most other countries of Europe, in 1348 and 1349, having destroyed great numbers of the labouring poor, a greater competition took place for the services of those who survived, who, in consequence, obtained much higher wages. Parliament, however, instead of leaving this temporary rise of wages, to which the poor had an unquestionable right, to be reduced by the increase of population it must have occasioned, passed, in 1350, the famous act (25 Edward III., c. 1) for regulating wages. By this statute, labourers were obliged to serve for such wages as were common in the districts in which they resided previously to the pestilence. But, as this gave rise to a great deal of cavilling, a statute was passed two years after, fixing the specific amount of the wages to be given to reapers, mowers, haymakers, thrashers, &c., and to the more common and important class of artificers. A variety of subsequent acts were passed, to enforce compliance with the regulations in the statute of wages, of the spirit of which some idea may be formed from the fact of its having been made felony, by a statute, passed in 1425 (3 Henry VI., c. 1), for masons to confederate or combine together to raise their wages above the statutory rate. And though this barbarous law has long,

1 See the Rates in Sir F. M. Eden's State of the Poor, vol. i.

p. 33.

ceased to be acted upon, it was not effaced from the Statutebook till 1824, and may be considered as the parent-stock from which the late statute against combinations was derived.

This statute (39th and 40th Geo. III. cap. 106.), after declaring all combinations to obtain an advance of wages to be unlawful, went on to enact, that any workman who entered into a combination, either verbal or in writing, to obtain an advance of wages, to lessen the hours or time of working, to decrease the quantity of work, to persuade, intimidate, or by money or otherwise, endeavour to prevail on any other workman not to accept employment; or who should, for the purpose of obtaining an advance of wages, endeavour to intimidate or prevail on any person to leave his employment, or to prevent any person employing him: or who, being hired, should, without any just or reasonable cause, refuse to work with any other workman; such workman should, on the oath or oaths of one or more credible witnesses, before any two justices of the peace, within three calendar months after the offence has been committed, be committed to, and confined in, the common gaol within their jurisdiction, for any time not exceeding three calendar months; or, at the discretion of such justices, should be committed to some house of correction, within the same jurisdiction, there to remain, and be kept at hard labour, for any time not exceeding two calendar months! The extreme severity of this enactment must strike every Justices of the peace belong to the order of masters ; and, however respectable individually, they generally possess a full share of their peculiar feelings and prejudices. To invest two of them with the power of imprisoning workmen for three months, without the intervention of a jury, was certainly intrusting them with an authority very liable to be abused, and which, if it were to be exercised at all, should have been placed in the hands of those less likely to act under a bias. It is true, the workmen could appeal to the quarter-sessions: but as this was only an appeal from one set of justices to another, it was of little importance. There were a variety of

one.

other clauses, discharging all workmen from attending any meeting for the purpose of combining, from contributing to defray the expenses incurred by persons acting contrary to this Act, and compelling offenders to give evidence, &c., &c., under the above-mentioned penalties.

A very strong feeling had been spreading for many years, not only among the workmen, but also among the more intelligent portion of the masters, that the attempts to enforce the provisions of the Combination Act had done more harm than good. And in unison with this feeling, a Committee of the House of Commons was appointed, in 1824, to inquire into the operation of the laws for preventing combinations among workmen, and for preventing their emigration, and the exportation of machinery. This committee collected a great deal of evidence on these subjects. And such was the impression made on the House by this evidence, and by the growing conviction of the impolicy of the combination laws, that a bill for their repeal, introduced by the chairman of the committee, was soon after carried through both Houses, and passed into a law.

The effects that have followed the repeal of the combination laws, have not been such as many of the supporters of that measure anticipated. And it must be admitted, that the workmen have in many instances discovered a refractory and turbulent disposition; and that there is hardly a branch of industry in which they have not resorted to a strike, and entered into combinations, not unfrequently accompanied with violence, to raise their wages, and to dictate to their masters the mode in which they should be employed. Much, however, as we regret, and ready as we are to condemn, many of the proceedings that have taken place since the repeal of the Combination Act, we are very far from thinking, that they form any valid reason either for its revival, or for the enactment of any similar statute.

That workmen ought to be allowed freely to combine or associate together, for the purpose of adjusting the terms on

which they shall sell their labour, is apparently a most reasonable proposition. Wages, like everything else, should always be left to be regulated by the fair and free competition of the parties in the market, and should never be controlled by the legislature. "The property," says Adam Smith, "which every man has in his own labour, as it is the original foundation of all other property, so it is the most sacred and inviolable. The patrimony of a poor man lies in the strength and dexterity of his hands; and to hinder him from employing this strength and dexterity in what manner he thinks proper, without injury to his neighbours, is a plain violation of the most sacred property." But it is false to affirm that workmen are allowed to dispose of their labour in any way they please, if they be prevented from concerting with each other the terms on which they will sell it. Capacity to labour is to the poor man what stock is to the capitalist. Now, a hundred or a thousand capitalists may form themselves into a company, or combination, take all their measures in common, and dispose of their property as they may, in their collective capacity, judge most advantageous for their interests:—And why should not a hundred or a thousand labourers be allowed to do the same by their stock? Of all the species of property which a man can possess, the faculties of his mind and the powers of his body are most particularly his own. And to fetter him in the mode in which he is to exercise or dispose of these faculties and powers, is a manifest encroachment on the most inviolable of all rights, and can be justified only by an overwhelming necessity.

It is easy, however, to show that, in point of fact, no such necessity ever did or can exist. The wages of any set of workmen who enter into a combination for the purpose of raising them, must be either, 1st, below the natural and proper rate of wages in the branch of industry to which they belong; or, 2d, they must be coincident with that rate, or above it. Now, it is clear that, in the first case, or when wages are depressed below their natural level, the claim of

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