Note 61 — Chapter VI

“I know, gentlemen, that I have detained you at considerable length. There is, however, one most important subject upon which I must speak, and you must bear with me for a while. I claim that during the whole course of my political and private life I have been, and I will continue to be, the friend and well-wisher of the working classes; and I think I know those classes well enough, and more especially in this my own immediate neighbourhood, to know this, that there is nothing they wish for so much as plain speaking and plain dealing, and I venture in their presence, I hope of many of them—and I trust my words may reach many of those which are not present—I venture to warn them against one danger which I, in common with others, foresee as a possible consequence of the great measure which we have given. Apprehensions are entertained that the working men, not satisfied with overcoming that political influence to which they are entitled, will be disposed to lend themselves as dupes to designing persons, who may endeavour to cajole them, with the idea of returning representatives to Parliament, with loud professions of being the only friends of the working classes, and of being sent to Parliament especially to promote legislative measures intended to conduce to their welfare. Now, I believe that there never was a Parliament more disposed than the present to look to the interests of the working classes, and to consult for their benefit. I can only hope that the next Parliament may be equally desirous of effecting that object, and equally acquainted with the best modes of carrying it into effect. But I warn as a friend—as an earnest and sincere friend, and speaking from the deepest conviction—I warn the working classes not to be led away by the flattering delusion of men who will tell them that they can induce Parliament to pass a measure of exceptional legislation for their especial and immediate benefit. They cannot induce, I hope, any Parliament to pass any such measure; and if such a measure were to be passed, the workmen would find to their misfortune that it was the greatest injury that could be done them—I mean a measure attempting to regulate the rate of wages. To interfere between labour and capital is beyond the legislation of any Parliament; and, indeed, it would be, in short, only to lead Parliament to adopt such a course of legislation as has been recommended in some of the bye-laws we have heard so much of lately in connection with the various Trades’ Unions in the country. Do not let me be misunderstood. I am no adversary or opponent of Trades’ Unions. I think that, confined to their legitimate object, they are useful and salutary instruments for maintaining the rights of the labouring classes; and forty-three years ago I was the member of the House of Commons who first recommended and succeeded in carrying the abolition of those laws which made it illegal for workmen to agree to combine together not to work under a certain amount of wages. I therefore hope that what I say may be understood as not proceeding from one who desires to oppress the working man. I say that even strikes, objectionable as they are in principle, and injurious as they are to the working classes, are not an illegitimate or an illegal mode of proceeding. I say that if capital and labour cannot agree together, the only mode of bringing them together is the absence of one or the other—the capital to employ the labour, or the labourer to give the capital. I go further, and I say that so long as Trades’ Unions are charitable associations, and their contributions go to the relief of those who are thrown out of work by no fault of their own, they are unobjectionable and meritorious; but, from the disclosures we have recently heard, it appears they have gone far beyond those acts. I do not mean to refer to those gross acts of intimidation, picketing, rattening, and acts leading to murder. They are acts which no person will defend, and the members of Trades’ Unions themselves shrink from acknowledging their participation in them; but I say that these associations go beyond their limits when they agree not only themselves not to work, but to prevent and intimidate other persons from working. For my own part, looking to the public and private interests of the members, I cannot for the life of me understand how English workmen, entitled to make the most of their own industry and science, can submit to the tyranny under which they are groaning. Gentlemen, the whole course of our legislation for the last, I won’t say how many years, has been a protest against class legislation. It has been an argument in favour of the free admission of all foreign goods, an argument in favour of free-trade, an argument opposed to all class protection. What would you say if, in the city of Manchester, Government were to impose, as in Continental countries, an octroi duty on the importation of every article of agricultural produce? The whole city would be in an uproar; and yet you submit to the bye-laws of associations which say that not only shall a tax be paid, but that not a single brick shall be laid in Manchester that is imported from a foreign country, that is, from beyond a single district, even from beyond the breadth of a canal. We are speaking here in the Free-trade Hall. What do you say of bye-laws which say that not a stone shall be worked in a quarry, to save an enormous additional amount of labour in carting it to the place where it is to be deposited, but that it shall be brought in bulk and worked by the workmen; and if it should have been worked in the quarry, then the farce is to be gone through of working it again by workmen in Manchester? If this system is to prevail, what is to become of your threshing machines and your steam ploughs, your mowing and reaping machines? You would have to resort to your old flail and other obsolete implements, and in manufactures to old handloom weaving; you would have to do away with the power-loom and all those inventions of genius which, while they have multiplied, to an indefinite amount, the productive capital of the country, have at the same time multiplied to an extent almost equally indefinite the amount and number of persons employed. I say that the British workmen would do well seriously to consider these things. Let me add that I have now been for two and forty years a married man; and let me advise the workmen when they fall into any difficulty to consult their wives. If the workmen are the bread winners, their wives are the bread managers; and let them ask their wives and their children, if they cannot answer for themselves, what they think in the long run they have gained from those strikes which they have carried on with so much perseverance and so much loss, greatly to the advantage of those who apply the strings and manage the puppet.”—Speech of the Right Hon. the Earl of Derby at Manchester, 17th of October, 1867.