Note 51 — LORD BEACONSFIELD. ON THE PRINCIPLES OF THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY; DELIVERED AT MANCHESTER, APRIL 3, 1872.

Note 51, p. 248.—On the question here raised, there is a great variety of opinion, but the best authorities will accept the statement of the orator as substantially correct. The most careful consideration of the question has been presented in “Six Centuries of Work and Wages,” by Professor Thorold Rogers, who has devoted many years to the subject, and is unquestionably the highest living authority. On p. 522 (Am. ed.) he says: “Through nearly three centuries the condition of the English laborer was that of plenty and hope; from perfectly intelligible causes it sunk within a century to so low a level as to make the workman practically helpless, and the lowest point was reached just about the outbreak of the great war between King and Parliament. From this time it gradually improved, till in the first half of the eighteenth century, though still far below the level of the fifteenth, it achieved comparative plenty. Then it began to sink again, and the workmen experienced the direst misery during the great continental war. Latterly, almost within our own memory and knowledge, it has experienced a slow and partial improvement, the causes of which are to be found in the liberation of industry from protective laws, in the adoption of certain principles which restrained employment in some directions, and, most of all, in the concession to laborers of the right, so long denied, of forming labor partnerships.”