CHAP. X.

ENGLAND'S DUTY.

229

imitating the elective franchise of the United States, she must also borrow from the Americans their ideas upon education, and make schools at least as numerous as polling-booths, or she may find that she has imported from another nation a recognised element of disturbance, without also providing herself with the only security which it was within her power to obtain.

CHAPTER XI.

CAPITAL AND LABOUR.-RELATIONS BETWEEN
EMPLOYER AND EMPLOYED.

It is sometimes asserted by speakers and writers
whose claims to authority justify us in expecting an
average degree of accuracy in their statements, that
there is no dissatisfaction among the working classes
of America, that every man is sure of being properly
paid for his labour, that class distinctions do not
exist, and that combinations of labour against capital,
or of capital against labour, are impossible. Trades'
Unions, we are told, are unknown, and “such a com-
bination of class against class as that with which we
are afflicted [in England] would be an absurdity,
when all alike are in possession of political power,
and at liberty to promote and defend their own
interests by constitutional means.”1

These representations are probably not intended to convey the truth about America, so much as to serve

1 See an essay by Mr. Goldwin Smith, in Essays on Reform (Lond. 1867). Compare his confident statements with the following from a high American and Radical authority, the North American Review,' for July, 1867 (p. 178):-"Trades' Unions have, in many of the great branches of industry here, been brought to as high a degree of efficiency as in Europe."

CHAP. XI.

CLASS CONTENTIONS IN AMERICA.

231

certain party purposes in England. On no other ground can their extraordinary incorrectness be explained. In America there is a wealthy class, and there is also a poor and a discontented class. The rich are sometimes selfish, and the privations of the poor are embittered by the sense of injustice. These circumstances are even now common in the United States, and as the manufacturing population increases they will become still more common. The labour question is a subject of trouble and anxiety to thoughtful men in the United States, and it is complicated by the fact that in the political government economic laws are neglected or misunderstood. One cause of this, as a recent American writer justly points out, "has been the wonderful material prosperity of the country. . . . . The abundance of land rendered the existence of a poor labouring class almost impossible, until the great factories came into existence."2 No honest and well-informed writer would attempt to deny that the "labour question" in the United States is one of the most serious before the country. But it cannot become a great social canker while the discontented poor can be silenced by the advice, "Go out West," where employment of some sort can be obtained by men able and willing to work hard.

Perfect extinction of class feeling may possibly be an unattainable blessing, but certain it is that the

2 The Nation,' Sept. 26th, 1867.

time-worn troubles and dissensions are revived in America, with this difference, that there the labouring classes have the balance of political power on their side. Trades' Unions, strikes, outrages upon employers or independent workmen, are nowhere more common than in the United States, and the working classes are sometimes inaccessible to a sense of justice and fair dealing, through the conviction that the controlling influence in the machinery of government rests with them. The workmen, whenever they determine upon a strike, or disagreee with their employers from any cause, almost invariably find the public men and the press upon their side, or at least no more opposed to them than is implied in the proffering of some very good advice. The reason is plain. The employers do not form a class worth taking any trouble to conciliate, for when they are counted by heads they are of less importance than the employed; and they have no political power or interest except that which, in rare and exceptional cases, they derive from the support of the labouring class. The employer is powerful only when the employed act in unison with him. If he is opposed to them he can do nothing. For example, certain wealthy manufacturers have contrived by various means to convince the working classes that a Protectionist policy is indispensable to their welfare. “Unless your work is protected," they tell them, "it will be impossible to pay you good wages, or even to give you regular employment, because other countries will step in with their goods, and we cannot stand

CHAP. XI.

PROTECTIVE FALLACIES.

233

against their competition. Therefore you must insist upon prohibitory duties for foreign merchandise, and by that means you will be able to keep what is your own." With the exception of the Democratic party -of course an important exception-all classes in the country are deceived by these fallacies, long ago exploded in England. The workmen believe in them, and support a protective policy, and thus the manufacturers are able to pass tariff bills which are the wonder of the world, and which fill their own pockets at the expense of the general community.

But let true ideas concerning political economy once reach the working classes-an end difficult to accomplish, because their reading is chiefly confined to the newspapers of their own party, where they only see reproduced with eternal sameness the old objections to free trade-and there would be no power left strong enough to keep a Protectionist policy in operation. The employers could not do it, for they have no more weight in the country than an equal number of their workpeople. They have the means of buying support, it is true, and in all alarming dangers which menace them they know how to employ this resource with success. The lobbies of the State Legislatures and of Congress are often the scenes where the real battle between labour and capital is fought.

But this refuge cannot be

3 Sufficient has been said in previous chapters with reference to the corruption existing in the country, but an extract from a memorial presented by the "Citizens' Association" of New York, and signed by