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    again , we are told by Frederick Hill , in his last report on the prisons of the northern and eastern districts , that several prisons continue to prove " attractive , " because the dietary is better than that of the workhouse . Such is the condition of the labouring population over the broadest surface of the agricultural districts . In the metropolis , at this moment , in spite of the Exposition , trade is paralyzed by an unexpected stagnation . We know of whole classes among the artizans whose business is now slack , and who are expecting a terrible time as autumn approaches , —and winter . " Universal competition" is your " only hope , " says the Times . Your " only hope , " farmers and

    traders , labourers and working classes , is that very competition which has beaten you down ; your only remaining hope is that which has been the cause of your despair . At least that is the only hope offered by the parties in power . Nor is it very clear how we are to get out of the present "fix "; for the whole nation , the metropolitan kingdom of an empire , is in a paltry " fix " , because the great ceconomists of the day have cast up their accounts wrong , and , rather than confess the blunder , would induce the people to muddle on , until the facts should be coaxed into fitting the accounts . The people must go on overstraining its energies , must have no more children , and must " save eighteenpence out of sixpence a day , " until the facts and the accounts tally !

    Thedifficultyis , thatitwill not " pay" todobetter . Our system will not recognize or tolerate anything that cannot be expressed in the formula of a trading exchange . Now , there are many things most good for nations , and even for commercial nations , that cannot be expressed in that form—many things which will not " pay , " except as a national whole ; some not unless they are spread over more than one generation . It is doubtful whether even the newest contrivance of commerce will pay , according to the old law of supply and demandthat infallible dogma of papists in ceconomy ; for we

    note that although the traffic exceeds the capacity of the existing railways , railway extension will not pay . Ancestral oaks did not pay him who planted them ; chivalry never did pay according to the ledger . On the other hand , to contract the national debt did pay in Pitt ' s time—and it is we who pay now , or rather we are taking the payment out of the wages of labour . In other words , we are taking from labour more and more of that which is its just share of produce . And the Times tells us that we shall get on better , if to the competition amongst ourselves we add competition with other countries , ami so make it universal .

    Now the People puts no faith in all this " mischievous humbug" of Competition . The working classes know what it is that crushes them . The Protectionists do not the less protest against Free Trade because they state their remedies erroneously . Bankruptcy is teaching even the trading classes to doubt the dogmas of their own philosophers , the Competitionists—they are learning that competition is mutually - inflicted bankruptcy . Even they , the traders , have no trust in foreign dependence , when we cannot depend upon ourselves . And the farmers know that they are giving way under the operation of Free Trade . Facts are loo strong for a philosophy which will not deign to revise its interpretation of facts .

    But how to get out of the scrape—the huge national hobble ? Charles Kingsley gave the answer at his lecture last week . You must abandon the dogmatic belief that trade can do everything ; you must trust in the belief that if men honestly take counsel together , they can do more wisely and more efficiently , than if they tried to circumvent one another . If two heads are better than one , the two heads set against each other are worse than one , for they arc mutually destructive . You must revise I he great facts in the state of the country ; you must seek the simple interpretation of those vast processes which have induced our present condition , and which goon exaggerating its

    peculiartmits , —its high-bred Iuxuries , it 8 splendid commercial successes , and its million-numbered misery When you sec the people continually drawn away from the land and accumulated in towns , leaving the land half-tilled or untillcd , making fields a desert and towns" a sty ; " when you see trade devote itM busiest energies , not to creating the largest possible amount of produce for the many , but making a limited produce do double work by " circulating " more and more rapidly—trade taking to itself a new profit at every turn ; when you see these things , you cease to be HurpriHed that produce grows less in proportion to People , the People more lean and aickly , traders more and more

    mercenary . The remedy is , to abandon the fatal course . But it will not " pay . " No , perhaps not , within the limits of trading operations , on a narrow scale ; but succeed it must , and to do it men have but to put their heads together—have but to substitute alliance for civil war . Upon one element of the success , Kingsley was very explicit . By the operations of nature the food which is taken from the soil is returned to it in the shape of manure , the most fitted to reproduce the food ; but by the operations of society , thus far , under the too exclusive guidance of trade , the food drawn from the soil is collected in the town , and then sent as " sewage" down our rivers into the Atlantic " and German Ocean . It is but recently

    that the science of agriculture has discovered that blunder ; which shows what an infant the said science must be . Call the people back upon the land , and they will not only work it , at once getting their own food and ours out of it—and more skill and industry might at once quadruple the produce ; but the materials of food , which improved drainage is consigning so much more effectively to the Atlantic and German Ocean , would be kept back , and given instead to our agricultural counties .

    But as it will not " pay , " you will never induce men to do it ; so says your " practical man . " He may be right , but we hope not ; for if he is right , and you go on as you are , unquestionably you will induce men to do what he would mistrust and dislike much more ; you will induce them to seek refuge in servile war and agrarian revolution . There is no other expectation . Let competition press more upon capital than it does now , and capital will press upon labour ; and then labour will not stand it : that is all . But men will put faith in a totally opposite course ; they are doing so already . In this country , the great principle of concert in

    employments is receiving daily accessions in large numbers , who give their adhesion with a greater or less distinct intelligence of its meaning . Setting aside clubs , joint-stock companies , and other forms of mere partnership , which only enable the associators to divide amongst themselves the pressure of competition ; the multiplied endeavours to render the Poor Law effective , the experiments in reproductive employment and industrial training of the young , are direct violations of Competitive ceconomy , and are felt to be so ; they are direct applications of the Associative principle , and are confessed to be so . They constitute a parochial secession scattered over the country , from the

    antiquated orthodoxy of Competitive oeconomy . The number of persons enrolling themselves in cooperativesocieties , —avowedSocialistswhoput doctrine into practice , —is also daily increasing . Bury , Oldham , Coventry , and many other factory towns of the second order , possess such societies . Nogociations for a union of cooperative societies are in progress ; the London Cooperative Store probably to be the wholesale depot . The fact that Kingsley suggested two plans by which cooperative associations could be placed upon the land on the footing of tenants , with ample security for the landlords , is likely to fix the attention of landed proprietors who know his practical acquaintance with

    agriculture as it is . While the doctrine of concert is thus rising up in different parts of the country , and in different forms—by patches , as it were , that are rapidly uniting—in the neighbouring republic it is making much broader and more solid advances . Many of the working men ' s associations have been described to our readers ; but it is scarcely possible for description to keep pace with the progress of extension . The associations already embrace about one-third of the working classes in Paris . Independently of their common prosperity , some of the general results are very striking . It is found that the management is not only practicable , but easy and effective . The associations not only receive

    employment from their townsmen , but their agents travelling about the country have been eminently successful in procuring orders . JNot . only are the proceeds divisible among the associated workmen , but the work also : a pressure of work is divided among greater numbers , so that no man is over toiled , and none is out of work . A similar process tends to equalize glut , ami stagnation of their trade , by placing it within the power of the workmen to make general arrangements for spreading their work over a given period . These are most important results . ' 1 he success of the Parish associations Iuih suggested a proceeding which would accomplish ilie application of the principle to the entire social system . It w well known that the

    breadth of the land in France is divided among a large number of small proprietors , who possess the certainty of livelihood that has been so much envied by the Irish cottier , though his condition , like that of agriculture , remains very low , through the inevitable working of the separate system . It is now proposed , that several of these small proprietors should form themselves into a cooperative association , consolidate their land , appoint a manager , and at once raise their working to the higher standard proper for more extensive farming . In such a case we should have a landin

    cooperative association placed upon the , full possession of proprietary rights , with that accumulated knowledge which is called experience , and a machinery for taking advantage of the most available improvements . On the facts which we have thus marshalled , we need make no further comment : we only ask , whether the working classes , of whom a large proportion are better informed than any other upon these subjects , can possibly consent to remain in their present position , or whether any class is likely to place much longer its " only hope" on ¦ " universal competition " ?

    Untitled Article

    THE MOST LIBERAL OF OUR MINISTERS . Lord Palmerston appears to be too clever , too experienced , and too skilled a man to make it probable that he would do the same thing twice by chance—almost impossible that he should do it thrice . Are we to impute it to chance , then , that the same results almost invariably flow from his action ? or is Lord Palmerston , after all , merely a Moses Primrose under the guise of a sharp fellow , but ready to be taken in—not twice nor thrice , but always—by every Jenkinson of diplomacy ? or is there some other interpretation of the coincidence ? Our readers know the process by heart : there is a movement in some foreign country favourable to popular rights ; Lord Palmerston hastens to

    express his " sympathy" with that popular movement ; he " protests" against reactionary endeavours ; Liberals shape their courses on the faith of his support ; all goes swimmingly ; but somehow the support anticipated is never available at the right moment ; the popular movement is defeated ; reaction again occupies the conquered field ; and Lord Palmerston advises her Majesty that she may tell Parliament that she is " at peace with all foreign powers . " It is the same throughout—people abroad moving , Palmerston sympathizing , Palmerston active , Reaction victorious . You have seen it so all over Europe , except in Belgium—and by its singularity , perhaps that was " an accident ; " only King Leopold is cousin to Queen Victoria and her liu shun fl .

    Observing this peculiar law of Palmerstonic movements , what will you expect if you again see a popular movement , and Palmerston sympathizing with it ? Of course , that in the end there will be new tyranny , more absolute power . Now see at the facts . Schleswig-Holstein moved ; Palmerston looked with friendly eye ; and now , not only is Schleswig-Holstein bound again , but separated , more oppressed , and , as we learn this week , subjected to hardships unknown before—imprisonment of citizens for declining to vote , conscription into the Danish Army , and the like .

    Such repeated series of facts have seemed inexplicable , and Parliament lias repeatedly asked Lord Palmerston for an explanation . Imagine the simplicity of a policeman who should ask a fashionably-dressed fellow how it happened that handkerchiefs and purses in the neighbourhood were always dimiiuHhing in number ? Still more surprising , imagine the constable ' s simplicity who should always be content with the assurance of that fashionable gentleman that he bad the utmost ( sympathy with the progress * of popular security for handkerchiefs and purses , and that he would explain the services which he , had rendered in that > ebnlf " next sessions . " Honest fellow , bow much

    in earnest be looks ! bow cleverly be " protests " against continuance of the arbitrary seizure- of handkerchiefs , how sedulously be watches the popular pocket ! It is quite impossible that any handkerchief can be lost under such Argun vigilance ; and all the world gapes about , in security . Yet ; somehow handkerchiefs and pnr . se . H do go ; again you look round , amazed ; but the faithful Palmerston is there , and you feel mire that it will not happen atfiiin , that yon do ; for he speaks with mull amazing frankness- and zeal . It is quite " refreshing" to h < 5 ( - « - " »« ' * " oi the world no imcontaininated . . I ' ahnerHton , «« keu lor explanations , promises them ** next session "—when all the iniHchief will

    Untitled Article

    June 7 , 1851 . ] ffifte tLlgftlt * 53 y

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), June 7, 1851, page 537, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1886/page/13/