Commonwealth, The (Newspaper) - February 23, 1867, London, Middlesex RECEIVED THE ORGAN OF THE is something more sacred than the or cyen than for which ai 1 powers are and to which they must all be So. 20�\-New 55. february 1867. A WORKING REFUTATION OF POINTS OP POLITICAL ECONOMY ADVOCATED BT JOHN r Hitherto I have dealt theoretical elucidations and negative critic to I is called the consideration of. positive and which Mill hopes to cure the ills that afflict we shall fmd impracticable as we found his theoretical and a tendency to progressive of propositions aiming at the regeneration of we shall find and with a aim the attainment of stationary anyone advocated the old against the the against the he be looked upon as one labouring under an aberration of Now stands same relation to modern farming large as band and to modern spinning ana Ifin former times a man had been in possession of a thousand wheels it would have required a thousand pairs of feet and hands to just as if a thousand persons had possessed a wheel each and it in own In the same a ten thousand acre estate was cultivated in the same manner as a ten acre there was no difference in the mode of the same amount of manual labour acre being required on large farms as. on small Small farming is the mode of cultivation of the it belongs is conformable to a state of society in which almost every every produces all its own It belongs to a state of society in which the great bulk of the population as it to the and in which there are few or no chances of getting a living except by the cultivation of the The characteristic between the working farmer and the large capitalist farmer that the former produces food for the consumption of his own the latter produces food for the market for the consumption of The farmer the food producer for an industrial the small farmer the food for Mr. Mill cates small bat not to the extent of up the existing he Only proposes that common to be brought into should be devoted to raising up of To show what a happy fellow the peasant proprietor is Mr. Mill favours his readers with some French from of which I translate following choice peasant with hi does all the work on his little inheri who pays no rent to any one above him to any one below who eats bis own drinks his own clothes himself with his own hemp and troubles himself little market for he has little to sell and little to and is never ruined commercial Far - fearing the future he bis for he puts every moment that is not required for his annual labour to the profit of his offspring for centuries is also eager to buy land at any He pays more for it than it is more perhaps than it will return to We see at the first glance that there is no room for such a man in a country that boasts of such places as and For if he wants to be truly happy ha will trouble himself as little about the hungry mouths in and Manchester as he troubles himself about market If entice him to produce ought else than he requires for feeding and clothing his he will not be able to furnish it at a reasonable since he pays more for his land than it is and on that very besides enhancing the price of his necessarily cripples his circulating If such happy beings still existed when Sismondi I can assure my readers that they have become since the necessity of money consequently the of caring about market prices has even penetrated the Alpine The proposal or Karl of Zurich ef the delegates of the International Congress at to establish a people's the Canton of to enable the peasantry to obtain loans for less than from 5 to 10 interest striking proof of But independent of this Mr. Mill himself cites evidence which shows that the indebtedness of the proprietors in the - flourishing canton of Zurich borders on the so that only the intensest and complete freedom of commerce enable them to stand their the peasantry of Zurich enjoy an advantage with the exception of Florentine no peasantry in the world Mr. Mill states in a footnote of the manufacturers of the canton of Zurich are small The cotton manufacture either wholly or 23,000 nearly a tenth of the In the canton of Schaffhausen almost all the landed properties are but rarely for more than half their registered And what is the condition of the French peasantry 1 M. stated last year in the Chamber of Deputies that to the census of 1851 the mortgages on land amounted to 400,000,0002. Things had become considerably worse for the Government would not publish the returns of 1861." He observed that a large estate were for sale in the neighbourhood of a large populated it could be divided into each of which fetched a high what happened buv a mere of men actually borrowed the of their available looking forward to the future to clear off their 4ebt. Of the 7,846,000 landed proprietors in not less than 3,000,000 had been certified the municipal councils of their as being in such a state of absolute destitution that they could pay no personal Bufi of land is act the way in which land is Suppose a man his death of free of and and that the agree not their three acres what happens the one who keeps the lot must difference to the 0jher And where does he get the He mortgages the and of starting in business with a fund in he starts with a crushing weight of of which he can never This and die taxes imposed by the State form the links which chain the peasant to and implicate him in the fate of the But for these he might be the pourtrayed by but interest and taxes compel him to sell part of his at all and generally the ' best leaving the coarsest for and frequently not enough of The life of the peasant is anything but an enviable Speaking of neighbourhood of Zurich Mr. Mill When I used to open my between four and five in the I saw labourer in the and when I returned from evening long after there was the labourer mowing his grass or tying up his Howitt says about the They early and because they feel that they are labouring for They plod on from day to from to the most and persevering of And how does the peasantry fare Mr. Mill No peasantry on the Continent has the superstition of the English labourer respecting white The Tuscan according to has but two meals a day in the bad ten o'clock in the morning he eats his at nightfall he has and afterwards he has bread with some In summer he has three at at and in the but he only lights the fire once a for his consisting of. afterwards a or salt or dried or or which he with Salt meat enters but in a very small quantity into his for he reckons only 40 lbs. of salt a year as an ample provision per twice a week he puts a little bit into his Sundays he always has fresh but not more pound or a pound and a however numerous tho family may The Flemish fanners and says Mr. live much more economically than the same class in they seldom eat except on Sundays and in buttermilk and potatoes with brown bread is their daily M r. Mill peasant proprietors are Oftener of than of deny themselves reasonable ana live wretchedly in order to In among those from the hovels in which and the herbs and roots which constitute their are mistaken by travellers for proofs and specimens of general are numbers who have hordes in leathern consisting of five franc which they keep by them perhaps a whole unless brought out to be expended in their most cherished purchase of It is admitted that the price of land is far above its in Belgium it pays little more than two per cent. if a man does live wretchedly all his life to buy a piece of what does it amount If he 1,000 and buys a piece of land for 2,000 he will get possession of a worth perhaps SO francs a As he had to borrow 1,000 francs to pay for his and as the money lenders hardly ever lend for less than five per he has to pay 60 francs a his own thousand francs bring in as little as the deposit which some of the slop tailors have to leave with their The peasant therefore only works hard and lives and buys land that the mortgagee may realise interest on his Mr. Mill maintains that small farming produces more per acre than large farming but Moreau de in his comparison of England and arrives at a different According to his calculations in 1850, the annual value of the agricultural produce was Per head of the population 133 235 Per cultivator 715 Wheat per bushels 30 Mr. Mill Large capital applied to farming of only applied to the very best of the soils of a It cannot touch the small unproductive which require more time and labour to fertilize them than is consistent with a quick return of I ask whether it would be good economy in a state of society that boasts of the steam plough to condemn any men to cultivate land by superhuman poor with the as in the Waes they may subsist on and brown Yet this is what Mr. Mill proposes to ameliorate the wretched condition of the agricultural If by any economical arrangement a given product can be produced by less labour than by any it is rank and contrary to all sound economy to adopt that which requires If the reduction of manual labour is injurious to the that is not the fault of the mode of but of the mode of and it is the business of those who suffer to alter it. The small farm system is and No working men of sound mind will consider the mode of living portrayed by Sismondi and Mr. combined with the hardships attending as an improvement compared with tho condition of the British day But more than the peasantry turn up their little farms and The Germans go wholesale to the French flock to the the rural population and there is a movement going on of substituting large farming for small there is another aspect of the It is now admitted on all sides that co-operation offers the only means for a solution of the labour Just as combined and concentrated labour is a superior mode of production to isolated and scattered so co-operative labour is superior to the present mode of and must sooner or later supersede it Co-operative labour is the peculiar the natural offspring of factory industry and large co-operation requires a preliminary course of industrial and this is the secret why cooperation succeeds better in Manchester than in What the London mechanic will do some day from moral conviction the factory labourer does almost from The day labourer on the large farm has had a considerable amount of such he is fit to enter upon co-operative the small farmer who is guided by his own whims and caprices is To break up the large estates and establish farming to any extent would to say the of The working classes hawe a direct interest to oppose every attempt that may be made in this Instead of converting waste and common lands into small farms the Legislature ought to facilitate their transfer as well as that of. the Crown and Church lands to co-operative not as permanent property but on since no private nor companies with interests separate from the common Interests of the ought to be invested with the perpetual control and direction of the use of source of j. George A TO THE the - Respected of these last thirty years has been anything but satisfactory to tradesmen and working classes as there is no country on the face of God's earth where the tradesman made such sacrifices and gained so but has sacrificed them their trade and which is now completely filched out of their and has become the property of monopolists even the peasantry and small farmers who were chased from starved to and sent to the emigrant have not suffered so for there is not an agitator or a political or one of the so-called Liberal that has not ten thousand times ten thousand commiserated with the small farmers and peasantry both on the hustings and and called the gods to witness their deplorable position and uncertainty of as well as every penny-a-liner sympathising and covering acres of paper and hogsheads of ink over their which helped themselves to a double harvest from the as they made it their stock in but up to the present not one word of advocacy has ever been or a line written or spoken by any ot the press or public men in favour of the robbed nor have any party even Mr. the uttered a word on their though all their during these last few have been engrossed by monopoly and There is nothing more common that than seeing some of these forestalled standing on platforms and themselves friends to whilst are ten thousand times greater grinders on their fellow men than all the land in this and their indirect support to the that through thick and done more harm in Ireland than any of the conquests she has ever had During the Repeal the tradesmen to a with few sacrificed of and returned Ruthvin for the city of Dublin with three thousand of a and what was the result of all these sacrifices 1 A few barristers and jobbers got places and whilst the tradesmen lost all their which is now engrossed by men who have neither knowledge feeling with but would if grind them down to a mere and do away with the struggling employers by taking their trades and connection to and adding them to what they call other branches of their What has become of the master and numerous other trades Are not their legitimate employers all swept away by this grinding system if which must end in ruin and complete In a very short time you will find no men in any of those trades who will half know their as there will be no one to teach them their nor will they have any expectation to emulation in perfecting by the present there is no hopes of their all of which trades are now monopolised by those cormorants in human who are not satisfied in carrying on and engrossing a dozen of if by their grasping all the trades and trade in this city and I have known one of those public spouters parading on even a white having thousands of tradesmen as his and in the midst of his swamped them and sold and left the country to the mercy of some other fellow of his and shelved himself into an important and has now returned to purchased and is living at his like an overgrown who made use of the tradesmen to suit his own selfish and would not now even recognise them if he happened to meet them in the street Put the best of these platform orators to the the most you will find them all the I never knew a tradesman who gave a helping hand to what was misnomered the Reform Corporation that ever got one shillingsworth of contract work of the work under their they would rather send to and or the than give them a day's Have they not done and are they not still doing even for stones to pave the streets And particularly if they knew them in early they would not have confidence or self-interest in What has the tradesman gained generally by any measure of Reform enacted these last thirty years Even the Reform gave an opportunity to and monopolizers in both trade and to usurp the position of gentlemen who were the and who would go any length to encourage talent and Even in charge of the corporation all the power and honours were wrung out of the hands and given to and who wonld grind any practical man to the particularly if he knew his Was it not and the Navigation and Free Trade in as well as the went altogether to destroy the Irish as well as many scientific trades in it gave the rich manufacturers such exclusive encouragement that they got made many new improvements to their which has made England and France engross all the manufacturing in the ribbon and scientific where design and skilful knowledge of the prismatic colours is and England has engrossed all the weighty has raised food destroyed and left Ireland a draw farm to fatten bullocks and sheep for the English people to at the rate of twenty thousand of each animal per and there is not one of them that is independent of the a loss of 13/. in the labour nor is there a sheep is not 41 each independent of as every of and are manufactured in. articles Which we the of to Ireland is least to the labour yearly to laws to 450 millions comes Into her goods is merely a nd you get from te most liberal of this trading class who wonld his vote to alter this I expect he means in in in the voting for the yearly supplies for five six Government move should to divide said amount to millions sterling per so as to create a fair division in the labour and so that each trade should get the and well as their own particular and not leave the of the as they are the bonded slaves of these taskmasters If he accomplish he more to soften down the asperities of his ever was done mortal man tell if he really to serve Ireland and the tradesmen he raise and moral as well as their What use is a vote to a hungry if he has to and his is and plundered from him and no expectation of its ever is all a humbug to think ' r Even the extension - of the suffrage is but a shadow when compared with a division and fair the as all the present generation would be any good would recur from particularly to as it would only give more power to and the rich manufacturing to return more members of their nabob as well as a few speculators of who has already intruded himself in as a government clerk over and our lunacy from an itinerant bookseller the of Alexander And can judge from all their past these and trade were the most exclusive legislators that ever sat or voted against of the as all the Acts of agitated for that into law went and destroy our trades and agricultural and enrich England as its present export trade is now 480 millions sterling per At the same time they have added two millions more to our direct and our population has been diminished two millions by and as well as by the exclusive monopoly of the trades and in itself proves my Hoping the will allow neither opposition or conventionalism of any kind by either or position to get the better of his but that he will give this subject his manly and if be can do no more than only to bring this matter before the it will break the tie of one of the greatest evils and injustice that ever was perpetrated against the reproductive which was the policy of the to raise an aristocracy in trades to upset the old aristocracy of land under the feudal so as to insure for themselves a long tenure in which they have held against the and prosperity of the community at Thomas 21, Great BENJAMIN'S By J. a man at the head of the helm One with a a and a One not as blind as a bat or a One desirous our wrongs to Would not aggravate them with Benjamin's a man at the head of the One with a heart all that's mean to Is not a or huckstering One essaying our wrongs to Would not land the people in Benjamin's a man at the head of the One to raise up the poor and the low The suffrage on would Not on or or something still As promised in Benjamin Disraeli's a man at the head of the One who ne'er thinketh his duty to Who believes human nature's ennobled by Nor insults the when asked to redress Political with Benjamin's for a man at the head of the A Bright or a a monarch Is there not one righteous man to be found One who's determined our wrongs to In spite of the Tories and Benjamin's IMPORTANT TO FRIENDLY SOCIETIES AND William Close was brought up on remand from last charged with the misappropriation of 40/, the property of the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Mr. Berry and Mr. Terry The prisoner was remanded for the production of the rules of the as deposited with the Registrar of Friendly Mr. Berry now produced the and was proceeding to state the case to the Bench under the 44th section of the Friendly when Mr. Terry took objection to the 7th section of the 18th which stated that any or of the society who should leave his work under circumstances satisfactory to the Branch or E. should receive 15s. per He quoted the case of Hornby v. which was beard in the West Riding and came before the Court of Queen's Bench for decision on the 16th of The result of the trial was that the judge confirmed the decision of the that the rules of the society were in restraint of and therefore the society was a and therefore under the 44th section of the Friendly on which the information was the had no Mr. in reply contended that the two cases not analogous at inasmuch as the which the prisoner had been an office-bearer substantially a- friendly and the words of Chief Justice to the effect supposing the main a society tof be those ofa benevolent their being one or more rales bordering principles of unions would not invalidate the ' He pointed but the rules of the as quoted in the case for the opinion of the Court oj Queen's provided for many cases of precluding the members of that from soliciting work at places others were on as well as preventing them from working with and actually went the length of forbidding members to lend their tools to or to assist in procuring rules of kind were in the on the the members were free to work and as they with and therefore that one of the to constitute a union wanting in as there were not any conditions by to use the words of the Chief men bind to work except under certain there were no conditions which were illegal in consequence restraint upon and that there was no illegality apparent upon the face of the nine out of ten of its provisions being purely ofa friendly or Mr. held that the 7th section of rule 18, which expressed purposes for supporting men when but on strike was fatal to the prosecution of the The Bench were of opinion that they had no jurisdiction for the case was analogons to that quoted by Mr. declined to grant a case for a superior The prisoner was STATISTICS OF ARTISANS ANB THE On the 4th of March Earl Russell will in the House that an humble address be presented praying that there be said before the A list in alphabetical order of the cities and boroughs in - England and Wales returning members to previously to the passing of the Act 2 and 3 cap. 45y and stating the nature of the suffrage existing in each city 2. A return showing the number of electors in each city and borough in England and Wales for 1865-66, classed according to the several qualifications in respect of which they are entitled to and the number of suck electors who come within the description of and other persons supporting themselves by daily manual classed in like 3. The number of electors made out from the foregoing distinguishing those who come within the description of and other persons supporting themselves by daily manual labour in the cities and boroughs entitled to return members to Parliament before the passing of the Reform and distinguishing the and other working men entitled to vote as scot and lot and other ancient right qualifications from those entitled to vote as freemen or as A similar return of in cities and boroughs to return members to Parliament for the first time by the Act 2 and 3 cap. 45: and also in the borough of INDUSTRIAL CO-OPERATIVE This society issued its first quarterly sheet during the past The following is the statement handed to in reading which it must be borne in mind that but little profit could be expected during the first and the injudicious practice of underselling told heavily against the We are happy to bear this practice has been abandoned that convenient premises have been entered and operations commenced as grocery and provision Cash from Contributions of Shares 10 6 Books and Sack Fees 5 Bread and Flour 93 18 13 11 Paid for Flour 7 0 6 6 6 Miscellaneous Expenses 12 0 In Treasurer's Hands 47 8 5 13 11 The Trade One Penny We have received a copy of the and recommend it to the support of the entire It contains ample proof of the benefits conferred by united by recounting the large gains netted in the shape of increased wages through the influence of their We wish the trade and its representative every The 56, Drury This excellently conducted trade representative still pursues the undeviating course which has won it so many friends among the tailors of the United The number before us is worth double its price to any one wanting information upon the condition of the tailoring A Few Words on By a This pamphlet is published at 8d. per but if purchased will be found dear at any It Is extracted from the Standard of Nov. 3, and is addressed to all handy It commences with a statement as it would not be wise for every traveller on our railways to determine to play tlie part of so it is unwise that every man should demand a Surely it would have been better to have likened ' toiler to the who towards the for the of the and then have stupidity of his asking for a voice in of those whose duty it is to interest of the Of working more they give it. Stick to the men all' yon working of anii that recently published and another of George If to see the result of liberal institutions contrast position of British colony with America of oar educational system that prevail in the American and Swiss and we feel yon will feel ashamed of the rubbish have written the perusal of men wiser than The Laud By G. R. E. r An excellently pamphlet of a subject of the highest It. isj easy condemn anid in odr estimation it should be in condemnation should proceed from those who comprehend the gross injustice by which it was We not sufficient space at our command to do justice to this excellent but advise our friends who desire to comprehend the as they affect to become purchasers of this valuable little It was stated by The in 1858, that the question of Tenant Right had for years past occupied the public mind of Ireland to the exclusion of other that it still position we cannot tHs 13.insufficient": the question Js not solely .an is almost equally an and has equal claims for is done to alter the present relationship between landlord and tenant there will be no the entertained by the against those who and the strain upon the taxpayer will increase than Do let .us lead our readers - suppose of is the only one in this excellent the author has with the entire subject in a manner that at and the 32 pages abound with facts ot the greatest which prove him to be a. collector of all that is requisite for the full comprehension ot his - 1 Thb 2, the part applies the lash severely to tne shoulders of Lowe and Our space will not admit of giving our readers a taste of this highly spiced dish of sarcastic Representative By Edward Second 10, Wellington The although a has behaved more fairly with this question than many who call themselves It is true he does not go to the extent that many would but there is an absence of tricky suggestions so common among politicians of this class when dealing with the question of He advocates the adoption of manhood suffrage based on municipal and contends that this is not only the but the most constitutional course to In order to prove the increase of voters consequent upon the adoption of his he gives a tabular statement of the present number of Parliamentary electors and municipal which shows that the increase would be in the first 80 having conterminous about twenty-three per cent. In 76 boroughs without conterminous the gain would be of a similar while in seventeen exceptional boroughs the gain would be much With regard to the borough franchise he would be if it were to treat it as what it was originally designed to a representation of as in boroughs the franchise was the representation of The effect of a very great multiplication of county voters will be such an increase of the expenses of an election that none but very rich or men who have very rich could endure An occupation of 201. would be low but if a wider franchise be the definite sum of 10/. be preferred to the fanciful one of 14/. adoption of the simple municipal giving a vote to all residential wonld dispose of all special which would be inconsistent But it would be desirable to preserve some special such as and these might be considerably as thus would be distributed as follows Iir of 40s. annual Copyholders of 5/. annual long terms of 51. annual Occupiers of a house or land rated at 20/." The pamphlet also contains suggestions for a redistribution of but we will consider tins in our contenting ourselves for the present with our thanks to the author for the trouble he has taken to put his own the clearest possible Crying for following paragraph appears in Mr. Hannay's last letter to the Edinburgh We have had a taste of the effects of the league between Bright and The O'Donoghue in the contemplated Fenian rising at and the actual rising in Something must have encouraged the Fenians after their recent and we are justified in attributing it to the cause I The Radicals attempted to pooh-pooh the Chester but while they were still caine the Irish There is little anxiety on the Irish affair this but it is felt that some vigorous measures taken against those who have actually appeared in There is a notion which the Jamaica Committee are working hard to that any blackguard may spit in the face of England with and till a of blackguards have been shot or the impression is likely to
