■%■ 'M^'ms 'W-^-SST-' THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA GIFT OF Paul Scharrenberg 'BELLAMY LIBRARY.— No. 119. THE ANNALS OF TOIL. BEING LABOUB-HISTOBY OUTLINES, ROMAN AND BRITISH. IN FOUR PARTS. PABT I, J. MORRISON DAVIDSON. ( Of the Middle Temple ) Barristbr-at-Law. Author of " Politics for thb Proplk" *' The Old Order and the New," The New Book of Kings," "The Book of Lords," "The Book of ERiMr Home Rule for Scotland," " Villagers* Magna Charta," •• Gospel of the Poor." " Let there be Light ! " &c. London : WILLIAM REEVES, 185, FLEET ST., E.C Printed by William Reeves, 185, Fleet Street, London, E.G. LOAN STACBt BIFT lis TO MICHAEL DAVITT EX-FENIAN CONVICT, M.P., WITH THE UNQUALIFIED ESTEEM OF J. M. D. For thou bast been As one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing ; A man that Fortune's buffets and rewards Hast ta'en with equal thanks ; and blett are those Whose blood and judgmen are so well comingltd That they are not a pipe for Fortune's finger To sound what stop she please : Give me that man ' That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart. As I do thee. Hamlbt, Act ui., Scbne i 570 FOREWORD. Whatever you may say, I believe that the satisfaction resulting from literary studies is deeper than any other satisfaction. I am quite convinced that by literature we may be a thousand times more useful to mankind than we can be in any official position in which we strain ourselves, and often without succeeding, to effect some small benefits, while we are made the unwilling instruments of very great evils. All these small benefits are transient, but the light that a man of letters can shed must, sooner or later, destroy all the artificial evils of mankind, and enable men to enjoy all the good offered them by Nature. 1 know well that, in spite of this, there will still remain physical evils and moral dis- appointments which must be endured by bowing the head under the yoke of necessity. But enduring and fighting against these, the human race is strengthened in moral character. Turgot : Letter to Condorcety June 21st,, 1772. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/annalsoftoilbeinOOdavirich CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. THE LOT OF THE ANCIENT LABOURER. Laborare est ormre Robber Records— Bullies and Slaves — Treatment of the Ancient Workers — The Ancient Trades Unions—The Strike- Wars of Antiquity— Responsibilities of the Ancient Unions — Metal Workers of Rome and the Army — Ancient Labour Fraternities — Messiahs of Labour — The True Messiah — Bond and Free — • Butchered to make a Roman Holiday" — Food of the Ancient Workers— The God-smith*^ Unions— The Flag of Labour— The Old Civiliiation and the New Compared. CHAPTER II. CELTIC BRITAIN. Race — Britain before Caesar's Invasion — Mining Industry — ' Agriculture «— Their Feasts — Dress — Ships — Religion — Roman Britain — The Roman Occupation — The Country Districts — The Native Britons under ^this System — Christianity — The Anglo Saxons — Authorities — The Romano- British Towns — Co-Existence of Briton and Saxon in Towns — The Saxons and the Land " Saxon Law and Order*' — The Norman Thieves. viii Contents. CHAPTER III. DOMESDAY BOOK ET CETERA, Domesday Book — The People and the Land — Domesday Book — The Royal Revenue — Conquered England — Death and Burial of the Arch Robber— The Food of the People — Drinks— Plantagenet Period (i 154-1485) — Tudor Period (1485-1603) — Stuart Period (1603- 1688) — The Hanoverian Period. CHAPTER IV. MEDIEVAL "CLASSES" AND "MASSES." Norman Royalty — William Rufus — Henry I. — Stephen and Maud— Plantagenet Royalty : Henry II. — Richard I. — King John — The Mark — The Manor — Money — Co-operative Agriculture — The Lord's Rent — Coin for Kind — Absentee Lords — The Manor of Beauchamp in Essex — Ante-Domesday Land Tenure — Domesday Land Tenure — The Extent of Cultivated Land — Post-Domesday Developments — The Celtic or Tribal Land System — Free Land and Bond Land — The Taeogs or Aillts — Celtic Land Divisions : North Wales — South Wales — Bees — Famine in England — The Black Death — The Statute of Labourers. CONTENTS. BOOK II. CHAPTER V. The Peasants' Revolt (1381). PAGE. Exordium ... ... ... ... ... 113 Recapitulation from Book I. ... ... 114 John Ball ... ... 118 Insurgent Propaganda ... ... ... 120 Wat Tyler ... ... 122 Progress of the Revolt ... ... ... 123 Assassination of Wat Tyler by Walworth ... 127 The Martyrdom of Ball ... ... ... 128 Objects of Ball and Tyler ... ... ... 132 Fate of Richard II. and Chief Justice Tressilian 133 Data for Peasants' Revolt ... ^ ... ... 134 The " Swan of Avon " on the Revolt ... 135 Murder of Edward II ... ... ... 136 Object of the '• Annals of Toil " ... ... 136 The " Cause " Abroad ... ... ... 139 CHAPTER Vl. Cade's Rebellion. Condition of the " Masses " in Fifteenth Century 143 *' The Captain of Kent " ... ... ... 145 ** Complaints of the Commons of Kent " ... 147 The Real Cade ... ... ... ... 150 Cade's Death ... ... ... ... 152 The " Swan of Avon " on Cade ... ... 153 VI Contents. p CHAPTER VII. Protestantism and Pauperism. PAGE. Results of Plantagenet Rule ... ... 155 Decay of Slavery and Serfdom ... ... 156 Parliament and the " Free "Labourer ... 157 Origin of Pauperism ... ... ... 159 Impetus given to Pauperism by Henry VII. ... 161 Repeopling the Isle ot Wight ... ... 161 Recapitulation ... ... ... ... 363 Henry VIII. and the " Reformation '' ... 164 Archbishop Cranmer ... ... ... 166 Anne Boleyn ... ... ... ... 167 The Roman Catholic Church and the Poor ... 169 Thomas Cromwell, " Vicar General " ... 171 " Valiant Vagabonds " ... ... ... 172 " Cheerful Deaths " and Plenty of Them ... 173 Beggars by their own or others' Default ... 174 Impetus given to Pauperism by Henry VIII. ... 175 "Foolish Pitie and Mercy" ... ... 177 " Sainted Young Solomon's Godly Act " ... 178 Pro ests of Latimer and Sir Thomas More ... 180 Insurrection of the Brothers Kett (1549) ... 180 The Kett '* Complaints " ... ... ... 182 The Great Plague and the Great Fire ... 185 Plunder of the Guilds ... ... ... 186 Debasement of the Currency ... ... 187 Anti- Combination Laws ... ... ... 188 *' Four Acres and a Cow " ... ... ... 189 Overcrowding in Cities ... ... ... 189 The Food Question ... ... ... 191 Repression of the Liquor Traffic ... ... 193 The Origin of Excise Duties ... ... 195 Comparative Sobriety of the " Masses " ... 196 Distillers of " Firewater " ... ... ... 197 Sir Walter Raleigh on the " Bewitching Vice '' 191 CHAPTER VIII. Commonwealth, Cromwell and Collectivism. Workers and ** Vagabonds " under the Common- wealth ... ... ... ... 199 Wages in Coin and in Wheat (1495-1832) ... 201 Overthrow of the Monarchy ... ... 202 Contents, ' vii PAGE. Proclamation of the Republic ... ... 203 Cromwell the Liber ticide ... ... ... 206 Republican Indictment of Cromwell ... 207 Why Charles I. was " Ruined " ... ... 208 How Parliament was *' Ruined" ... ... 209 The Protectorate of Fact and Fiction ... 209 The Levellers ... ... ... ... 212 " A Large Declaration" ... ... ... 213 " The Agreement of the People " ... ... 214 Alterations in the Agreement ... ... 215 Mutiny of the Levellers ... ... ... 216 " England's Standard Advanced " ... ... 218 Death of the Leveller Corporals ... ... 220 Cromwell as a " Gentleman of England " ... 222 " Free-Born John"... -.. ... ... 224 Lilburne as Anarchist ... ... .. 225 "England's New Chains" ... ... ... 226 Moral of Lilburne's Career ... ... ... 227 Cromwell and Hannibal Compared ... ... 228 CONTENTS. BOOK III. CHAPTER IX. Eve of the Capitalist RBaiME 0660-1760) PAGB, The Committee of Public Safety . . ... 234 " Seven Unalterable Fuodamentalp." ... •. 235 Death of Major- General Tr?omas Harrison ... 235 Death of Jnstice John Cook Death of Sir Harry Vane The Growth of Commercialism Expropriation of the Yeomen Growth of Population ... Domestic Manufacture ... Mining Industries 237 288 240 241 243 244 246 Mechanical Arts when Adam Smith wrote ... 247 CHAPTER X. The Coming of the Capitalists. Machinery and Misery ... ... ... ... 249 Watt and the Steam Demon ... ... ... 250 The Capitalist as Kidnapper ... ... ... 251 Samples of Capitalistic " Law and Order." ... 253 Inversion of Family Life by the Factory System ... 255 Infant Life in the Factory Inferno ... ... 257 Mortality in the Factory ... ... v„ 258 The Factory Lords' Jus Primce Noctis ... ... 259 The Lean Apprentice and the Fat Pig 262 Richard Oastler to the Rescue ... ,.. ... 263 vi - Contents, PAGE. Satanic Synopsis of Capitalist Contentions ... 264 Tory Tom Sadler on '^ Liberal " Factory Lords ... 264 Rampant Immorality in the Mills ... ... 265 Remedies for •• Fatigue " in Infants ... ... 267 The Crime of Drowsiness ard Its Reward ... 268 Baneful Effect of the Reform Act (1832) on the Factory Labour Cause ... ... ... 269 '' The Law and the Needle " ... ... ... 270 The Martyrdom of Oastler ... ... ... 271 Death of Sadler ... ... ... ... 273 Oastler in the Fleet ... ... ... ... 274 Sir Fitzroy Kelley's Magnaminity ... ... 274 Liberation of the Factory King ... ... ... 275 Lord Shatesbury on Bright, Cobden, and the G.O.M, 276 The Magna Cbarta of the Factory «' Hand " (1847) 278 A " Good Fit" for the Old Factory King ... 279 The *' Old King's " Old Age 280 The Times on Martyrdom ... ... ... 282 CHAPTER Xr. Chartists and Chartism. The Money Power and the " Classes " ... ... 284 The Money Power and the '* Masses " ... ••• 285 The " Six Points " of the Charter ... ... 285 Bad Faith of " Hon." Members ... ... ... 286 The Socialist Element in Chartism ... ... 287 Martyrdom of JrmesBrotterre O'Brien ... ... 290 Martyrdom of 'W illiam Lovett ... ... ... 291 Martyrdom of Ernest Jones ... ... ... 293 The "Silent Cell" 295 Manchesterism v. Chartism ... ... ... 297 Brontrrre O'Brien's Analysis of Manchest rism ... 298 Oneness of Chartism and o'^cialism ... ... 300 Ernest Jones's Socialism ... ... ... 303 The Man V. the Machine ... ... ... 304 The Vice of the Wage System ... ... ... 306 Co-operation the Soul of Labour ... ... 306 The Profit-sharing Fraud ... ... ... 307 Sovereign Remedies ... ... ... ... 309 The Chartist Press ... ... ... ... 312 TheChartist Convention (1839) ... ... ... 312 The *' Sacred Month " and What came of it ... 313 Contents. vu Divided Conuoils Vindication of ** Law and Order " Insurrection of Frost, Williams, and Jones A Heroic Chartist Lad ... Trial of Frost, Williams, and Jones Sequel to the Welsh Rising Imprisonment of rJronterre O'Brien, and O'Connor ... Further Legal Terrorism Scottish Chartists Undismayed ... •'Tory Chartism" Chartist National Convention (1842) The *' Monster Indictment " The Annus Mir ah His of Revolution (1848) Two Precious *' Saviours of Society " At Eennington Common The Nationalist Chartist Assembly The Charter in Parliament "And Yet it Moves" ... Apologue Feargus PAGE. 815 817 318 820 820 823 826 325 827 829 830 831 832 833 335 337 388 889 340 CONTENTS. BOOK IV. CHAPTER XII. Trade Unionism and Co-operation. Trade Unions and Politics Trade Unions and Craft-Guilds Craft-Guild London How the Craft Brethren Dined Craft-Guild " Law and Order " The A.S.E. as the Typical Trade Union Organization of A.S.E. ... Trade Union (A.S.E.) Fallacies Confuted Great Engineer Strike-Lockout (1897-'98) What the Strikes of 1898 Cost " Origins of Co-operation " Rules of Co-operative Societies (Retail) ... The Wholesale Societies' Rules ... G. J. Holyoake on Rochdale Co-operation The P.M.G. on the True Co-operation Trail Ernest Jones on Co-operation True and False Mercenary Foundations of Rochdaleism ... How *' Others See " Our Rochdaleism The '• New Money " and "Legal Tender " Streaks of Dawn The Mechanic's Tale ... The Brickburner's Tale The Farmer's Tale PAGE. 346 347 849 351 351 352 353 856 361 363 365 366 367 868 870 371 873 875 877 378 879 380 381 vi Contents. CHAPTEK XIII. Neo- Socialist ** Origins." PAGE. Pioneers of the British Kepublic ... ... 386 Royalist Blackguardism in Parliament ... ... 387 Dilke's Proclamation of the Republic ... ... 388 Beatification of H.R.H. by Pulpit and Press ... 389 The Lambeth Radical Association ... ... 391 The Badical ... ... ... ... ... 393 Predecessors of Henry George ... ... ... 395 Ogilvie's Analysis of the Land Problem ... ... 396 Georgeism in Action ... ... ... ... 399 The English Land Restoration League ... ... 399 Non-Taxation of London (Grround Rents ... ... 401 The " Red Vans " ... ... ... ... 402 Campaigning in Darkest Rural England ... ... 403 The Autocrat of the ''Black Country "... ... 404 Lord Dudley as Devastator ... ... ... 406 Lord Dudley as Compensator ... ... ... 407 Lord Dudley as Fleecer of Local Boards ... ... 407 The Vanished Map of Pensnett Chase ... ... 408 " Educated " Van-Wreckers ... ... ... 409 Worcestershire Savages ... ... .^ 410 A Labourer's Domestic Budget ... ... ... 411 The Lords' Prayer ... ... ... ... 412 The Land Nationalisation Society ... ... 413 Principles of Nationalisation ... ... ... 416 Method of Nationalisation ... ... ... 417 Results of Nationalisation ... ... ... 417 ^* Spence's Glorious Plan " (1775) ... ... 418 Positivism and Scope of Positivist Action ... 420 Positivists' Relation to Trade Unionism ... ... 422 The Eyre and Broadhead Incident ... ... 423 Positivists and the International ... ... 423 Positivist and Trade Union " Split " re Irish Coercion ... ... ... ... ... 424 Wherein Positivism and Trade Unionism Differ ... 425 CHAPTER XIV. Socialists and Socialism. The F.S. and Fabian " Origins " ... ... 427 Fabian Confession of Faith ... ... ... 429 Contents. vii PAGE. Personnel and Res Gestae of F.S. ... ... 430 Fabian *' Mission," '• Tactics," •* Compromise ... 432 Democratic Federation... ... ... ... 434 Social-Democratic Federation Formed ... ... 435 S.D.F "Object," *' Program," and "Palliatives" ... 435 In Justice to H. M. Hyndman ... ... ... 438 First Efforts of S.D.F. ... ... ... ... 438 Manning the S.D.F. ... ... ... ... 439 The S.D.F.'s Noble Pro India Propaganda ... 440 The Socialist League ... ... ... ... 441 Manifesto of the S.L. ... ... ... ... 442 The Independent Laboar Party : its Origin ... 444 Progress of the I L.P. in and out of Parliament ... 446 General Election (1895) : Defeated not Dismayed ... 447 Municipal Successes of I.L.P. ... ... ... 447 I.L.P. and Socialist Press ... ... ... 448 I.L.P. and Trade Unionism ... ... ... 448 I.L.P. How Financed ... ... ... ... 448 I.L.Pers of Every Class... ... ... ... 449 I.L.P. "Object," *' Methods," Program ... ... 449 CHAPTER XV. Realities, Probabilities and Possibilities. Clan Marriage and Communism ... ... ... 451 Enter Priest, Warrior, and Capitalist ... ... 452 Origin of Money and the " Nursery of Cheaters " ... 453 Redeeming Features of Feudalism ... ... 455 Lendlord Worse than Landlord ... ... ... 456 " Two Profound Truths " ... ... ... 457 Caesar or the Sword Power ... ... ... 458 Shjlock or the Money-Power ... ... ... 460 Shylock and C«sar Compared ... ... ... 461 Cult of the Golden Calf ... ... ... ... 463 *' Standards of Value " ... ... ... ... 465 The Root Fallacy of Moneytarism ... ... 466 Reconciliation of Ethics and Economics ... ... 467 Man V. Machine ... ... ... ... 468 William Hill's' " Socialism and Sense " ... ... 468 Eater Machine. Exit Man ... ... ... 469 Who shall Own the New Continent ? ... ... 470 Hill's Exorcism of the Machine-Frankenstein ... 471 Free Travel and Fresh Air ... ... ... 472 VIU ConUnts. The New Agriculture ... Factory v. Farm Miracles of Intensive Agriculture For what the State Exists The Taxation Fraud ... War V. Education Fraud of Monarchy and Peerage ... Fraud of the *' Elected Person " ... Decadence of Representative Government Democratic v. Representative Government Uses and Fruits of the Initiative aod Eeferendum Educational Value of the Eeferendum Economic Value of the Eeferendum The Eeferendum and the Land Question ... Entre Nou8 PAGE. 473 474 475 477 478 479 480 482 483 485 486 487 487 488 488 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. -^ CHAPTER L THE LOT OF THE ANCIENT LABOURER. Laborare est orare. — All true work is sacred : in all true work were it but hand-labour there is something of divineness. Labour, wide as the earth, has its summit in heaven ! Sv/eat of the brow ; and up from that to sweat of the brain, sweat of the heart which includes all Kepler calculations, Newton meditations, all sciences, all spoken epics, all acted heroisms, martyrdoms — up to that " agony of bloody sweat " w*hich all men have called divine ! Oh brother ! if this is not •• worship," then, I say, the more pity for worship, for this is the noblest thing yet discovered under God's sky. — Carlyle. Would anyone dare to say that after having established the laws of property, justice and liberty there was nothing yet to be done for the most numerous class of citizens ? What do your laws of pro- perty, they might say, concern us ? We own nothing. Your laws of justice ? We have nothing to defend. Your laws of liberty ? If we do not labour to-morrow we shall die. — Necker. Originally labourers who produced a surplus by their labours became slaves, and the master who owned the labourers as well as their product gave slaves only just as much of it as was needful for them to carry on their work ; the remainder or the surplus he took to himself. Landed property and capitalist property exercise similar compulsion on free labourers. Contract is only nominally I B 2 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. and not really free, and hunger fully makes up for the lash. What then was called sustenance is now called wages. — Rodbertus, I know but three ways of living in society ; you must either be a beggar, a robber or a stipendiary {i.e. wage-worker.) — Mirabeau. One monster there is in the world — the idle man. — Carlyle. Robber Records.— These have hitherto formed the staple of so-called history. Princes, peers, prelates, plutocrats, all the great robbers and scourges of man- kind, have had hundreds of venal pens to palliate their crimes or even to represent them as positive virtues, But none so poor almost as to tell us aught of their victims, of the nameless herd of toilers whose sweat and tears, in all ages and climes, have alone made the existence of Carlyle's *' one monster, the idle man,** possible and potent on the earth. The late Mr. J. R. Green wrote what he was pleased to. call a ** History of the EngUsh People," an interesting book enough in its way, but no more a history of the English people than of the Etruscan people, the Cartha- ginian people, or of the Iroquois Indians. He eith^ did not know who the English people {i.e, the workers), really were, or he found the materials concerning them too meagre, too stubborn, or too lacking in the pictur- esque to form an effective narrative. Anyhow, from the point of view of labour his book is a conspicuous failure, and the historian of the English people — so difficult is the task — is, peradventure, not yet born. All that one can pretend to do in these pages is to give him a few hints, which he may find useful, when he does appear on the scene to trace the evolution of the worker, all the way from prehistoric times to the present day. Bullies and Slaves. — These, so far as can be ascer- tained, or with probability conjectured, were the only two classes known to the primitive Indo-European race. The father, or paterfamilias, was the original bully or slaveholder. There was no limit to his authority over his own children, who were often very numerous — THE ANNALS OF TOIL. J twenty, thirty, fifty it might be — yet the pivot of this polygamic family was a stern monogamy. The mother,. or materfamiliaSf whose first-born son became heir (heres) was secluded with the utmost vigilance in order to secure an indisputed successor to the estate. When the pater- familias died, the heir stepped into his shoes with full jurisdiction over the whole ** undivided family." He buried the paterfamilias under the family hearthstone, and it became his duty to offer to the manes of the deceased, incessant divine honours and sacrifices on the ancestral altar. He thus enjoyed unlimited spiritual as well as temporal power, and as the ghosts of the deceased proprietors were firmly believed to haunt their former abodes without intermission, their displeasure m death was more appalling than in life. Government and religion, thus indissolubly united in the same hand, enabled the paterfamilias to sell, torture, and kill his un- happy household very much at pleasure. Then, as now, the Church assiduously backed the State, and " primogeniture " held ** property " well together. In the House ol Lords we have all the elements of the most primitive Aryan barbarism well represented to this day. The plight of the original labourer was terrible in the extreme, and long after the patriarchal families had grown into tribes, and tribes had coalesced into states — nay, down to a very late period of the. Roman Empire — the curse of labour ran implacably in the blood. Says Granier de Cassagnac (" Histoire des Classes Ouvrieres ") **Ventidius Bassus was so fortu- nate as to become a Consul. They said to him, * You were a bootblack.' Galerius, Diocletian, Probus, Pertinax, Vitellius, Augustus, had the good for- tune to become emperors. They said to Galerius, • You were a swineherd : ' to Diocletian, * You were a slave;' to Probus, 'Your father was a gardener; to Pertinax, * Your father was a freedman ; * to Vitel- lius, * Your father was a cobbler ; ' and they went so far as to write on the marble of the statue of Augustus^ in the lifetime of the Master of the World, * Your grand' father was a merchant and your father a usurer.' " 4 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. Treatment of the Ancient Workers. — Of all the nations of the ancient world the Spartans perhaps treated their workers or helots worst. They had a really great law-giver, Lycurgus, who nearly a thou- sand years before Christ, gave them an almost perfect Socialist Constitution, which lasted them for 500 years ; and here were some of its provisions as affecting the helots who, by the way, outnumbered the Lacedaemo- nians proper, as three to one : They were each flogged once a day, males and females alike, by way of admoni- tion for faults to be committed. They were constantly compelled to assume the mogt abject stooping postures, lest by standing erect they should come to feel them- selves men and women. They were driven to the fields in rags or altogether naked by the most brutal of ** bosses." But this was not the worst. It was the duty of the five ephori or magistrates to order periodic assas- sinations of the workers in order to exercise the aristo- cratic youths of Sparta in the manly art or sport of the cvyptia or ambuscade. Here is how Plutarch describes this diabolical institution: — ** The governors of the youth ordered the shrewdest of them from time to time to disperse themselves in the country, provided only with daggers and some necessary provisions. In the day they hid themselves and rested in the most private places they could find ; but at night they sallied out into the roads and killed all the helots they could meet with. Nay, sometimes by day they fell upon them in the fields and murdered the ablest and the strongest of them." During the long Peloponnesian War, which lasted for 27 years, the Spartan ranks were at one time so decimated that they recruited — had to recruit — from the ranks of the helots. These fought valiantly, and Sparta and her alUes eventually triumphed. As the reward of their fidelity and courage, 2,000 of the helots received emancipation, and were taken to one of the temples of the gods to be garlanded. Not one of them emerged alive. They were treacherously butchered by THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 5 order of the ephovi^ b.c, 424 ! This tragedy, related by Thucydides, was too much even for the nerves of the great aristocratic philosopher Plato, who could with difficulty be got to concede to the poor toiler the posses- sion of ** half a soul." The Ancient Trades Union*. — These were, in some shape or form, of the remotest antiquity. A world of bullies and slaves could not last for ever. The bolder spirits among the oppressed broke away from their in- tolerable bondage and formed themselves into bands of robbers, pirates, and nomads. These outcasts were probably the precursors of the class of free labourers who contrived to maintain a precarious existence between the nobles and the slaves. Their reprisals on their tyrants had the salutary effect of greatly softening the worst features of slavery. At all events the institu- tion of manumission was legalised, and a slave might become a freedman, though even then his lot was by no means enviable. It has been noted by Granier de Cassagnac as evidence of the high antiquity of the ** Iliad " as compared with the ** Odyssey," that the former has no allusion to manumission, while the latter has references not a few. Nevertheless, from the most rudimentary begin- nings, the Trade Unions of antiquity eventually achieved great success. Trade Unionists from Tyre built Solomon's Temple, just as the free artificers of the Piraeus built the Parthenon at Athens b.c 438. These were the most magnificent buildings ever erected by man, the latter in particular being the perfection of architectural art. The reason for this high attainment was simply this. The Trade Unions of Tyre, Athens, and Rome were practically State institutions. They chose their own " bosses " and performed all the important work of the State. They collected her revenues. They pro- visioned and accoutred her armies. They built her temples. They constructed her roads. They ground her corn. They conducted her carrying trade by sea and land. In truth even the great robber State 6 THE ANNALS OF TOIL, of Rome, but for her rage for conquest and the slavery of captives resulting therefrom, promised tair at one time to become a true co-operative commonwealth or socialistic state, such as the Burnses, the Manns, and the Tilletts advocate to-day. The land {ager publicus) was national property, and from the days of Numa Pompilius, B.C. 790, till 58 B.C. it was the general policy of Rome to encourage the Collegia ("New Unionism.") At the latter date, however, Julius Caesar, with the strenuous aid of Cicero, a bitter aristocrat, contrived effectually to curb them by ** conspiracy " legislation not unlike that under which English work- men groaned from the days of Queen Elizabeth till 1824. This was an immense triumph tor the Caesars, Ciceros, and Pompeys. [It is noteworthy that Cicero's mortal enemy Clodius was the strenuous champion of the Unions, and that he and Catiline, who were the leading Social Demo- crats of the day, were both of the bluest blood in Rome. Clodius was a scion of the haughty Claudian gens^ his real name being Claudius Pulcher. Cicero, on the contrary, was only of equestrian rank.] Still, the Unions struggled on, not merely as pro- ducing and distributing agencies and benefit societies, but as political organisations. The following elec- tioneering inscriptions, copied in free translation from the walls of Pompeii (where a municipal election appears to hav6 been going on when the terrible catas- trophe of 79 A.D. occurred), tell their own tale : ** The members of the Fisherman's Union nominate Popedius Rufus for member of the Board of Works." ** The International Gold Workers' Association of the City of Pompeii demand for Member of the Board of Works, Cuspis Pansa." ** Verna, the home-born, with her pupils in all right, put Mrs. Capella to the front for a seat on the Board of Magistrates." The Strike-Wars of Antiquity. — These were fre- quent and bloody to a terrible degree. The freedmen of the Trade Unions generally sympathised, and sometimes THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 7 actively sided with the revolted slaves, and at one time insurgent labour was so powerful that it not unreason- ably hoped to capture the known world and suppress the ** classes" altogether. Circa 130—70 B.C., the workers from Asia Minor to the Pillars of Hercules made the most heroic efforts to enthrone labour, as the raison d\tre of government. Indeed there then took place something like the " universal strike " of which occasional mutterings are heard as impending even now. We know almost nothing of these terrible labour con- flicts, which threatened the ancient world with depopu- lation, chiefly because the historians of the "classes" have either suppressed the records or manipulated them out of all intelligibility. Yet the achievements of Aristonicus, of Pergamus in Asia Minor ; of Drimakos, in the island of Chios (Scio) ; of Eunus, Athenion, and Salvius, in Sicily ; of Spartacus, in Italy, and Viriathus, in Spain, were intrinsically of far more consequence than the campaigns of Hannibal or of JuHus Caesar. Spartacus, the gladiator, in particular, was one of the wond's greatest generals. None of the military; demi- gods of the ** classes," call him Alexander the Great, Hannibal, Julius Caesar, Napoleon, Moltke — whom you will — ever excelled him in the art of handling huge bodies of men in the field. And in beneficence of motive and magnanimity of character he easily sur- passed them all. He routed in succession eleven con- sular or proconsular armies, and the episode of his death in his last great battle of Silaurus, b.c, 70, was of surpassing grandeur. The war had lasted four years, and three Roma^ hosts were massed against him, Crassus and Pompey being the chief leaders. They brought the hero his charger. With a stroke of his sword he slew the rearing-steed, and shouting to his men, ** Victorious, I shall find horses in plenty among the enemy; defeated, I shall no longer want one," he fell upon the Roman ranks in personal combat. " It was a fierce fight," says Appian. ** Long after victory was hope- less Spartacus was traced by heaps of the slain who 8 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. had fallen by his hand, and his body was lost completely in the awful carnage which closed that day of blood.** His aim was to slay the hated and hateful Crassus, and he all but succeeded, killing two centurions of the Roman's bodyguard with his brand. Florus, who maligns Spartacus most bitterly, admits : " He fell, fighting most valorously in the front rank, like a Roman Imperator." Thus perished the last of the great labour leaders of the ancient world. He lost and the " classes " gloated over a million retaliatory crucifixions. The next Great Labour Leader was crucified one hundred years later on Mount Calvary, but from His Cross He still directs the grand struggle for human emancipation which shall one day be accomplished. <* Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is Liberty." Responsibilities of the Ancient Unions. — These were very similar to those which the " New Unionism " aspires to undertake. The Unions (collegia) of ancient Rome were public bodies employed by the State and Municipality. They flourished uninterruptedly for 600 years antecedent to e.g., 58, when the right of combina- tion (jus ccBundi) was for the first time restrained by Julius Caesar. The slaves, of course, had no such right, nor could they well be entrusted with many of the functions of the unionist freedmen. They could not for example, be entrusted with the collection of the taxes which were mostly raised m kind not coin. The tax-collectors {Victigalii) were a most important Union. They collected the produce of the field, the sea, and the workshop, and distributed it among the citizens. They had their own manager {procurator) and inspector (quaestor). The collection made, the Teamsters' Union (Vectuarii) set to work io convey the stores to their destination. If they were lost on the way the entire Carriers' Union was held responsible, and not the actual teamsters concerned. And as on the land so on the sea. Grain had, say, to be conveyed from Lyons (Lugdtmum) to Rome. One Union saw it down the Rhone on barges to the mouth THE ANNALS OF TOIL. g^ of the river. Another conveyed it by ship to Ostia, the port of Rome; and yet another conveyed it up the Tiber (eighteen miles) to the city. Nor did the wonderful interdependence of the Unions end there. The public domain {ager puhlicus) was itself, there is good reason to believe, cultivated not so much by individual farmers (agricolce) as by Unions or Com- munes of peasants working under State direction and control. In the ager pubiicus^ at all events, the Romans had the groundwork of ** land nationalisation," and, but for the incessant encroachments on it by the " classes " {gentes) on the one hand, and the competition with slave labour on the other, the social revolution for which the world is still waiting, might very well have been achieved by the ancient tjnions more than two thousand years ago. They had worked out a practical system of National Co-operation or State Socialism of marvellous simplicity and universality. The grain received from the farmers by the Tax- collectors' Union was conveyed by the Carriers' Union to^ the town {municipium). There it was turned over to the United Millers (pistons) ; from them it passed to the United Bakers {i)amfices) who converted it into bread. And so with all the products of the soil -peas, beans, fruits, oils, wools, ores, etc., etc. There was no room for the pre fit-monger in such a scheme of production and distribution. Happily that species of malefactor was as obnoxious to the haughty "classes" as to the humble ** masses." Suetonius relates with disgust concerning the great Emperor, Vespasian: '* He likewise engaged in a pursuit dis- graceful even in a private individual, buying great quantities of goods and selling them again to advan- tage." Any occupation except war and politics was to the patrician simple pollution, and as no man could be- come a ** boss " in trade without being himself a work- man and a unionist, monopoly, such as afflicts the world of to-day, was rendered impossible. Individual- ism was at a discount. Even for a beneficent employer there was no place. Between a truculent hereditary 10 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. aristocracy and a social substratum of abject slaves, an organization of practical Socialists contrived to exist tor at least five centuries without any effective capitalistic competition. Metal Workers of Rome and the Army.— The mines, like the ager puhlicus, belonged for the most part to the Government, which very frequently let them to the elected leaders of the Miners' Unions. These turned over the ore to the Smelters' Union, who in turn supplied the unionist workers in iron, copper, brass, and bronze, with the materials of their trade. The State employed the labour unions dinct in forging all her weapons and engines of war, and this, more than any other cause, contributed to her wonderful invincibility in the field. Rome became the most astonishing armoury the world had ever seen. The nations she encountered produced men as brave or braver than she, but none could match her in warlike equipments. The ** classes" — alas! — with their murderous instincts, were but too ready to avail themselves of the organization of the free workers in order to subjugate the workers', brethren of other races and lands. Captives taken in war constantly swelled the ranks of the slaves and diminished the importance of the Unions until at last the latter became little more than a tradition of their former selves. As Rome was constantly at war, her sword-cutlers, arrow-smiths, spear-makers, dart-manufacturers, and shield-makers, were in constant employment. Each of these crafts had a Union of its own, and the whole were federated together, along with the important Unions of the hallista and battering-ram makers. The hallista was a stone-throwing machine, the ancient mitrailleuse. It required much engineering skill to operate it, and it is probable that the unionists themselves had to set it in motion against the enemy. The battering-ram became indispensable in assailing city walls, which it did with great effect when swayed backward and for- ward by efficient human or brute power. The Cobblers' Union (collegium cah'gariorum) supplied shoes for the army; and indeed there was hardly a THE ANNALS OF TOIL. II department of the military service that did not attest the efficiency of unionist organisation. Whether the Suttlers' Union victualled the Roman armies by contract with the Senate or otherwise is not known for certain, but they clothed them for the most part as well as equipped them with other necessaries. Ancient Labour Fraternities. — These were very numerous, as a multitude of interesting inscriptions, preserved on imperishable marble, testifies. Some of them, are very touching as evidence of the mutual help and esteem that prevailed among the ancient organised workers. Take for example the following inscription of uncertain date but written in Greek of the classic era : — ** By a ruleable and just administration of the common fund of money belonging to the community of eranistai (unionists), and having ever conducted himself with kindness and with honesty ; and as he has righteously husbanded the funds successively paid by the eranistai themselves, as well as the annual subscription, accord- ing to the laws of the erafws ; and in view of the fact that in everything else he still continues to show integrity to the oath which he swore to the eranistai, therefore Hail, Alcmeon ! The community of the eranistai rejoice to praise Alcmeon, son of Theon, a stranger who has been naturalised — their president of finance {arheranistes) — and do crown him with a chaplet of foliage, because of his faithfulness and goodwill to them,*' etc. Again : ** Stratonice, daughter of Menecrates, is crowned by the members, men and women, of this thiasos (union). In the year 178 (of the union :) she was female president of the club (proeranisteria) ; a crown of foliage is decreed her and a marble tablet ornamented with banderoles to dignify the proclamation, in the Assembly of Jupiter, in honour of her virtue." In a world of strife and rapine virtue took refuge in these fraternities, and the poor despised freedman- toiler found some compensation for the many sorrows which the haughty rulers of the earth heaped on him* But for the far more ninnerous class of slaves there was alas, no such consolation. The slave had no property, 12 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. and consequently no religion and no institution of mar- riage. The pagan religion was essentially ancestor- worship, and as the slave had no recognised ancestors it followed that the Gods regarded him with complete indifference, or even positive detestation. He was " earth-born," whereas his master, forsooth, was of " divine origin." If he had the good fortune to obtain emancipation, and was religiously disposed he had to borrow a God from some aristocratic house (gens) in order to secure the doubtful countenance of a tutelar divinity. Messiahs of Labour. — And yet the tradition of a Messiah in the ancient labour world of illegitimates and outcasts was all bnt universal. Nearly every one of the war-strike leaders of antiquity was credited with a divine mission, and some of them were even wor- shipped as Gods after their death. This in particular was the case with Drimakos, the slave king of the island of Chios (Scio) whose strange story Osborne Ward, translator and librarian to the United States Department of Labour, has recently pieced together with so much patience in his learned work, ** Ancient Lowly." Drimakos not merely asserted that he acted under the direct counsel of the Almighty, but succeeded in persuading the Chian slave-owners that the Gcds had for once espoused the cause of the slave. The extraordinary episode of his death doubtless greatly strengthened the belief in his supernatural powers. He had imposed treaty-guaranteed blackmail on the defeated Chians and, from his mountain fast- nesses, had exacted it for many years when they treacher- ously offered a large reward in gold for his head. The old man took a singular resolution. Calling to him a young runaway slave, his sole confidant, he said : " Boy, I have brought thee up nearest to me, ever with the emotions of confidence and love more than that felt for all others of mankind. Thou art child and son and all that is dear to me. I have lived out my span. I have lived long enough ; but thou art still young and hast blood, and hope and sprightliness, and there is much before thee. Thou shalt become a good and THE ANNALS OF TOIL. I3 brave man. Son, the city of the Chians is offering to him that bringeth them my head a sum of money, and promising him his freedom. Therefore thy duty is to cut off my head, take it to them, receive thy reward, return to thy fatherland and be happy." The youth was horrified, but the inexorable Old Man of the Mountains sternly exacted obedience. Drimakos calmly laid his head on the block. His friend struck it off, buried the body, carried the head to the city, and duly received his reward. The death of Drimakos was soon mourned as a calamity by bond and free, and a splendid temple whose ruins still endure speedily rose over his tomb. The Slave King of *^ Scio's rocky isle " became a God. Eunus, Spartacus, and even Blossius, a noble in mind as in rank, the devoted friend of the illustrious brothers, Tiberius and Caius Gracchus, were all inspired with the idea that a Redeemer of Labour was at hand. Spartacus' wife was a soothsayer or prophetess, and Eunus, the Slave King of Sicily, was not merely a prophet but a miracle-worker. The true Messiah. — Spartacus, the last of the Old World labour leaders, had been dead 70 years when Christ appeared on the earth to procia^im to incredulous mankind the doctrine of absolute equality, liberty, and fraternity. His gospel was the most revolutionary that ever had been preached, and we are even now only beginning to fathom its practical significance. His moral precepts amply cover all the most recent conclu- sions of economic science. He denounced the rich, the priest and the lawyer without qualification. For the poor workers He had nothing but words of pity and consolation. He inverted the whole order of society by laying down the principle that he who would be the greatest should be the servant of all. King Herod He spoke of as ** that tox." Not birth, but conduct, not wealth but sacrifice of wealth, qualified for admission to the Kingdom of God upon earth. * * He accepted," (says Mr. Osborne Ward, in his exceed- ingly suggestive but disorderly and perplexing ** Ancient J4 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. Lowly,") ** the acceptable, and sternly refused that which bore no promise of contributing to the establishment of a Heaven on Earth. He gained His great triumph over slavery by adj usting the three moral impulses ot Plato and the dialecticians — irascibility, concupiscence, sympathy. He soothed the jarring bitterness of the first, by coaxing concupiscence from its ancient realm, and bringing it down to * want,' and married them together by the tie, of sympathy, the impulse most matured by the social unions, and there formed the stronghold of His doctrine from beginning to end." In a word. He preached and practised the most abso- lute Collectivism, and beyond His teaching, no Proud- hon, no St. Simon, no Marx can possibly go. Is it " rent " that is in question ? What of the birds of the air ? They do not gather into barns or produce ** surplus value " for landlords. Yet are they fed by the Almighty without vain anxiety about the future. Is it a question of " interest ? " Then ** lend hoping for nothing again, and your reward shall be great and ye shall be the children of the Highest." Is it a question of ** profit ? " Then " do unto others as you would that they should do unto you." To all other philosophies Christianity, even if it is estimated only as a philosophy, is as the sun in the centre of the planetary system. If I know aught of political economy, aught of philosophy, aught of the horrors of so-called Pagan Civilisation the declaration of the Master: ^* I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life " is indeed nothing strange. The world of to-day, it is true, is far from Christian, but it is far more Chris- tian than it wots of. We have among us Secularists, Agnostics, Comtists, Theosophists and the rest, but, so far as there is anything of value to suffering humanity in their writings, it is clearly taken at second hand from the gospel of the Nazarene. They have, so to speak, rent His seamless robe, and divided the fragments among them. ** Modern common sense," pregnantly observes Osborne Ward, whose volume should be in the hands of every student of labour antiquities, ** backed by THE ANNALS OF TOIL. I5 science is wheeling us back to the physicism of Aristotle, that it is the little things and the little men and women who perform all works, and produce all that is pro- duced ; and that it is not the great — conjured to be so in the elastic imagination — who accomplish anything, but th^ infinitesimals that do it all. . . . Aristotle's is the mind that draws ever nearer as the ages waft him further away among the satellites of an awful forever. ** Modern progress, which has almost outgrown chattel-slavery, still seems undecided in regard to the plan of Spartacus (retaliation) and might even yet swing back on it were it not for the stern, inexorable hold which Jesus maintains in the wreck of His tortured, priest-ridden temples ; and this hold is the hope of the future for His plan applies with wonderful harmony to the investigations and experiments of Aristotle. When we read Jesus rightly, and when He comes to be preached in our pulpits trom labour points of view, there will be found hundreds of texts whose meanings long smothered, will furnish substance enough to solve the problem. ** Jesus, who planted among the communes and labourers all that was good and pure, and whose beauti- ful works have been almost banished by the proud old Paganism still adhering in His temples, departed only to return ; for these growing squadrons of the modern * mites ' foretell that He is fleeting back to assume command of a great army of unreconciled but longing intelligencies which the ancient working people quick- ened, and which the suns of two thousand years have mellowed for the harvest." Bond and Free. — The modern world knows almost nothing of the every-day life of antiquity. Yet singu- larly enough our religion comes from Judea, our philo- sophy from Greece, and our jurisprudence substantially from ancient Rome. We do not realise that the treasures of Greek and Roman literature, acquaintance with which constitutes what is called a ** classical education," were produced in communities which, although Republican in name, were really sinks of l6 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. appalling cruelty and outrage in every form. Such liberty as existed existed for the " classes " alone. They monopolised and robbed on every hand, and their writers breathe their spirit — the spirit of oligarchy — on every page. In the year 309 B.C., Athens, the mother oPart and polite letters, contained 515,000 souls, and of these only 9,000 enjoyed any semblance of political rights. There were 10,000 strangers under the protection of the State ; 84,000 freedmen (without the suffrage), and 400,000 slaves. In wealthy Corinth the case was equally bad. The free numbered 40,000 and the bond 640,000 ! In Rome, in the year 103 b.c, there were only some 2,000 persons considered taxable. These had eaten up the public domain and gorged themselves with the plunder of the poor. When Tarentum was captured, in 209 B.C., 30,000 prisoners were sold into slavery. On the return of Tiberius Gracchus from Sardina, he drew forcible attention to the fact that 80,000 of the inhabit- ants had been killed or sold as slaves : and so incensed were the " classes " at his advocacy of the cause of the suffering toilers of the world that a mob of them murdered him in the streets of Rome. They subse- quently murdered his equally noble brother Caius for treading in his footsteps. In Sicily, after it became a province of the Empire, 210 B.C., the condition of affairs was perhaps worst of all. The whole island was overrun with slaves, and atrocities that make the flesh creep were of every day occurrence. That we should continue to live on the husks of the literature of such an unprincipled set of barbarians in this year of Grace is simply astounding. True, they did not have it always their own way. The workers sometimes exacted stern retribution, as in the following instance : A millionaire slave-owner, named Damophilus, had long perpetrated the most abominable cruelties on his human chattels. His wife, Megallis, was, if possible, still more flagitious, occasion- ally flogging female slaves to death with her own hands. They had a beautiful daughter who was as amiable as THE ANNALS OF TOIL. VJ her parents were truculent. She did everything in her power to mitigate their miseries. In 143 b.c, a sudden rising of the slaves of the town of Enna took place, and father, mother, and daughter fell into the hands oi the infuriated workers. The leader of the insurgents was a prophet or Messiah, called Eunus. He, curiously enough, had been brought from Apamea, a few leagues to the north of Nazareth. He could spit fire, and per- form a variety of feats, which inspired his followers with confidence in his leadership. Before this man Damophilus and Megallis were brought into the audi- torium of the theatre of Enna. Damophilus made a cunning defence, but to no purpose. Two of his victims, Zeuxes and Hermias, fearing that he w?s making some impression on the slave jury, rushed on him with axe and dagger and decapitated him on the spot. Megallis's fate was even more terrible. She was handed over to a jury of her female slaves. They tore her fine clothing from her back and hurried her to the brink of a fright- ful precipice, whence she was cast headlong into the abyss below. As for the daughter, every care was taken for her protection. Hermias, her father's execu- tioner, was chosen as the leader of a strong bodyguard to convey her to some of her relatives in the distant city of Catana, on the coast. The perilous task was duly performed. About this rising Diodorus Siculus hazards the follow- ing extraordinary statement for an ancient writer : — ** These slaves on strike demonstrated in showing no sympathy or mercy to those who had been their masters, and in delivering themselves up to their own violence and wrath, that what they did was not the mean prompt- ings of barbarity, but a just retribution or punishment for the injustice that had been done them.*' And for nearly ten years the revolt prospered. Eunus was chosen King, and at one time nearly all Sicily acknowledged his sway. He almost exterminated the ** classes," and was able to place 200,000 men in the field. His generals, Achaeus and Cleon, repeatedly worsted Roman armies, and displayed the greatest c THE ANNALS OF TOIL. aptitude for war. Eventually Rome made a desperate effort, and the government of the Sicilian " masses " succumbed. The usual strangulations and crucifixions, of course, followed without mercy. "Butchered to make a Roman Holiday." — The rage of the Roman " classes " for bloodshed passes all belief. They made the poor slaves murder each other in the Amphitheatre, simply because it amused them. The obsequies of a great man could not be properly celebrated without the sacrifice of some scores of labourers. Nor was a banquet complete without a display of gladiatorial butchery. In 175 b.c, Flaminius, when his father died, had 74 gladiators slain in honour of his deceased parent. Trajan once gave a grand gladiatorial exhibition which lasted for four months. Ten thousand workers soaked the sand of the arena with their blood. Commodus and Domitian revelled in these monstrous orgies. On one occasion, when there was some lack of cattle to feed the wild beasts of the Amphitheatre, Caligula solved the difficulty by emptying the jails of untried prisoners to appease their hunger. They were devoured alive. Not merely men, but women, and even little children, were driven naked into the arena to gash and mangle one another with knives, while the vile ** classes," with their lascivious wives, mistresses, and daughters, enjoyed the sport and shouted applause as their victims one by one bit the dust in agony. And not merely were they made to fight with each other, but with lions, tigers, panthers, bears, and serpents. It was an age of horrors, which it taxed all the resources of the Christian Religion to mitigate. Had Christ not appeared when he did, the world, which was constantly getting worse, must have gone to absolute perdition. Food of the Ancient Workers. — So far as the slaves were concerned, their diet was as strictly vegetarian as the most rigidly righteous of that persuasion could desire. They were allowed no flesh food of any kind, while the freedmen or emancipated slaves seem largely to have subsisted on pork. The ** classes," like the THE ANNALS OF TOIL. I9 Jews, regarded the flesh of the swine with aversion, confining themselves chiefly to fish, mutton, and fat venison. Christianity made its first converts among the ancient Unions {collegia) of freedmen and hence their indifference to the dietetic prejudices of their "betters." The Union of the Suarii, or pork-butchers, was powerful, and many of its members must have been among the earliest Christians in Rome. The God-smiths' Unions were by no means so accom- modating. The cahatov made images of the greater gods, Jupiter, Vulcan, Juno, Ceres, and the rest, while the imaginifex gave his attention to the paraphernalia of household worship, toy-gods, and a great variety of sacred trinkets in gold, silver, brass, pearl, amber, and gems. The image-makers carried on an extensive and lucrative trade, and did not take kindly to a faith which threatened them with the total loss of their means of livelihood. But a way was eventually found out of the difliculty. The Church made a compromise with the Unions, and the production of emblems of the Christian Religion — images of apostles, saints, and the like — gradually superseded the manufacture of the objects of Pagan worship. The poor workers no longer required to borrow a tutelary deity from the haughty rich. The doctrine of the Universal Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man struck the cruel mechanical, aristocratic religion of Rome a mortal blow, from which recovery was impossible. The stigma was taken from the brow of labour, and slave and slavelord were placed on a footing of moral equality, Socrates, it is true, told Aristotle that " labour was a virtue," and there is indeed a strange parallel between his career and that of the Founder of Christianity. Mr. Osborne Ward {Ancient Lowly) thus contrasts them : ** Socrates and Jesus seem like an incarnation of two great goodnesses in one. The analogy from beginning to end is wonderful. Both were sons of humble mechanics — the one a marble cutter, the other a car- penter, Both were surrounded by communes of secret eranoi (Unionists), and probably both were members.. to THE ANNALS OF TOIL. Both preached quietly to their disciples, occasionally addressing open-air mass meetings. Both were be- trayed by the perfidy of their own pretended converts, and suffered death on the plea of corrupting the morals which the ethics of the same Pagan faith had fostered and grown out of the hideous philosophy of human slavery. The result to the human race of these parellel lives and martyrdoms has been altogether incacul- able." But, after all, the parallel is superficial. Socrates spoke as a skilled dialectician : Christ, as an authoritative revealer. The Flag of Labour. — From the remotest antiquity the banner of the " masses " has been red. That of the ancient " classes " was white, or white and azure. The ** classes " affected white as significant of their pure descent from divine ancestors, and priests and angels are still partial to the colour. Red, on the other hand, was the colour of the robes worn by Ceres and Minerva, the divinities most favourable to industry. Ceres befriended the husbandmen, while Minerva took charge of mechanics and inventors. What more natural, then, than adhere to the brilliant hue pre- ferred by these beneficent goddesses ? Flag, flagnia, or flamma is a blazing fire. Hence the flag of labour is coeval with sun worship. It has come down through the ages with a persistence that it is marvellous, and all its association with blood and rapine are mere malevo- lent inventions of the "classes." The crimson vexilum became a war banner only when the workers began to assume military importance, and frequently was it used by their cunning generals in order to stimulate them to deeds of desperate valour in the field. They would manage to toss it into the enemies camp or line of battle, and then urge their men not to allow a symbol so dear to them to be captured. Eventually crimson became so popular a hue in apparel that the ** classes " resolved to appropriate it to them- selves. They made it a crime for anyone but themselves to wear it, and thus by cutting off the demand, they succeeded in ruining the entire dyeing trade of Phoenicia, THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 21 an industry of immemorial antiquity and rare excellence. The very secret of the exquisite Tyrian crimson hues was lost, and has never been recovered. The splendid banner borne by the Social Democrats at the great Eight Hour Day Demonstrations in Hyde Park is^ perhaps, as near an approach to the ancient labour banner as it was possible to come. The Old Ciyilization and the New Compared. — Old- world Governments were brutal to a degree, and modern politics are but a modification of them. Slavery was the corner stone of the ancient State. The labourer, even when a freedman, was regarded with contempt, and honest work was held to be a disgrace. It is some- what different now. For bare sustenance plus the lash, we have ''freedom of contract '' //ws the constant fear of starvation. The wages system of production is better than slavery laudoubtedly ; but the capitalists, on the other hand, have usurped all the State duties formerly discharged with such efficiency by the Labour Unions, The world is still composed of " classes " and *' masses " robbers and robbed '* haves " and *' have-nots." Europe is armed to the teeth. *' All the resources of civiliza- tion " are in the hands of the '* classes," and it can hardly be doubted that they are so retained, not so much in preparation for international strife as for the forcible suppression of popular discontent. The oppressors have become exceedingly cunning, because they are threatened in every land by a common danger. Labour demands unqualified possession of the soil, the common gift of God to all men, and of the capital which is the off- spring of their own and their forefathers' toil thereon. A universal wail has gone up from Moscow to London, and from New York to San Francisco : " We toil, we toil, but we enter not in, Like the tribes that the deserh devoured in their sin ; From the Land of Promise yre fade and die Ere its verdure gleams forth on our wearied eye. Pliny in a well known passage complains of the ** great estates (latifundia) that had ruined Italy and the provinces as well." Have we not our great estates in 22 THE ANNALS OF TOIL, all conscience ? The Roman capitalist had his thou- sands of slaves. Has not our modern capitalist got his thousands of ** hands ? " The world of to-day, like the world of old, is being rolled up into two great antagon- istic camps with the most portentous velocity. The late Lord Beaconsfield was right when he declared that there were two nations in England — the rich and the poor — betv/een whom there was neither community of interest nor sentiment of sympathy. Great as has been the work which Christianity has achieved in diffusing a wide sense of justice and humanity among men, it has hitherto failed to exorcise the demon of robber greed which lies at the bottom of the entire system of competitive production and distribution. It has failed to moralise ** the dismal science " of political economy. Yet all economic problems resolve themselves into questions of religion and morality. That which is morally wrong can never be made economically right. Co-operation is the keynote of Christianity just as Compe- tition is the keynote of the ancient Paganism which is still rampant in our midst. How can those principles be reconciled ? Will the capitalists deny themselves, and take to honest labour for the means of livelihood ? Not much ! What then ? There are but two alternatives— ballot or bullet. The former, as we know it, is a wretchedly clumsy instrument, but it is preferable to the latter. War is itself Competition in its most hideous form, and it is in vain to seek in it, or by it, a foundation for that Co- operation which is its opposite — that Co-operation which signifies peace and goodwill to all mankmd. Our choice lies between Spartacus and Christ. But which method of redress suffering humanity will eventually have recourse to — to the sword of the flesh or the sword of the spirit — no man living can foretell. CHAPTER II. CELTIC BRITAIN. Industrious persons by an exact and scrupulous diligence and observation, out of monuments, names, words, proverbs, traditions, private records and evidences, fragments of stories, passages of books that concern not history, and the like, do save and recover somewhat from the deluge of tin^. — Bacon. Truth comes to us from the past, as gold is witshed down from the mountains of Sierra Nevada, in minute and precious particles, and intermingled with infinite alloy, the if^^m of centuries. — Bovee. History, as it lies at the root of all science, is also the first dis- tinct product of man's spiritual nature — his earliest expression of what can be called thought. — Carlyle. History makes haste to record great deeds, but often neglects good ones. — Hosea Ballou. In a word, we may gather out of history a policy no less wise than eternal by the comparison and application of other men's forepassed miseries with our own ill errors and ill deservings. — Sir Walter Raleigh. In the preceding chapter oi The Annals of Toil I en- deavoured to give the reader some general conception of the condition of the worker, both bond and free, in the Ancient World. And, as of the States of the Ancient World, I selected the Roman Empire as the aptest to illustrate my theme ; so now I propose to deal with Britain as the best available example, for my purpose, among the nations of the Modern Wond. Race. — In these islands, as in so many other lands, it cannot be doubted that there was a Stone and Bone Age, a Bronze Age, and an Iron Age. The sciences of 23 24 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. geology and archaeology are practically at one on tha point, though of course, metallurgy may sometimes plausibly contend that primitive man ought to have found as much difficulty in fusing copper and tin as in smelting iron ore. But about the Stone Age there can be no rational dispute. Man then had a terrible fight with cold and hunger, and the ferocious beasts that sought to devour him. So stern was his lot when vast icefields covered the greater portion of Europe that Tacitus tells us the very fear of the gods was banished from his heart. They could not add aught to his misery. His arms, offensive and defensive, were framed of sharpened stone and bone. Of what race the men of this paleolithic age were is wholly unknown, but that some of their blood is in our veins need not be doubted. No race wholly perishes — not even " cave men." Conquering tribes always preserve some of the conquered men as slaves, and some of their women as wives. After the " stone men " came the '* bronze men." These also belong to an unknown race, though it can hardly be doubted that they were in evidence within historic times. The Picts (Cruithni) of Scotland and Ireland have always been a mystery to ethnologists. They were undoubtedly identical with the Caledonii whom Agricola encountered, a.d. 84, at the terrible battle of Mons Grampius, in Perthshire, so vividly described by Tacitus. Agricola thought them Germans from " their fierce blue eyes and huge bodies," but there he was almost certainly mistaken. From what we know of the monosyllabic names of their kings and a few other words of their language that have been preserved, they were certainly not Germans. Indeed, the Picts had one singular custom which almost stamps them as non- Aryans at all. Inheritance came not through the father, but the mother. When the King of Pictavia died his son did not succeed him, but his next brother, or in default his sister's son, or the nearest male claim- ing through a female and on the female side. Hence it was that Shakespeare's ** Gracious Duncan " and not Macbeth was the usurper, the latter claiming the THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 25 Crown, in right of his wife. It has been conjectured that the Picts were of the Finnish race, though largely mixed with Celtic blood. Indeed, for practical pur- poses we may say that the entire population of what is now England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, was, at the dawn of British history, as Celtic as Gaul itself. If the non- Aryan elements were not all assimilated the- process was rapidly going on. When St. Golumba went to convert the Northern Picts it is noteworthy that the chiefs readily understood him, though in ad- dressing the ** common people " he sometimes requiredl an interpreter. To the Celts we owe the introduction of iron into the island. Caesar found them working it in Sussex, b.c. 55, and it is certain their neighbours and kinsmen the Gauls used swords of iron at the battle of the Anio in the fourth century b.c. Britain before Caesar's Invasion. — Herodotus, *' the father of history," Aristotle, about 445 b.c, and Poly- bius (200-160 B.C.), all allude to the Cassiterides or tin: islands. These have generally been held to be the Scilly Islands, but there is a doubt whether they may not, after all, have been some islets in the bay of Vigo off the Andalusian coast, in the 'region of the ancient Tarshish. Be that as it may, it is certain that the astronomer Pytheas of Massilia (Marseilles), about 360 B.C., at the request of a syndicate of merchants, explored the eastern coast from end to end. He was at Shetland even, and some extracts from his diary which have come down to us are very interesting. Speaking of Kent he says : ** The natives collect the sheaves of wheat in great barns and thrash out the corn there, because they have so little sunshine that our open thrashing places would be of little use in that land of clouds and rain." Pytheas further noted that the in- habitants ** made a drink by mixing wheat and honey " — a drink still known as " metheglin " in some country districts. The Greek physicians were not behind the Dr. Richardsons of to-day. They dsnounced British beer as a " drink producing pain in the head and injury to the nerves." ad THE ANNALS OF TOIL. Another enterprising explorer, Posidonius, about two hundred years later, visited other parts of the country, and Diodorus Siculus, 44 b.c, and Strabo of Pontus, 54 B.C., the celebrated geographer, have not failed to record their indirectly acquired impressions of the islanders. Diodorus observes : ** They gather in their harvest by cutting off the ears of corn and storing them in subter- ranean repositories ; they cull these daily from such as are ripe, and, dressing them, have thence their susten- ance." This mode of '* dressing" was not unknown in the Highlands of Scotland in the Eighteenth Century. Martin in his ** Description of the Western Islands of Scotland " (1703) describes the process : *' A woman, sitting down, takes a handful of corn, holding by the stalks in her left hand, and then sets fire to the ears, which are presently in a flame. She has a stick in her right hand, which she manages very dexterously, beating off the grains at the very instant when the husk is quite burnt, for if she miss of that she must use the kiln ; but experience has taught them the art to perfection. The corn may be so dressed, winnowed, ground, and baked within an hour after reaping from the ground." Diodorus adds : " They are simple in their manners, and far removed from the cunning and wickedness of men of the present generation ; their modes of living-are frugal, differing greatly from the luxury consequent on riches. The island is thickly inhabited, and for the most part they live peaceably together." Mining Industry. — The mining and smelting popula- tion was no less admirable than the agricultural. " At present, (says Diodorus), we shall speak of the tin that is there produced. They that dwell near that promon- tory of Britain which is called Balerium (Land's End) are singularly fond of strangers, and, from their intercourse with foreign merchants, civilised in their habits. These people obtain the tin by skilfully working the soil, which produces it. This being rocky, has earthy interstices, in which working the ore, and then fusing, they reduce it to metal, and when they have formed it into cubical shapes, they convey it to a certain island lying off Britain, HE ANNALS OF TOIL. 27 named Ictis(probably Thanet), for at the low tide the intervening space being laid dry they carry thither the tin in great abundance. . . . Hence the merchants pur- chase the tin from the natives, and carry it across into Gaul, and finally journeying by land through Gaul for about thirty days they convey their burdens to the outlet of the river Rhone.'* Strabo was less complimentary to our Celtic fore- fathers, but he tells much the same story : — ** It (the country) produces corn and cattle, gold and silver, and iron, which things are brought thence, and also skins and slaves, and dogs sagacious in hunting. The dogs the Celti use for the purposes of war, as well as their native dogs. The men are taller than the Celti (Gauls), with hair less yellow. ... At the present time some of the princes, by their embassies, having gained the friendship of Augustus, have dedicated their offerings in the Capitol, and have brought the whole island into a state, little short of intimate union with the Romans. They bear moderate taxes, laid both on the imports and exports of Celtica (Gaul), which are ivory bracelets, and necklaces, amber, and vessels of glass, and suchlike mean merchandise." Strabo evidently wished to convey the idea that the British Celts of his day were backward in **civilisa- tio u " ; but, so far as one may judge from his own showing, they were only a trifle too anxious to come within the reach of its sinister influences. The inland tribes were doubtless rude enough, but they were by no means savages, and those of them that Julius Caesar encountered, b.c. S5i were in no way interior to the sprightly Gauls. AgrioultuFd. — They cultivated cereals with skill, raised good cattle, and were not deficient in dairy pro- duce. They used wheeled ploughs, and understood the marling and chalking of the soil. They used their horses for food as well as for draught purposes. They had sheep, swine, goats and domestic fowls in abun- dance. Their cattle were of two kinds, (i) the ** Celtic short horn " {Bos Longifrons)^ and the Kyloe or Argyll- 28 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. sKife variety {Bos Primigemus), a herd of which is still preserved in Chillingham Park. Their Feasts. — More than a century before the Chris- tian era, Posidonius assisted at one of these and was delighted with his hosts. They asked no guest's name, he tells us, till after the banquet. They thought a cut from the haunch the best part of the beast. They drank unmixed wine, or milk. They sat on skins, or rushes, near the spits and pots, and partook "rather after the fashion of lions." Each had a little table before him, and, as occasion required, used a bronze knife, kept in a separate sheath beside the sword, or dagger. The lads and lasses carried around the beer or hydromel, in metal beakers or earthenware jugs. The minstrels sang and the harpers played while the guests sat in three rings — nobles, shield-bearers, and javelin- men. All had a full share of the viands, without dis- tinction. Equality reigned. Dress. — From the medals struck by the brutal Emperor Claudius to celebrate the capture, a.d. 43, of Camulodunmn (Colchester), we gather that the men and women wore the same dress. When Britannia is repre- sented as a woman (Elton's Origins of English History) the head is uncovered and the hair tied in an elegant knot on the neck. Where a male figure is introduced, the head is covered with a soft hat of modern pattern. The costume consisted of a blouse with sleeves, con- fined in some cases by a belt, with trousers fitting close at the ankle, and a tartan plaid fastened up at the shoulder with a brooch. They wore their light stuflfs for summer and druggets for winter wear, which are said (Pliny's Nat, Hist.) to have been prepared with vinegar, and to have been so tough as to resist the stroke of a sword. There was yet another and earlier British dress — evidendy the ** garb of old Gaul " — called by Varro, the "most learned of the Romans" (116-28 e.g.), giianacum, " woven of divers colours, and making a gaudy show." They had acquired, at that early date, the art of using: alternate colours for warp and woof. The cloth, says THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 29 Diodorus, was covered with an ** infinite number of little squares and lines, as if it had been sprinkled with flowers.*' The favourite colour was red, or a pretty crimson — "such colours as an honest-minded person had no cause to blame, nor the world reason to cry out upon." The secret of the dyes of the tartan will be found in Logan's Scottish Gael: *' Bark of alder was used for black ; bark of willow produced flesh colour, Crotil geal, a lichen found on stone, was used to dye crimson, and another, called crotil dubth, of a dark colour, only dyes philamot." Ships. — The coracle, or boat of wicker work covered with hide, must have been long superseded in the South of England at least, before the days of Julius Csesar. He complained that a squadron of Damnonian {Devon and Cornwall) ships had materially aided the Veneti (the maritime people of Vannes) in their great naval engagement with him, shortly before his invasion of Britain. Writing of that event he observes: '*The enemy had a great advantage in their shipping , the keels of their vessels were flatter than ours, and were consequently more convenient for shallows and low tides. The forecastles were very high and the poops so contrived as to endure the roughness of those seas. The bodies of the ships were built entirely of oak, stout enough to withstand any shock or violence. The banks for the oars were beams of a foot square, bolted at each end with iron pins as thick as a man's thumb. Instead of cables for their anchors they used iron chains. Their sails were of untanned hide, either because they had no linen and were ignorant of its use, or as is more likely because they thought linen sails not strong enough to endure their boisterous seas and winds.'' It is pretty clear from this statement that if, as Caesar alleged, the Damnonian Britons (Brythons) did play any consider- able part in the naval action in question, they must at a very early date, have been shipbuilders of some mark as well as skilled agriculturists, miners, and ^veavers. Religion. — The question — What was Druidism or the JO THE ANNALS OF TOIL. religion of the Celts ? is about as puzzling as, Who were the Picts ? Like other beliefs, it seems to have implied very different things at different times. At all events, its headquarters seem clearly to have been in Britain, and there is some reason to believe it wa i originally the religion of the non- Aryan race who pre- ceded the Celts. The Gaels proper professed a mixed form of Druidism and Polytheism, while the Gaulish Britons, after Caesar's day, and perhaps before it, knew almost nothing of the special features of the culte. In early Christian times the Druids are represented as mere magicians (Magi), necromancers, and general impostors, and it may well be, considering their privileges, that their profession of faith outlived their actual belief. What that belief in its essence was can only be con- jectured, as it was forbidden to commit it to writing. One cardinal doctrine only is certain — they taught the immortality of the soul. The soul underwent various probationary incarnations before it could hope to enter the presence of the Creative Energy. Whether that Energy was one or multiple, in other words, whether the Druids were theists or polytheists, may be doubte d^ but there are many indications that, esoterically at least, they maintained the Unity of God. As regards their alleged bloody human sacrifices in the Isle of Mona (Anglesa) and elsewhere, the reports of Roman or even Christian writers are to be accepted with the utmost caution. It must be remembered that they were the revered depositories of all Celtic tradition> and that their opposition to the Roman arms was the mainspring of the desperate opposition offered to the cruel conquerors of the world. ** It is the greatest pleasure in life," said Cicero, the virtuous patriot, " to see a brave enemy led off to torture and death." Clearly any Roman capable of such a sentiment would not hesitate to follow up the fiendish massacre of the Druids and bards in the Isle of Mona by lying away their character. In emergencies human sacrifice was by no means unknown at Rome itself, and the hands of the Druids may not have been altogether clean. But THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 31 the Celtic religion, whatever its drawbacks, was some- thing every way nobler than the ghastly ritual of such worthies as Julius Caesar. That flagitious person, for example, wrote learnedly on ** divination," and it so happened that in 63 b.c, he was Pontifex Maximus, i.e,y Pagan Pope. In that year Cicero, being Consul, put to death in prison, without trial, several distinguished popular leaders, lieutenants of the Socialist chief Cati- line. The supreme Pontiff was likewise in his own way equal to the occasion. He expressed the edifying sentiment that, as death for ever closed the chapter of human ills, the murdered men had some reason to be congratulated on their fate ! Roman Britain. — Reading between the lines of Caesar's Commentaries, it is not at all difficult to dis- cern that, in his two expeditions to Britain, in c^^ and 56, B.C., he got as good as he gave. The conquest of the island was at that time beyond the power of Rome, and it was not till 43 a. d. that it was again molested, in the reign of Claudius. In that year the Imperial general, Aulus Plautius, invaded Britain, and its con- quest began in earnest. The great stronghold of Camulodunum (Colchester) was captured by the ij^mperor in person and converted into a Roman colony [colonia). In 44 a.d. the brutal tyrant decreed himself, for this exploit, a magnificent triumph at Rome, the leading feature of which was the attack and defence of an extemporised British stockade by hundreds of the captives that had been made in the war and brought to Rome. Worse than ** butchered to make a Roman holiday," they were made to butcher each other to show the Roman citizens, by ocular demonstration, what difficulties their gallant Emperor had overcome. But I am not going to be betrayed into any pro- longed ** blood and iron" details. We all know the stories of the heroism of Caractacus and Queen Boadicea. They succumbed, but not without entailing the heaviest losses on the enemy. The confederacy which Boadicea headed almost annihilated the Ninth Legion, and at the sack of Camulodunum, and Verulamium (Str 32 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. Albans), it is computed that over seventy thousand 'Roman coloni (colonists) and so^«(allies) perished. Still the Roman arms steadily advanced, and, by the close of the first century of the Christian era, the country, up to the estuaries of the Forth and Clyde, was substantially in the grasp of the plunderers of the world. But, though Agricola, in 84, and Severus ,in 208 A.D. penetrated much farther north than that limit, the defensive walls which the Romans successively erected between the Clyde and the Forth and the Tyne and the Solway were a virtual acknowledgment that the tribes of the Highlands could not be subdued by any ordinary means. Between the two walls, a hundred miles apart, lay the province of Valentia, which only on its western side seems ever to have ceased to be a sort of debateable land. So great was the danger that we know from the tell-tale Notitia Imperii that it was usual to keep 10,000 foot and 1,500 horse constantly encamped on the south side of the wall of Hadrian. The Roman Occupation. — This lasted from 43 to 410 A.D., when the Emperor Honorius was fain to withdraw the legionaries from the island altogether. When he did so, he issued a rescript to the civitates (cities), relaxing in their favour the Lex Julia Majestatis by which the whole Roman world had been forbidden the use of arms, unless employed in the Imperial service. Even in the middle of the third century these civitates or walled towns were fifty-five in number, not to men- tion numerous military stations with civilian suburbs rapidly developing into towns. London had its origin in an encampment of Aulus Plautius on the site of an old native stockade. At the withdrawal of the Roman soldiery the walls of London, loft. thick and 20ft. high, extended from Ludgate-hill to the Tower, and from London Wall to the Thames, a mile the one way and half-a-mile the other. The roads connecting these cities were excellent, and they intersected the country in every direction, as Antonine*s ** Itinerary " fully attests. At regular intervals there were posting -Stations, where fresh horses and refreshment could be THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 3$ obtained. Many milestones have been discovered;, and a portion of roadway laid bare at Radstock, some ten miles from Bath, in 1881, gives a good idea of the thoroughness which the Roman conquerors carried into this department of civic life. The ** Fosse-road " showed the following construction : (i) foundation of pounded earth ; (2) bed composed of large stones ; (3) lair of small stones well mixed with mortar; (4) lair of mixed lime, chalk, and pounded brick or tile ; and (5) last of all, the summum dorsum^ or surface of the paved way. The Roman roads ran over mountains and through forest and marsh with seeming indifference. The marshes were crossed on piles, while the rivers were skilfully bridged. No wonder the natives com- plained that their hands were worn to the bone in such arduous service. The towns themselves contained elegant villas, public baths, theatres, temples, aque- ducts, sewers, and other evidences of comfort and elegance. The Country Districts. — Each civitas had its sur- rounding territorium (territory). This territory generally coincided with the land of some vanquished native tribe, and became shire-land, when the Anglo-Saxons subse- quently appeared on the scene. The tribe-land of the Celts was never held in severality, but always as common property. The Roman Conquest first introduced pri- vate property in land, and it is necessary to examine closely how this was done, and how the natives were affected by it. There were two descriptions of land in Italy, ager privatus and ager puhlicus. The private land might be sold, exchanged, mortgaged, or bequeathed by the holder without challenge. It was liable to no standing tax, and was therefore the subject of complete private dominium (ownership). With the public land, or ager vectigalis (tax -bearing), as it was generally called under the Empire, it was very different. In it there was no dominium, only possessio (possession). It was subject to tributum (tribute) to the State, which might resume it at will, as prescription {usucapio) did not run against the sovereign authority. In practice, however^ C 34 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. possession and ownership became very much alike. So long as somebody paid the tribute, sale, gift or bequest mattered little. Accordingly a mere possessor, with the sanction of the Chief Magistrate of his province, was always enabled to act much as if he were the true owner {dominus). In Roman Britain nearly all the land was held by mere possessors, the true ownership being vested in the State. In a word, Georgeism was in full swing in Britain during the Roman occupation. And not merely did these possessores, or lessees, of the public land contribute rent (tributum) to the Imperial Treasury, they had, moreover, to bear local rates {omra patrimonialia) for the following objects. They had to keep the walls and bastions of the civitas in good repair, likewise the roads and bridges of the tevritorium, and to find army-recruits according to acreage possessed. Such was the ** trinod^ necessitas," or threefold necessity ; but there were also the soldiers to clothe {vestis militaris) and hospitality {prcehitio hospitalitatis) to be shown whenever the Emperor or any of his great officers chanced to be in the neigh- bourhood. The Native Britons under this System. — When a colony was decided on as a reward for veteran services in the field, a Colony Law {Lex Calonica) was passed, and agrimensores (land surveyors) were despatched into the subjugated territory to divide or centuriate it among the beneficiaives. In some colonies the centuria was 200 acres, in others 240, and a. procenturia of 120 acres was not unknown ; but the centuria never varied in the same colony. And with the division of soil came the appor- tionment of the natives who were not enlisted into the cohorts of Rome. They were not reduced to slavery, as, according to the so-called * laws of war,' they might have been. They were incorporated with the soil, and the Roman colonists became their patrons {patroni) — a euphemism, doubtless, for very severe taskmasters. Still, the taskmasters — and such was the origin of serfdom — could not sever him (the sevvus terra) from the soil with- out his consent, nor could the serf sever himself without THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 35 Stealing himself ! He could acquire property, and law- fully marry, and being, in the eyes of the law, a freed man he was, unlike the slave, liable to military con- scription. He had, of course, no political rights whatever. This clearly was not the best condition of labour imaginable; but it developed industry, and Britain came to be regarded as a land of plenty. Forests were cleared, fens drained, rivers embanked, and lands re- claimed on every hand. The Romans worked and smelted copper, and they opened lead mines in Mont- gomeryshire and calamine mines in Shropshire. In the Forest of Dean, in the Wealds of Sussex and Kent, their mining operations were extensive. They manu- factured pottery on a large scale in Shropshire; at Upchurch, on the Medway, a little above Sheerness ; at Castor, ancient Durobrivae, on the eastern boundary of Northamptonshire. Glass seems to have been manu- factured by them on the coast near Brighton. Nor were they ignorant of the production of gagetes, or jet ornaments, such as beads, buttons, and armlets, from kennel and kimmeridge coal. During the Roman period the population has been estimated as high as 10,000,000 souls, a total not subsequently attained till the beginning of the present century. Christianity. — How far Christianity became the religion of the Romano-British population must ever remain a matter of conjecture. Gildas, our earliest historian (born 520 a.d.), writing of the revolt of Boadicea (59 A.D.), says : ** In the meantime Christ, the true Sun, afforded His rays, i,e,^ His precepts to this island, benumbed with icy coldness, and lying far distant from the visible sun. I do not mean from the sun of the temporal firmanent, but from the sun of the highest arch of heaven, existing before all time, which manifested its brightness to the whole world during the latter part of the reign of Tiberius Caesar." Forty-eight thousand Roman troops were then in occu- pation of the island, and it is extremely probable that not a few of them had embraced the New Faith in the 36 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. south. Anyhow, we find TertuUian, as early as 208 a.d., exulting in the fact that " locations of the Britons in- accessible to the Romans had, nevertheless, been sub- dued to Christ." But the best evidence that Roman Britain was early brought under the influence of the Gospel is the personal testimony of the great Apostle of the Irish, St. Patrick. He, there can now be no reason- able doubt, was born at Dumbarton, otherwise Nemthur or Nevtur, as the ** Black Book of Carmarthen " has it, about the year 396, and he tells us that his father, Calpurnius, was a deacon, and that his grandfather, Potitus, was a presbyter, before him. That carries the conversion of the most northern of the Roman provinces back a considerable way, and removes, in complete measure, the doubts that have been thrown on the very existence of the Romano-British Church. There is good reason to believe that the saint was trained at Candida Casa (Whithorn), and knew personally of but two countries, Scotland and Ireland. The Anglo-Saxons. — It is now necessary that some- thing should be recorded concerning the noble ** Anglo- Saxon," about whom so much arrant nonsense has been said and sung. I myself believe him to have been very much of a fraud or historical hoax, from beginning to end. At all events, so far as we can make out his career, from the time that he secured a foothold in this island down to his humiliating kissing of the Norman rod after the battle of Hastings, it was unquestionably full of unmitigated savagery, treachery, havoc, and almost nothing else. The first mention of the Saxon is by Ptolemy, in the early part ot the second century. He then occupied a small territory on the north side of the Elbe, and three small islands at the mouth of that river. Of these islands the chief was Heligoland, which patriotic Lord Salisbury recently obligingly made over to the German Kaiser. "This ancient seat of our forefathers," says Sharon Turner in his well-known " History of the Anglo-Saxons," ** has now (1836) be- come united to the British dominions. As it was the THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 37 principal station of their naval excursions, it is peculiarly interesting to us, and an important object of our national history." Writing regarding it in the eleventh century, Adam, of Bremen, quaintly observes : — "It is a place venerated by all sailors, and especially by pirates. Hence it is called * Heiligoland * (Holy Island)." In 36^ A.D., the Saxons ravaged the south-east coast, but they were thoroughly beaten by Theodosius, the lieutenant of Valentinian, both by sea and land. In 429 A.D., they made another abortive attempt in con- junction with their old allies the Picts. In 449, they contrived to get their first footing on the Isle of Thanet. Three hundred of them under two apochryphal chiefs — Hengist and Horsa — engaged themselves as mercen- aries to assist the Romano-Britons in driving back the Scots and Picts. They were enrolled as the " Foreign Cohorts " {cohortes pefegrinoYum), each cohort receiving an ensign with a dragon {draco), after the Roman fashion. In the hosts of Rome the standard of the legion was the eagle; of the cohort, the dragon. The Saxons appropriated the dragon-flag as they appropriated almost everything else that has come down to us as distinctively Saxon or ** Anglo-Saxon." The mercenary Saxons soon rebelled against their masters, under the pretext that their pay was inade- quate, and commenced an endless series of bloody wars with the Romano-Britons, and with each other, so meaningless and brutal, that it is doubtful if any other race on record was ever equally criminal. It was not their fault if they did not succeed in extirpating civili- sation from the island, and, indeed, human life itselt Milton compares their combats to skirmishes between kites and crows. The Turners, Kembles, and Thorpes must be admitted to have a peculiar taste in the selec- tion of historic themes. The Saxons knew themselves much better than their literary admirers and panegyrists. Thirty- three of their patronymics end in wulf (wolf) ! They were almost destitute of poetry, piety, humanity, and learning, and the beneficent common-sense lawi 38 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. which they are supposed to have brought with them to this country from their savage Continental haunts, they did not bring. These were, with a few barbarous Saxon exceptions, adapted from the Roman code of the dis- armed Britons of the civitaUSf who always remained the numerically dominant section o! the community. Eventually, if the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is to be believed, the entire gang of privileged Saxon robbers were wiped out, and that, too, before the final overthrow of the race at Hastings: "There (Assandun, 1016), Cnut (the Dane) obtained the victory, and all the peoples of the English fought there. The whole duguth (i.e., thegns or aristocracy) of the English race were there destroyed.'* At Hastings, it is note-worthy that King Harold relied chiefly on the valour of a large contingent of his mother's countrymen, the Danes. There are happily not many Englishmen of English or " Anglo-Saxon " extraction extant. It is at best extremely difficult to arrive at any rational conclusions regarding the period (607-1013) which John Richard Green, in his equally crude and readable History of the English people ^ has stamped as that of ** The English Kingdoms " or Heptarchy. But he and his great authorities — Freeman Stubbs, and such- like ' * Sassenach " theorisers and idolaters — have rendered the work of elucidation gratuitously difficult by filling^ the mind of the reading public with a mass of ground- less assumptions, and, as the apostle has it, ** science falsely so-called." To begin the history of Britain with the advent, in the middle of the fifth century, of a gang of filthy, untutored barbarians from the Continent, is a capital error which no gift of erudition or style can redeem. In the course of more than four centuries the Saxons contrived to imbibe some portion of the Romano- Celtic civilisation which they tried so hard to extirpate, and that was the most that anyone can say for them. They did less than any other element in the population to lay the foundation of British greatness (such as it is), and it is claimed for them that they have done nearly everything ! THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 3g Authorities. — Of contemporary British and Saxon writers and writings almost nothing can be made for cer- tain. On the British side we have Gildas, and the poets Aneurin, TaHesen, and Llywarch Hen. The first was a monkish chronicler of the Cassandra School, much given to wordy invective and swearing at large. The other three, it is true, were in the thick of the conflict, but they were poets, and the difficulty of fixing the topo- graphy even of their verses is insurmountable. On the Saxon side we have the Venerable Bede and the Saxon Chronicle. But Bede ploughs largely with Gildas* unsatisfactory heifer, and the Saxon Chronicle is Httle more than a mass of traditions committed to writing after the events. In these circumstances, we must be guided by the doctrine of probabilities and the dictates of common-sense. What happened then when the Roman Emperor Honorius was obliged to withdraw the legions of Rome ? He called upon the civitaUs, or municipal bodies, to look to themselves. These had their own officers and recognised jurisdiction, like the authorities of the Eternal City itself, of which they were copies. They did their best, and for about fifty years there was neither king nor emperor in the land. Each civitas appointed its own Commissioner or Commissioners (comites) to fill up, as far as might be, the void left by the departed military, judicial, and fiscal authority of Rome. There was no strong connecting link, unfortun- ately, between the numerous towns and territories, and that constituted the fatal weakness of the situation. Had these been able to act collectively, an inconsider- able horde ot savage Jutes, Angles, and Saxons would never have been able to cope with the ** resources of civilisation," which the Romanized Britons possessed in abundance. As it was, the barbarians subdued many of them in detail, and, as they were really an army of occupation rather than a body of civilian emigrants, a small number of them could achieve much. They gradually, in their own rude fashion, came to imitate the policy of Imperial Rome, but at no time previous- 40 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. to the Norman Conquest, nor indeed since, have the Saxons, or English proper, ever exhibited any of the superior qualities of a dominant race. It is to the Romanized Celts of the old Imperial towns that we owe, in the main, the instinct of self-government, which has done so much to glorify the British name through- out the world. The Romano-British Towns. — These, it cannot be doubted, with few exceptions, successfully weathered the hurricane of Saxon, Danish, and Norman conquest. The Saxons, in very many instances, stepped into the shoes of the Roman rural proprietors, but they stopped short at the walls of the Civitas. They detested city life, and their kings were content if the burgesses paid them such tribute as Imperial Rome had exacted from them. Anything more than this the citizens resented with vigour. In 1036, for example, Harthacnut imposed extraordinary taxation on Worcester. The townsmen killed two of his collectors (Huscarles) in the Cathedral, and, when the King came against them, they entrenched themselves and effects, on an island in the Severn, and defied him. Regarding Leicester, which was a great city of the Romans, the Saxon Chronicle tells us : ** In the early part of this year (918), Ethelfleda got into her power, hy treaty, the borough of Leicester and the greater part of the army that owed obedience thereto, to become subject to her ; and the people of York also covenanted with her, some having given a pledge, and some having bound themselves by oath that they would be at her command." *< In the same year Thurcytel, the Earl, sought King Edward to be his lord, and almost all the chief men who owed obedience to Bedford, and also many of those who owed obedience to Northampton." In 921, *^ the army, which owed obedience to Cambridge," chose King Edward to be their lord. Even in the worst of times the great city of London was able to play the part of •an Independent Power almost. The Saxons were never able to capture it. On one occasion three Kings — two of the East Saxons and one of Kent — in vain combined THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 41 to make the Londoners reinstate an obnoxious Bishop, Melitus. In goo, Ethelstan, monarch of the United Kingdom of the English, confirmed laws, as applicable to his entire dominions, made by **the bishop and reeves that belong to London." The right of the townsmen to do justice on fugitive theives, wherevey they could catch them, was recognised in the Anglo-Saxon Code, and the inhabitants boasted that their town and its privileges were as ancient as those of Rome itself {a tempore quo Roma primo fundaia fuit et Civitatem Londonia, modern tempore, ftmdatam). Nor did they succumb to the Danes. In 994 (Saxon Chronicle), ** Aulaf and Swegen came to London, on the nativity of St. Mary, with ninety-four ships ; and they continued fighting stoutly against the town and would eke have set it on fire. But they there sustained more harm than they ever imagined that any townsmen (burughwaru) would be able to do them." Again in 1009, the ** Danes fought against the town of London, but praise be to God, it yet stands sound and they there ever fared ill." Many other Roman towns, besides London, successfully re- sisted the ferocious Danes when Kings and their thegns were proved powerless against them. Indeed, if the defence of the country had been left to the Saxons alone, the Norsemen would have found England an easy prey. They were beaten back at Rochester, in 885 ; at Exeter in 895 ; and, in 921, at Bedford and at Maldon in Sussex. It was not till 898, however, that first London, and, the following year, the whole of the Corporate Roman towns were appealed to, by the Saxons, to aid in the general defence of the country against the common enemy. This step, reluctantly forced on the dominant race, had important results. The Saxons did not pay the tributum, or land-tax, for the support of the army, and the Britons, now that they were called upon to fight beyond their municipal boundaries, claimed similar exemption. It had accordingly to be granted, and, in its place, 4t THE ANNALS OF TOIL. was imposed the Danegeld, levied on all lands ^. Saxon and British alike. This broke down a great barrier between the two races ; but even to this day the cleavage between town and county is not unknown. The one is Democratic and Republican ; the other aristocratic and monarchical. The Saxons stepped into the shoes of the Roman landed proprietors, the Normans into those of the Saxons, and the Norman thieves, after a domination of seven centuries, afflict us mercilessly to this day. Yet the end of this long op- pression is visibly drawing near. Private property in land is doomed, and with it the whole fabric of aris- tocracy and privilege. It is a long road that has no turning. The ancient British idea which obtained, long before conquering Roman, Saxon, Dane, or Norman sullied our shores, that property in the soil is a common right, is once more in the ascendant. Ye may heed it not, ye haughty ones, Whose hearts, like rocks are cold, But the day will come when the fiat of God In thunder shall be told ; For the voice of the great I AM hath said, That the Land shall not be sold. Co-Existence of Briton and Saxon in Towns. — How the civilised Romano-Britons contrived to co>exist in the towns along with the savage Saxons has been so great a puzzle to most of our historians that they have taken refuge in the theory of British extermination. But as has been seen, it was very much the other way. In Exeter, down to 926, we know positively from William of Malmsbury that the ** Cornish men and the Angli, up to that date, had dwelt in the enjoyment of equal rights'* (Jllos Cornwallenses ad id temporis a quo cum Anglisjure in- habitaerant). Later, in 1009, the Danes and the burgesses of Canterbury came to a similar understanding. But where there were not only two peoples, but two very different laws to be administered, it followed that some unusual procedure must have been resorted to. And THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 45 this was the case. When the ealdorman of the Saxons supplanted the conifs civitatis of the Britons on the bench, he made an effort to administer both Roman and Saxon law. He had British assessors and barbarian assessors. He had the aid of a wealhgereva, or reeve of the Roman Britons, and an ealdovmannes gingra, or deputy, to administer Saxon law. After the ninth century this duplex system came to an end. The Britons and the Saxons were fused into a common people [populus com- munis) ^ with a common law and a common judge, scir- gereva or sheriff. That the Britons agreed to become amenable to some reactionary provisions of the Barbar- ian Code can readily be accounted for. In no other way could they hope to stand on an absolutely equal footing with the ruling aristocratic caste. But, as matter of fact, it was the barbarian law that underwent inevitable modification and change— change so great that there is about as much Roman law incorporated in English as in Scottish jurisprudence, of which latter Roman law is the acknowledged basis. While yet the two laws were being simultaneously administered in London, there is a document of the tenth century extant, which illustrates this judicial Romanising tendency, on the part of the Saxon barbarians : '* If we should be able to catch him (i.e,, a thief), it was agreed that the same thing should oe done to him as was done to a Roman thief (t.^., extort confession from him by torture), or that he be hanged." It is melancholy to note that down, to the very end of the Saxon monarchy, scalping was the punishment for very trivial offences. The cardinal feature of the German Civil Code, Tacitus tells us, was the mulct for theft; of the Criminal, the buying off the death feud, in accordance with a horrible tariff which gauged the price of the slain man's bllood. It was assuredly well for civilisation that the principles of the Roman law, objectionable as many of them from their extreme in- dividualism are, triumphed. The Saxons and the Land. — In the territories (territoria) of the cities where the Saxons mostly 44 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. settled they effected little or no change. They ejected the Roman proprietors whenever they con- veniently could, but the native coloni or actual tillers of the soil were as necessary to them as to their former task-masters. The territorium they named the shire ; the comes civitatis became the Ealdorman ; the Centuria of land (200 acres) the hide. The heretoga or leader in war became King, and as heir (haeres) of the Roman Emperor laid claim to all his dues. When it is recorded that he gave such and such a town to Queen or Bishop, it was simply meant that he transferred the customary Royal revenue accruing therefrom to another. And just as the sanction of the Imperial praeses was necessary for land conveyance, so was that of the Saxon King imperative. In 759 three persons — Eauberht, Uhtred, and Aldred — dispose of ** land of our right with the licence and permission of the most pious office of the Mercians " {cum liccntid et per- missione piisstmi Merciovum), Similarly, in 1032, one Healthegn Scearpa bestows lands ** by concession of my lord. King Cnut '' ; while Bishop Lyfing, 1038, conveys *' with the licence of King Harold, and of Leofric, Duke of the Mercians." The Imperial **tri- noda necessitas " of the Empire becomes the thvio neodi^ the three necessities of the Saxon King. These arc hurgboif brycghot, and fryd, the first implying labour and material for fortifying the chief town (civitas), the second the repair of roads and bridges, the third the supply (according to hideage or acres), of so many ciorls (coloni) for the ontfare (military expedition). These ceorls, as has been said, were nominally free, but they had no political rights, and formed no part of the invading Saxon force. Indeed, the whole scheme of occupation of the island was a plagiarism from Rome, because we know from Tacitus that all such arrange- ments were unknown in Germany. There all men were either equally free or equally slaves, and the land was held in common. As among the Celts, so among the Teutons at home, the abuse of private property in land, and the inequalities of life arising therefrom were THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 45 undreamed of. Their allotments were equal, and they were exchanged for others every year. The words, however, of the great historian on the subject are most difficult of interpretation, but may be held to mean. " The fields are alternately occupied by the whole body of the {ab universis in vices) cultivators according to their number, and these they afterwards divide among them- selves according to their estimation " [secundum dig- nationem). If this really be what is meant, though the allotments were equal, some persons might be held by the freemen in council assembled to be worthy to have a plurality of shares assigned them. Any- how, when the Saxon appeared in Britain he assigned himself every acre he could clutch with almost Norman rapacity. In A.D.1002 we find a certain thegn Wulfred devising no fewer than eighty estates lying in Gloucester, Lancaster, Stafford, Southampton, Lincoln, Worcester, York, Warwick, Kent, Surrey, Derby, Chester, and his " lands lying between the Ribble and the Mersey." In a word, the rapacity of the landed ** Anglo-Saxon" was only equalled by his invincible ignorance, gross sensuality and revo ting cruelty. He did nothing to promote civilisation, 1 but much to uproot it. He had a sort of frenzy for des- truction, and when he ceased to trouble the unfortu nate country he had so long wasted and pillaged, it was but a shadow of its former self in arts, agriculture, manu- facture, commerce and population. He, unfortunately, left his language behind him, but it was the Romanised Celt that survived. From him we have derived in unbroken descent from the first century of the Christian era our municipal institutions which are the foundation stone of all our franchises and political liberties. True, these are but means to an end, an end least of all understood by the intensely individualist Romans, whose best legacy to mankind they are. They are the weapons by which it is destined that individualism in all its phases — war, commercial competition, personal gain, pride of man, intellectual and spiritual — shall be finally uprooted from society and Divine Co-operation^ the Civiias 46 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. Dei, the City of God, the Kingdom of Heaven upon earth be triumphantly estabUshed among mankind. I cannot bring this chapter on Roman, Saxon, Danish, and Norman invasion to a close without a word of apology to the reader. It is a period of history abound- ing in pitfalls, into which our historians, with rare exceptions, have successively tumbled. They have magnified in turn every ruffianly invader, and treated the toiling, subjugated British *' masses," as if they were not. Because, amid the clash of arms, the native Celts were the mere hewers of wood and drawers of water, who supplied the swashbucklers with food, raiment, and shelter, history, has ignored them, and even denied their existence. It is this that makes it so difficult to divest the genesis of British labour — impor- tant as is the investigation — of the integuments of a somewhat repulsive erudition. But I have always held that the workers (to whom these pages are more especially addressed) are as much entitled to have the best results of the most recent research laid before them as the professedly learned, and, what is more, they in the main appreciate them quite as well. Saxon *' Law and Order." — These were of the most atrocious character which it is possible to conceive, and if King Alfred, with the aid of the Decalogue and the Mosaic Code, had not been able largely to humanise them, they would have beaten in downright barbarity anything of the kind outside of Dahomey or Polynesia. The laws of King Ina (668-726) as compared with the Brehon Laws of Celtic Ireland, of a much remoter antiquity, prove to a demonstration the vast mental and moral superiority of the men of Erin over the vaunted Sassenach. The predominant crimes of the Anglo-Saxon con- querors were of the most heinous description. Assassina- tions, rapes, the plundering of whole towns and villages, and barefaced perjuries were the habitual misdeeds of Saxon persons of quality. Here are one or two speci- mens of offences taken from the legal records of King Alfred's day (871-901) : — THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 47 " Dirling was the ally of Bardulf, and yet he came and ravished his wife and killed Hakenson, her father." Ceddi had a house with much corn and hay, and Wetod, his father, lived in it. But Harding came and set it on fire, and burnt Wetod in it." ** Cady was living in peace, when Carlin came, and with a sword ran him through the body so that he died." ** One Knotting was lying maimed on his bed ; another came and carried him to a water-ditch, or marl- pit, and threw him into it, and there left him to die without help or sustenance." ** Mainaward attacked Umbred, and cut off his foot, &c." The punishments inflicted, even for petty larcenies, were of great variety and severity. Among these may be mentioned imprisonment, outlawry, banishment, slavery, whipping, branding, the pillory, amputation of limbs, mutilation of nose, ears and lips, blinding with a red-hot iron, plucking out the eyes, scalping, stoning, and hanging. But these unpleasant consequences the privileged ** Anglo-Saxon" could always escape, even in the case of murder, by paying the weregild, or legal value, of the murdered man. According to this singular rule a King's life-blood cost 30,000 thrismas (;^i,2oo) ; a Royal Prince's, 15,000 ; a bishop's or ealdorman*s, 3,000 ; a sheriffs 4,000 ; a thegn's, or clergyman's, 2,000 ; and a humble ceorl's, 266. Such was the law of the Angles. But in the kingdom of Kent the price of the archbishop's head was greater than the king's ; and in Mercia the ceorl was valued at 200s., the thegn at 1,200, and the king at 7,200. The culprit who failed to pay in due time was left at the absolute mercy of the deceased's kinsmen. And as in the case of murder, so in all minor injuries. The loss of an eye or leg was punished by a fine of 50s. A wound causing deafness, cost 25s. ; cutting off the little finger, iis. ; the great toe, los. ; breaking an arm, ^s. ; and so on in great detail. 48 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. Similarly Alfred the Great and Good punished con* jugal infidelity by fines, in accordance with the rank of the injured husband ! If he was a twelfhynd-man^ the offender paid 120s.; if a syxhynd-man^ loos. ; and if a ccoyI^ 40s. The ordeal of the Saxons was a trial, not a sentence ; but a more barbarous method of establishing guilt or innocence cannot be imagined. (It was open to those who failed to find twelve men to swear that they were not guilty, so as to obtain acquittal by compuvgation). It con- sisted in plunging the hand and arm into boiling water^ in order to fish out a stone sunk in it, or in carrying a piece of red-hot iron the space of nine feet. This feat achieved, the hand was wrapped up, and the covering sealed for the space of three days. It was then examined, and if the appearances were " foul," the accused was convicted, if '* clear" he was acquitted* Another method of exculpation was eating the cornsedf or consecrated cake. He who, could successfully digest it established his innocence ipso facto. But per- haps the worst form of evidence ever admitted was pitching the accused into consecrated water. If he sank he was innocent, if he swam he was guilty! In regard to compurgation^ it is likewise to be noted that the ** classes" swore at an enormous advantage as compared with the ** masses." The oath of a twelf- hynd-man was equal to the oaths of six ceorls^ and if vengeance was taken for the death of a twelfhynd-man it might be visited on the heads of six ceorls. Such were the noble ** Anglo Saxon's " untutored conceptions of ** law and order," and yet we are gravely told by historians and constitutional lawyers that to this savage of savages are owing the racial fibre and germinal ideas that have gone to build up the name and fame of the British people. The ** Anglo Saxon," in truth, left nothing behind him, after six centuries of endeavour, but the wreck of the enduring civilisation which Roman and British genius had built up in three centuries and a half of associated effort. Yet, though they did almost nothing for agriculture^ THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 49 commerce, art, science, or literature, they left behind them the skeleton of a language which has taken on flesh from a variety of sources with phenomenal facility. English threatens to become the language of mankind. Writing in 730, the Venerable Bede speaks of the prevalence in Britain of the languages of five peoples : the Romans, the Britons, the English, the Scots and the Picts. The tongue of the last race, itself numerically more powerful than the English proper, mysteriously disappeared all of a sudden. The Scottish, or Gaelic, lingers in the Highlands of Scotland and the more isolated parts of Ireland; the British still holds its own in Wales ; while, perhaps, every third word in modern English is mediately or im- mediately of Roman origin. It is hard to account for the triumph of the tongue of a comparative handful of unmitigated Saxon barbarians ; but the fact is indis- putable. English is the Aaron's rod among the languages of the earth, to all appearance providentially designed to swallow up all the others. It is this lame consideration alone that has induced so many otherwise rational writers to credit the Saxon free-booters with numbers that never existed, and qualities the very opposite of those wicked propensities they inveterately exhibited. The Norman Thieves. — It is now time to say some- thing of the gang of Norman thieves who, in 1066, took forcible possession of South Britain, and whose descend- ants, or pretended descendants, have ever since robbed, sweated, and maltreated the laborious Briton with almost unbroken success. Let one of the greatest of the moderns describe for me William the Conqueror's felon horde. Ralph Waldo Emerson writes: — ** Twenty thousand thieves landed at Hastings. These founders of the House of Lords were greedy and ferocious dragoons, sons of greedy and ferocious pirates. They were all alike. They took everything they could carry. They burned, violated, tortured, and killed until everything English was brought to the verge of ruin. Such, how- ever, is the illusion of antiquity and wealth that decent 50 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. mfin now existing boast of their descent from these filthy thieves, who showed a far juster conviction of their own merits by assuming for their types, swine, goat, jackal, leopard, wolf, and snake, which they severally resembled." Well, what did the leaders of these villains do with the land so mercilessly exhausted by the ravages of Saxon and Dane ? Before starting on their buccaneer- ing expedition they procured a map of England with all its manors, towns and castles correctly set forth, and these they apportioned among themselves by anticipa- tion in the most business-like fashion. And this pro- gram was eventually carried out to the letter. But though the nucleus of ** our old nobility" was unques- tionably Frenchified Danes, these alone would never have been able to overpower all effective English resistance by a single victory. Thierry, in his Histoire de la Conquetc de rAngleterre and the Chvonique dc Normandie, leaves us in no doubt how and where William recruited for his enterprise. *' He had his ban of war published in all the neighbouring countries. He offered good pay to every tall, robust man who would serve him with lance, sword or cross- bow. A multitude flocked to him, from far and near, from the North and from the South. They came from Maine and Anjou, from Poitou and Bretagne ; from the country of the French King, and from Flanders ; from Piedmont beyond the Alps, and from the banks of the Rhine. A dvenhirers by profession ^ the idle, the dissipated y the profligate, the enfants pevdus of Europe hurried at his summons. Of these some were knights and chiefs in war, others simple foot-soldiers ; some demanded regular pay in money, others merely their passage across the Channel, and all the booty they might take. Some demanded territory in England — a domain, a castle, a town ; while others again wished to receive a rich Saxon lady in marriage. All the wild wishes, all the pretentions of hunian avarice were wakened into activity. William repulsed no one, but promised and pleased all, as far as be could." THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 5* Nor was that all. The Pope must needs have a finger in so nefarious a pie. He did for William I. precisely what his successor, Pope Adrian IV., did for Henry H., in the case of unhappy Ireland — he gave him a Bull authorising him to lay violent hands on England. Nay, he did more. He sent the filibusterers a consecrated banner, with a ring for their leader, alleged to contain a hair of St. Peter ! Thus equipped with the terrors of time and eternity William made his descent on the devoted island and triumphed. At Hastings he told his braves : " Make up your minds to fight valiantly and slay your enemies. A great booty is before us ; for if we conquer we shall all be rich. What I gain, you will gain. If I take this land, you will have it in lots amongst you." And so truly it befell. William himself appropriated a right royal share of the " booty," viz., 1,422 manors. Then came such greedy cormorants as the Earl of Moretaine, the Conqueror's half-brother — 793 manors. Alan, Earl of Bretagne, who commanded the rear guard at Hastings — 443 manors. Odo, Bishop of Bayeux — 439. Bishop of Constance, a formidable swashbuckler — 280. Roger de Birshli — 174, in Northamptonshire, Ilbert de Laci — 164. William Reveral — 162. Robert de Stafford — 150 ; and so on. Need we wonder that Britons are the most landless of nations ? But I must not anticipate the lessons of Domesday Book, compiled by William's direction, 1080 — 1086. It is a most minute and valuable survey of Norman England, throwing a flood of certain light on the relations both of the " classes " and the " masses." It is the first entirely trustworthy authority for the economic condition of the people, and as such it merits, and will receive, in next Chapter, independent con- sideration. CHAPTER IIL DOMESDAY BOOK ET CETERA. •* The sword of extermination had passed over the land and the soldier sat down to banquet on the hereditary possessions of the natives.' — O'Curry. *' No mortal cares twopence for any king, except through com- pulsion, and society is not a ship of war. Its government cannot always be a press-gang. The ' divine right * of squires is equal to the divine right of kings, and not superior. A word has made, and a word can unmake, them." — Carlyle. " When he can hide the sun with a blanket, and put the moon in his pocket, I'll pay him rent." — Shakespeare. ** And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Unto these the land shall be divided for an inheritance according to the number of names. To the more thou shalt give the more inheritance, and to the fewer thou shalt give the less inheritance; to every one accord- ing to those that were numbered of him.*' — Numbers. *• Wo»e unto them that join house to house and lay field to field till there be no place, that they may be placed alone in :he midst of the earth. — Isaiah. " The land shall not be sold in perpetuity ; for the land is Mine, saith the Lord." — Leviticus. Domesday Book. — Regarding this famous survey of England by William the Conqueror, one of the com- pilers of "The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" observes ^ ** Also he (William) commissioned them to record in writing — *How much land his archbishops had, and his diocesan bishops, and his abbots and his earls * ; and though I may be prolix and tedious, * What or how much each man had who was an occupier of land in England, either in land or in stock, and how much money it were worth.' So very narrowly, indeed, did he com- mission them to trace it out, that there was not one single hide nor a yard of land, nay, moreover (it is 52 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 53 shameful to tell, though he thought no shame to do it), not even an ox, nor a cow, nor a swine was there left that was not set down in his writ." What appears to be another hand, a little farther on, adds : ** He truly reigned over England ; and by his capacity so thoroughly surveyed it that there was not a hide of land in England that he wist not who had it or what it was worth." This, however, is an overstatement of fact, though in most instances the inquisition was undoubtedly search- ing. The three northern counties and parts of Lanca- shire, Westmorland, and Monmouthshire are not included in the survey, probably for the sufficient reason that William's writ did not run in these quarters, inasmuch as they were claimed by the King of Scots. But neither are London and Winchester (then an im- portant town) included, and the great port of Bristol is scarcely mentioned. These towns in all likelihood escaped the inquisition by agreeing to contribute lump sums to the Exchequer in place of personal assessments. Many abbeys and castles are also imperfectly described, their inmates having probably found some means to propitiate William's Commissioners. There are four thousand churches on the record, but only one thousand six hundred ecclesiastics are set down. All the monks are omitted, and, generally speaking, the middle class, not directly connected with land, is not counted. In Bristol Domesday enumerates but ten burghers ; in Yarmouth, seventy; in Buckingham, fifty-two; in Bedford, nine ; in Sudbury, five ; in Hereford, seventy ; in Dover, forty-two ; in St. Albans (a very important place), forty-six. The numbers all told are but 283,342, who may be regarded as heads of families. Multiply these by five, and the result would be a population at the time of the Conquest of 1,416,710 souls, a tremen- dous declension from the estimated 10,000,000 of Romano-British days. If, however, allowance is made for the palpable omissions above indicated, the entire population of England proper may safely be set down at 2,000,000 souls, and this total was not doubled 54 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. till SIX hundred years later in the reign of Charles II. Such was the result of incessant war, " the sum of human villainies." The Conqueror himself, whom some historians have had the audacity to praise, and his filibustering horde, exerted themselves to the utmost to depopulate the land. This is how William's unscrupu- lous friend and panegyrist, Ordericus Vitalis, tells us the brutal homicide dealt with the region between the Humber and Tyne, a hundred miles apart: .** He (the Conqueror) extended his posts over a space of one hundred miles ; he smote most of the inhabitants with the edge of the avenging sword ; he destroyed the hiding places of the others ; he laid waste their lands ; he burned their houses with all that was therein. Nowhere else did William act with such cruelty, and in this instance he shamefully gave way to evil passions. While he scorned to rule his own wrath, he cut off the guilty and the innocent, with equal severity. For, excited by anger, he bade the crops and the herds and the household stuff, and every description of food, to be gathered in heaps and to be set light to, and utterly destroyed altogether — so that all sustenance should be at once wasted througl out all the region beyond the Humber. Hence there raged grievous want far and wide throughout England. Such a misery of famine involved the people that there perished of Christian human beings of either sex and of every age one hundred thousand." Eighty years afterwards, when William of Malmesbury wrote, the whole region was one vast wilderness. The effects of this **feralis occisio " (dismal slaughter) —Ordericus Vitalis' expressive phrase — appear fre- quently in Domesday Book, which happily compares the economic situation before the Conquest with the position of affairs twenty years after that disastrous event. But 43 cultivators of the soil (35 villani and 8 hordarii) survived in 411 manors in Yorkshire. And even in the South of England the havoc must have been terrible. In Dorchester, in the time of the Confessor, THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 55 there were 172 houses. In the Conqueror's day 100 of these had been entirely destroyed. Similiarly in Ware- ham, out of 143 dwellings 73 were found " pcnitus destructcB** (wholly destroyed) ; 38 out of 104 in Shaftes- bury; while in York 540 abodes were found **t;a^w^" (empty); and in Ipswich 328 ^^vastata'' (laid waste). In 1086 estates were, on an average, valued at one- fourth less than in 1066. So much for the influence of twenty years of Norman civilisation ! The People and the Land. — It now remains to classify the population as far as possible in relation to the land. First came the King, with ten parts of the entire soil; then the Church, with fifteen parts; and, lastly, the barons, with twenty-five parts. Or, to put it otherwise, the Crown claimed one-fifth of the whole spoil ; the Church three-tenths ; and the baronage, one- half. Prince, priest and peer had thus fastened ravenously on the very vitals of the stricken people, and to this day their depredations are practically unabated. Ireland affords such an object-lesson in landlordism as the world has never witnessed. It ought never to be forgotten or forgiven that the vampire of rent, even in our own day and at our own door, drained the liie-blood of more than a million Irishmen and Irishwomen, who perished miserably of hunger in the midst of the plenty their industry had created. In my little work, ** The Book of Erin," I say, and I here repeat it ; ** There was no real famine m Ireland at any time from '41 to '51. But for the rent-tribute there was abundance of every kind of produce, minus the * dirty root ' (Cobbett's abhorred potato) to feed twice the population. In 1849, the starving people exported to England, as rent-tribute to absentees, 595,926 head of cattle, 839,118 sheep, 698,021 pigs, 959,640 quarters of wheat-flour, and 3,658,875 quarters of oats and meal. And this estimate of exports, the Report significantly adds, * is necessarily defective.* " During the period of Ireland's bitterest agony she was relatively the greatest food- exporting — t.e., tribute-yielding — country in the world." 56 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. This may appear somewhat irrelevant to the issue, but it is not so, because the character of landlordism never really alters. It is the product of conquest and wholesale robbery, and it matters nothing that in our day it cunningly clothes itself, not in mail, but in the ermine robe of ** law and order.'' Rent is for English- men and Irishmen alike — the perpetual brand of their conquest by a horde of Continental felons. As for my own countrymen, the Scots, they happily contrived to resist violent spoliation by the foreign invader ; but so much was " the oppressor's wrong the proud man's contumely " to their liking, that they gratuitously hastened to make a present of their country to a gang of miscreants whom Carlyle, the greatest of modern Scotsmen, has thus faithfully portrayed: — ** It is noteworthy that the nobles of the country have main- tained a quite despicable behaviour from the days of Wallace downwards — a selfish, ferocious, famishing, unprincipled set of hyenas, from whom at no time, and in no way, has the country derived any benefit whatever." Let us now further analyse Domesday. In addition to his vast personal estates (1,144 nianors), the Con- querorconstituted himself supreme landlord of England. The ager puhlicus of the Romans, the folcland of the Saxons, became at a blow terra regis (King's Land). There is consequently in this country no such person in law as a Idind-owner^ except the German lady on the throne, who in theory has inherited the whole soil from the Norman Conqueror. You can only hold an estate in land mediately or immediately from the Crown. From William the Conqueror 2,000 persons held their manors directly — that is to say, were tenants in chief {in capite). Those to whom the tenants in chief sublet were called tenants in mesne. Descending the social and economic ladder, we have the class of ** free" tenants on bond land, called socmen^ because they were subject to the legal jurisdiction or soc of the lord of the manor. In Domesday they number 23,000, and, along with 50,000 more freemen [lihcri THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 57 homines)^ make 25 per cent, of the population. Their rent was fixed in amount, whether in money, kind, or labour. They were bound to military service, but otherwise they could do as they had a mind. They could sell their holdings and transfer them- selves from manor to manor, a privilege which differ- entiated them sharply from the villiens, or bond men, who make up 38 per cent, of the Domesday Census. These were the British colotii of the Romans, the ceorls of the Saxons, under a new name. Their condi- tion had been practically stationary for centuries. They were likewise called virgarii or yardlings, because they held their land in virgates, a virgate being one-fourth of a hide, or thirty acres. The villeins had each, more- over, a house and messuage in the village (villa) of the manor. It is not a little curious that a villager [villams) and a villain should be etymologically identical. Next in the scale to the villeins came the cottars or hordars. These seem to have held only from five to ten acres of land, with cottages attached. They had to combine among themselves for ploughing purposes, and were a fortiori^ like the villeins, bought and sold with the soil. This class formed about 32 per cent, of the population. The last and lowest class of toilers was of course the slaves ; but, these, it is gratifying to ascertain, were not numerous. The utterly servile class numbered no more than 25,000 (9 per cent.) of the Domesday popu- lation, while the semi-servile {villeins, cottars, SLU&bordars) mounted up to 200,000, or 70 per cent. It is note- worthy that in the Danish settlements (Norfolk, Suffolk, Lincoln, Essex, Yorkshire) the slaves (servi) are rare, and that they are most numerous where the brutal Saxons had obtained their firmest footing. Shortly after the Conquest, thanks mainly to the determined antagonism of the Roman Catholic priesthood, the vile institution was reduced to microscopic dimensions. In the eleventh century the Pope formally issued a Bull enjoining emancipation, and in 1102 it was declared unlawful by the Great Council of the Nation, at West- 58^ . THE ANNALS OF TOIL. minster, to sell slaves openly in the market^ as heretofore had been the common custom. Domesday Book — The Norman Conquerers who actually settled in England did not, it is calculated, exceed 10,000 in number. And yet this handful of thieves were able completely to master a population of 2,000,000, and to partition the entire soil of the country among them ! At first sight anything more astounding cannot be imagined. But it must be recollected that every man among the Normans was a professional cut-throat ; whereas the villeins, who constituted some 70 per cent, of the English had been for centuries forbidden the use of arms. The Roman, the Saxon, and the Dane had all agreed in this policy of disarmament ; and the result was that at the Conquest the ** masses " were not only unwarlike, but perhaps indifferent to the fate of a country in which they had practically no stake. So far as they were concerned, one set of masters was as good as another, and, indeed, the case is not dissimilar to-day. If our shores were invaded to-morrow, say, by the French or the Germans, I know no good reason why the disinherited, landless " masses " should fight in its defence. It would, doubtless, be a bad look-out for Westminsters, Bedfords, and Portlands ; but the toilers could not be worse off under the new gang of oppressors, and they might be better. As it was, the fate of the actual Norman Conquerors was not so happy as is generally supposed by those who boast of ancestors who ** came over at the Conquest." " The curse," says the historian Pearson, ** that pursues blood-shedding and money-getting followed them inexorably, and their sons perished in rebellions or made childless marriages for inheritances. Of the Conqueror's immediate followers, one-half were unre- presented in the male line by the end of the next century, and not one has lasted down to our own times in unbroken seignorial honours." The fiction of a noble lineage Norman or other, imposes on no one who has the sHghtest real knowledge THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 59 of history; and what is more, nature sternly refuses to reproduce transcendant qualities of any kind. An aristocracy of genius, even, is contra natuvam for the sufficient reason assigned by Max Nordau: ** Genius expends so much vital energy in its ordinary activity that none is left for the propagation of the species. What a strange division of labour there is in the human race ! Common men have the task of looking after the preservation and perpetuation of their race, while to the men of rare talents is entrusted only the work of promoting the intellectual development of the race, as occasion offers. A man cannot beget both thoughts and children. Genius is like a centi- folius rose whose vital energies are all concentrated in the blossom which thus becomes the ideal of its species ;, but in this evolution the power of reproducing its kind is lost." The Royal ReYenue. — In Edward the Confessor's time, this amounted to ;^40,ooo. In the Conqueror's day, if Giraldus Cambrensis is to be credited, it reached the enormous sum of ;^i,o6i los. 1^ per day 1 The silver penny then in general currency contained twenty- two and a half grains, whereas the modern penny represents only eight grains. Add to this that the purchasing power of money was seven times greater then than now, and some idea may be gathered of the magnitude of the royal ruffian's exactions. Assuming that one shilling was the equivalent of twenty in present currency, the Conqueror's annual revenue must have exceeded seven and a half millions sterling — a stupen- dous sum for times when a cow cost two shillings, a pig eightpence, a goat twopence, a horse-load of salt one shilling, thirty-two ounces of honey fifteenpence, and so forth. At his death William left behind him a horde of ;f 1,200,000 in modern currency, and this notwithstand- ing the wasteful wars in which he was incessantly engaged. One good man alone had the courage to tell this prince of brigands the truth — the monk Guitand. He was summoned from Normandy to receive an. 60 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. English Bishopric, but declined, on the ground that " when he thought of the crimes by which England had been won he trembled to touch it, with all its wealth, as though it glowed with the fire of hell." Conquered England, — Old Holinshed gives us a melancholy picture of the country under the Norman heel. ** He (William) nothing regarded the English nobility. They did now see themselves trodden under foot, to be despised, and to be mocked on all sides, insomuch that many of them were constrained, as it were for a further testimony of servitude and bondage to shave their beards and cut their hair, and to frame themselves, as well in apparel as in service and diet at their tables, after the Norman manner, — very strange, and far differing from the an- cient custoais and old usages of their country. Others, utterly refusing to sustain such an intolerable yoke of thraldom as was daily laid upon them by the Normans, chose rather to leave all, both goods and lands, and, after the manner of outlaws, get them to the woods with their wives, children, and servants, meaning thenceforth to live on the spoil of the country adjoining, and to take whatever came to hand. Wherefore it came to pass within a while that no man might tread in safety from his own house or town to his next neigh- bour, and every quiet and honest man's house became, as it were, a hold and fortress, furnished for defence with bows and arrows, bills, pole-axes, swords, clubs, and staves, and other weapons, the doors being kept locked and strongly bolted in the night season, as it had been in time of war and amongst public enemies. Prayers were said also by the master of the house as though they had been in the midst of the seas in some stormy tempest; and when the windows and doors should be shut in and closed, they used to say BenedicitCy and others to answer Dominus in like manner, as the priest and his penitent were wont to do at confession in church." So far as the fate of the *' English nobility " is con- cerned, we need trouble ourselves but Httle. They were THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 6l probably little, if at all, better than the ** Norman nobility '* that supplanted them. But the Conqueror's rigour was not confined to the " classes." His hand was heavy on the ** masses " as well. His savage game- laws have for eight centuries been the curse of the country, and to this day they manufacture thousands of criminals annually. " He made many deer parks," says the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle^ and he established laws so that whosoever killed a hart or a hind or a boar should be blinded : for William loved the high game as if he had been their father. ... So stern was he that no man durst gainsay his will. Rich men bemoaned and poor men shuddered, but he recked not the hatred of them all." He desolated between Winchester and the sea, an immense area subsequently known as the New Forest. It embraced, it is said, sixty parishes, with their churches and peaceful hamlets. All were burned down and the inhabitants left homeless that the " tall game" might be multipHed. Nor had he the least excuse for this wanton wicked- ness. Even under the Plantagenets " there were in England sixty-eight royal forests and thirty enormous private chases, in each of which was a territory, with great woods for the secret abode of wild beasts." As late as Queen Elizabeth's day one third of England lay waste for ** high game " to prowl over. Wolves did not become extinct in Scotland till 1743, nor in Ireland till 1766. Caledonian bears were well-known in the Roman circus, but seem to have been extirpated towards the close of the tenth century. The wild bull and boar were hunted on the Hampstead hills in the reign of Henry II. (i 154- 1 189). About the same period the Teivy, in Cardiganshire, was tenanted by the beaver ; and as late as 1526, when Boece wrote, it had its haunts in Loch Ness. Wolves, bears and boars might reason- ably be got rid of, but the gentle and ingenious beaver might surely have been spared without any prejudice to ** civilisation." Death and burial of the Arch Robber. — The Con. queror's secretary gives us an account of his death €ai THE ANNALS OF TOIL. which affords an excellent illustration of Norman ** chivalry " and ** civilisation " : — ** Barons, priests and dukes mounted their horses, and were away almost before he was dead to serve their in- terests with the living. The minor attendants rifled the apartments, and even carried off the Royal clothes, and the body was left almost naked on the bare boards for a whole day." With regard to this ghastly occurrence I have remarked elsewhere : **Their conduct was precisely that of a pack of hungry wolves, which the moment one of their number is killed or disabled turn on the unfortu- nate and devour it. If * noble lords ' find any comfort in being descended from such reprobates as William and his barons they are truly singularly constituted." Nor was William buried without much difficulty. His three sons were too intent on their own affairs to care a rush for such a matter. Robert, the eldest, was in arms against him at his death, and the other two hurried off to secure their share of the spoil. The duty had, therefore, to be undertaken by a simple Norman Knight, ^^for the honour of God and the Norman name." In the Abbey Church at Caen, when the remains of the tyrant were being lowered into the grave, Oscelin Fitz- Arthur stepped forth from the throng, and, addressing the Bishop of Evreux, who had performed the obsequies, said : " The ground on which you stand was the site of my father's house. The man who lies dead before you, and for whom you bid us pray, took my father's land from him by force and wrong, and here, by abuse of his ducal power, he built this church. I claim back the land ; and I forbid, in the name of God, that the robber should be covered with ground that is mine, and that he should have a burial-place in my heritage." Fitz- Arthur's words were notoriously true, and the assembled prelates had to promise him ample compensation before the victor of Hastings was permitted a little earth to cover his bones. The Food of the People. — Let us now turn from the crimes of the ** classes" to the food of the ** masses." For animal food they had the flesh of the ox, the sheep^ THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 65 and the swine. They used, moreover, deer, goats, hares, and fowls. Nor did they reject horse-flesh. They ate various kinds of fish, and in one of the •dialogues by Elfric composed to instruct English youths in the Latin tongue, this curious little colloquy occurs : — A fisherman is asked, *' What gettest thou by thy art ?" ** Big loaves, clothing, and money." ** How do you take them ? ** ** I ascend my ship and cast my net into the river ; I also throw in a hook, a bait, and a rod." ** Suppose the fishes are unclean ? '* "I throw the unclean out, and take the clean for food." "Where do you sell your fish ? " " In the city." " Who buys them ? " " The citizens ; I cannot take so many as I can ■sell." <* What fishes do you take ? ** " Eels, haddocks, minnows, eel-pouts, skate, and lampreys, and whatever swims in the river." ** Why do you not fish in the sea ? " " Sometimes I do, but rarely, because a great ship is necessary there." ** What do you take in the sea ? " "Herrings and salmons, porpoises, sturgeons, oysters, and crabs, mussels, winkles, cockles, flounders, plaice, lobsters, and such like." " Can you take a whale ? " " No, it is dangerous to take a whale ; it is safer for me to go to the river with my ship than to go with many ships to hunt whales." ••Why?" ** Because it is more pleasant to me to take fish which I can kill with one blow ; yet many take whales without danger, and then they get a great price, but I dare not from the fearfulness of my mind." Swine and eels entered most largely into the diet of the *• lower," i.e.^ useful " orders." 64 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. Among cereals our ancestors had wheat, barley, and oats. These they thrashed out with the flail, and for grinding purposes they had both water-mills and wind- mills of a simple mechanism. Among fruits they cultivated figs, grapes, nuts, almonds, pears, apples, and beans. In Elfric's dialogue above quoted the baecere (baker) is asked, ** Of what use is your art ? we can live long without you.** " You may live through some space without my art, but not long, nor so well; for without my craft every table would soon be empty, and without bread (hlafe) all meat would soon become nauseous. I strengthen the heart of man, and little ones could not do without me.** The baecere is right. The vegetarians have in all ages had much to say for themselves. Drinks. — Something has been said regarding the * food of the people " at the pariod of the Conquest. It rema ns to glance at their drinks. The subject is of such universal import that I make no apology for treat, ing it at some length. Before the Roman invasion the Britons, like all the world, drank metheglin, otherwise hydromel or mead, and probably no other intoxicant was known to them. The chief ingredients in mead were rain-water and honey ; but others might enter, for Diodorus Siculus tells us : " Upon extraordinary occasions they drank a kind of fermented liquor made of barley, honey, or apples, and when intoxicated never failed to quarrel like the ancient Thracians." Soon came into use drinks of the beer genus, for Pliny the Elder sorrowfully records : " The whole world is given up to drunkenness. The perverted in- ingenuity of man has given even to water the power of intoxicating where wine is not procurable. The Western nations intoxicate themselves by means of moistened grain.'* In A.D. 81 the Emperor Domitian made a desperate effort to stem the torrent of intemperance which was THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 65 sweeping over the Roman world. He ordered half the vineyards to be destroyed, and forbade any one to plant vines without the Imperial licence. This edict was repealed by Probus, who became Emperor a.d. 276, and then vineyards began to spring up in various parts of Britain. The Romans also taught the Britons the evil habit of toasting the Emperor and others in authority, and laid the foundation of the dissipation with which the English have familiarised and demoralised the denizens of both hemispheres. The ravages of strong drink in once abstinent India are of the most alarming character, and, lamentable to relate, they are shamefully promoted by the Government for the sake of revenue. Imperial Britain treads faithfully in the footsteps of Imperial Rome. She conquers by the sword, and then maintains her hold by taxing the vices she has introduced. But if the Romans drank hard, there was a certain decorum observed at their feasts which was altogether absent from the orgies of the noble ** Anglo-Saxons/' They, there can be no doubt, were utter brutes in their cups. They repeatedly invited the Britons to convivial meetings, and then seized the opportunity to murder them when helplessly intoxicated. Indeed, there is good reason to believe that William of Malmesbury's accouut of the origin of pledging is the correct one. In the act of drinking the drinker was necessarily off his guard. He, therefore, took the pre- caution to ask the man who sat next him at the board to pledge him, that is to stand over him with drawn sword to ward off any treacherous blow. Nor was it laymen alone in these times that gave themselves up to sottish intoxication. The monk Gildas, in the latter half of the sixth century, says : " Not only the laity, but our Lord's own flock and its shepherds, who ought to have been an example to the people, slumbered away their time in drunkenness, as if they had been dipped in wine." The chief drinks in which the Saxons indulged were wine, mead, ale, cider and piment, the last being a mix- F 66 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. ture of acid wine, honey, sugar and spices. Piment was an import ; but wine, strangely enough, seems to have been mostly a native product. The antiquary Bagford notes : ** We had a vineyard in East Smithfield, another in Hatton-garden (which at this time is called Vine-street), and a third at St. Giles-in-the-Fields. Many places in the country bear the name of " Vine- yard " to this day, especially in the ancient monasteries, as Canterbury, Ely, Abingdon, etc., which were left a^ such by the Romans." The rent (grayfol) reserved by a Lincolnshire monastery for certain lands reminds one very much of Falstaft's ** half-pennyworth-of bread " and " intolerable quantity of sack." To the monastery were payable two tuns of bright ale, two oxen fit for slaughter, two mittan or measures of Welsh ale (made from barley, dried in a peculiar way), and six hundred loaves ; to the Abbot's private estate, one horse, thirty shillings of silver or half a pound, one night's pastus, fifteen mittan of bright, and five of Welsh ale, fifteen sesters of mild ale. Wilfrid, Archbishop of York, 669 a.d., did not share his estimable namesake Sir Wilfrid's abhorrence of the wassail bowl. At the dedication of the sacred fane of Ripon, which he erected. Kings Ecgfrid and Alewin with a great train of nobles were present, and all be- came as riotously drunk as seamen after a long voyage. And, indeed. Pope Gregory, justly called the Great (a.d. 601), did not hesitate in some measure to counte- nance such ecclesiastical ** sprees." His instruction to Abbot Miletus, the companion of St. Agustine, ran : " On the day of dedication, or the birthday of holy martyrs, whose relics are there deposited, let the people build themselves booths of the boughs of trees round about those churches which have been turned to that use from temples, and celebrate the solemnity with religious feasting. . . . For there is no doubt that it is impossible to efface everything at once from their obdurate minds." Yet it must not be supposed that the Church did not make some effort to purge herself of the vice of THB ANNALS OF TOIL. 6^ drunkenness. St. David held a Synod (a.d. 569), and among its canons are the following, of great interest, because they emanate from the British as distinguished from the English or Anglo-Saxon Church. (i) Priests about to minister in the temple of God^ and drinking wine or strong drink, through negligence and not ignorance, must do penance for three days. If they have been warned, and despise, then forty days. (2) Those who get drunk through ignorance must do penance fifteen days ; if through negligence, forty days ; if through contempt, three quarantains, (3) He who forces another to get drunk out of hospi- tality must do penance as if he had got drunk himself. (4) But he who, out of hatred or wickedness, in order to disgrace or mock at others, forces them to get drunk, if he has not already sufficiently done penance, must do penance as a murderer of souls. Several centuries later on in the day, the State came to the aid of the Church in the person of King Edgar. He decreed that pins or pegs should be inserted in all drinking vessels, and punished with rigour anyone who, at a single draught, went beyond the pin. The ^peg-tanhayd contained two quarts, which were divided into half pints by eight pegs, one above the other. Consequently a legal draught was half a pint. This ingenious contri- vance at first promoted sobriety and "fair drinking," but latterly it had the reverse effect. It became an object of emulation at drinking bouts to ascertain who could consume the greatest number of "pegs "before getting under the table. More successful, however, was Edgar in another legislative effort. In all small towns and villages he allowed but one orderly public-house. He, in fact, may be said to have anticipated the modern licensing system by a thousand years. So true is it that ** there is no new thing under the sun." St. Dunstan, Edgar's Minister, may be credited with originating this salutary restriction on ** freedom of trade" in liquid poison. Another mighty race of drinkers was the Danes. Just as the Saxons fairly beat the Romans at the bowl, ^8 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. SO the Danes, if that were conceivable, beat the Saxons. When they became Christains they gave up toasting Thorand Woden, and saw nothing incongruous in sub stituting for them Christ and his Apostles, the Arch- angel Michael, and the Saints ; and throughout Ger- many and the North generally the Church was obliged to tolerate tliis pagan habit of drinking the health of the Saviour of mankind. At the feast where Danish Sweygn swore to dethrone Saxon Ethelred of England, the first bumper was drunk to the *' Memory of King Harold," Sweygn's father ; the second in *' Honour of Christ," the third, to the " Health of the Archangel Michael." For a Saxon to drink without leave in the presence of a Dane was instant death — a truly sufficient reason for the custom oi pledging. Both Dane and Saxon swam in liquor and vied in gluttony. King Hartha Canute attended a marriage feast at Lambeth (Lambhithe). He rose to pledge the company in a mighty bumper, but fell to the earth in a horrible convulsion, out of which he never came. It was the last of many feasts, and what is still more painful, there is some reason to believe that the truly great and good King Alfred — who of all princes could magnanimously say of his own order : ** If men should divest them (kings) of their clothes and withdraw from them their retinue and their power, then mightst thou see that they be very like some of their own thegns that serve them, except that they be worse " — fell a victim to conviviality. Asser, his biographer, makes this somewhat significant statement :— ** His nuptials were honourably celebrated in Mercia among innumerable multitudes of people of both sexes, and after continual feasts, both by day and night, he was immediately seized in presence of all the people, by a sudden and overwhelming pain as yet unknown to all the physicians." Many important battles were lost successively by Britons, Saxons and Danes, in consequence of previous excess on the part of generals, the rank and file^ or both. At least the chroniclers, when they vary most THE ANNALS OF TOIL; 6^ on the details of fights, generally agree that the defeats .. suffered as much from the hostile efforts of Bacchus as of Mars. Even the night before the battle of Hastings, where everything English was at stake, is said on tolerable authority, to have been spent by Harold's men in a wild debauch. Fuller, in his Church History of Britain, states roundly: "The English were no better than drunk when they came to fight," and Niebuhr, with a severity remarkable in a historian so learned and wise, declares that, at the Conquest, England was not only effete with the drunkenness of crime, but with the crime of drunkenness. Voluntary fraternities or clubs date from Roman times at least, and they seem to have made ample provision for purposes of conviviality. The gildsipc (guildship)— Roman sodalitas — imposed fines on its members for various ofiences, and the fines generally got converted into mead. The fines were mostly in honey. For one member to call another names the fine was a quart of honey^ To abuse a non-member a quart of honey. For a Knight to waylay a man a sextarius of honey. To set a trap to injure anyone a sextarius of honey. Ordinary subscriptions were likewise paid, in part at least, in malt and honey. It is astonishing what an important place honey held in the economy of these early times. Everybody of any consequence must have been a bee-master. In the Brehon Laws of ancient Ireland the rights and duties of bee-owners are defined with curious minuteness, the reason, of course, being that without honey there could be no mead. Good mead is a delicious drink compared with the horrible concoctions that in these days of ."civilisation," so-called, have supplanted it. The taste in drinks, there can hardly be a doubt, has for cent u es been going from bad to worse. Our fore- fathers would most certainly never have tolerated the abominable adulterations by which the poor in par* ticular are systematically poisoned. But so long as the Government converts every publican into a tax-collector yO THE ANNALS OF TOIL. on a grand scale, remedy is out of the question. The poor cannot afford the genuine article by reason of the Government impost, and so they must put up, not merely with the ** cheap and nasty," but with the body- and-soul-destroying. Historians have generally held that the Normans were more temperate in their drinking habits than the English, and it may be so. The Conqueror himself was admittedly a model of continence and sobriety — at least, for a King. But to all who desire to see this most important drink problem discussed in full and impartial historic detail, I strongly recommend the perusal of the Rev. Dr. Richard Valpy French's ** Nineteen Cen- turies of Drink in England " (National Temperance Publication D6p6t). It is a work ot much research, and none the less valuable that it is written by a man who is throughout a historian first, and a temperance advocate and moralist afterwards. For the sake of continuity, it may be well to bring the history of the drink traffic down to date. The list of British, Roman, Saxon, and Danish drinks included, as has been seen, mead, wine, ale, cider, morat and piment. To these the Normans added clarre, garhiofilac and hippocras. William Rufus, son of the Conqueror, made up for his father's abstemiousness. He was a notorious wine- bibber, and lost his life in the New Forest after a heavy debauch. Another Royal tragedy attributable to excess in liquor was the loss of the Blanche Nef, with Prince WiUiam, heir to the throne of England, on board. The Prince and his father, King Henry, sailed from Harfleur in separate ships for England. The King had a long start, and the Prince desired to overtake him. He ordered three casks of wine to be given to the sailors, who in consequence were mostly drunk when they put to sea. Every one knows the story. The White Ship struck on a rock, and went down with all on board, except a single survivor. King Henry was never again seen to smile. THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 7I During the Norman period the Duchy of Guienne {1152) came into the possession of England, and a large export wine trade from Bordeaux began. Government fixed the maximum selling price, and from that date British vines and wines which, owing chiefly to the exertions of foreign monks, had hardly been inferior to those of France, began to decline. It is hardly realis- able now that England at one time produced her own wines in abundance. Planta^enet Period (1154-1486).— At this period the process ot ** distilling " alcohol or ardent spirits became known in the West. The Saracens enjoy the credit or discredit of the discovery, but it is more than probable that, as in other instances, they were mere transmitters of knowledge. Pliny, in the first century, and Galen, the famous physician, in the second, very nearly describe the process, and it is noteworthy that the €ohal in alcohol is ancient Chaldaic for matter subtil- ised by fire. In this age priest and warrior vied with each other in inebriety. Giraldus Cambrensis, while reluctantly admitting the general sanctity of the Irish clergy, declares that they universally got drunk at night; while Peter of Blois tells us that the baggage- horses of the barons on a military campaign were loaded ** not with iron but with wine, not with swords but with bottles,'* to such an extent that **you would imagine they were going to prepare a great feast rather than to make war." Walter Mapes, Henry the Second's chaplain, was the author of a drinking song which even Burns' ** Willie brewed a peck o' Maut " can hardly pretend to rival. It is in Latin Leonine metre. The first verse will suffice : — Mihi sit pfoposiium in taherna mori ; Vinum sit appositum morientis ori : Ut dicantj cum viderint, angelorum chori^ Deus sit propitius huic potatoti. Die I must, but let me die drinking in an inn ; Hold the wine-cup to my lips sparkling from the bin l Jt - THE ANNALS OF TOIL. So when angels flutter down to take me from my sin,. •« Ah, God have mercy on this sot,'* the cherubs will begin. Henry II. himself was abstemious, but his three sons Geofl'rey, Richard, and John, were all devotees of Bacchus. Richard Coeur de Lion's famous Crusade in Palestine might have been a brilliant success, but for the shocking intemperance of his troops. Richard of Devizes relates : ** The merchants of the country could hardly credit what they saw, that a single people, and that small in number, should consume a hundred times as much wine as that on which many nations of the heathen, and each of them innumerable, lived. The hand of the Lord deservedly fell upon these enervated soldiers." Writing of the reign of King John, Roger de Hoveden emphatically observes : " The land was filled with drink and drinkers." John himself died of a surfeit of new cider and peaches. In these times of unlimited hospitality a nobleman's annual drink bill not in- frequently mounted up to ^100,000 in modern currency. A bishop's installation was often marked by the most unseemly excesses. When Warham was made Arch- bishop of Canterbury, in 1504, six pipes of red wine, four of claret, one of choice white for the kitchen, one butt of Malmsey, one pipe of wine of Osey, two tierces of Rhenish wine, four tuns of London ale, six of Kentish ale, and twenty of English beer were consumed. In the reign of Edward III. only three taverns were licensed in London. They had to put up signs, other- wise their ales were forfeited. Massinger's New Way to Fay Old Debts gives the practice of the period : — For this gross fault I here do damn thy licence, Forbidding thee ever to tap or draw ; For, instantly, I will, in my own person. Command the constables to pull down thy sign. The price of beer had been gradually rising. In 1277 four gallons cost one penny ; in 1464 one gallon cost twopence ; and a century later twopence halfpenny. THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 73, Edward IV. was a most dissipated monarch, who, indeed, died of excess. The Rev. Dr. Richard Valpy French, whose NiiteUen Centuries of Drink in England is a storehouse of drink lore, records a ludicrously despotic act of his. There was, in 1467, in Cheapside, a public- house called the "Crown," of which one Walter Walters was landlord. In an ill-advised moment of jocosity, Walters said he would make his son heir to the ** Crown." The joke came to the King's ears, and so incensed was he that he ordered the unfortunate publican to be executed for high treason ! Tudor Period (1585— 1603). — Henry VII., the first Tudor, was strong in liquor legislation. Perhaps his most important enactment was that of 1496, in which two Justices of the Peace were authorised "to reject and put away common ale- selling in towns and places where they shall think con- venient, and to take surety of the keepers of ale-houses of their good behaving, by the discretion of the said Justices, and in the same to be advised and agreed at the time of their sessions." But no restriction seemed to abate the evil of over- indulgence. Many of the London clergy were accused of spending their whole time in the alehouses, and even Wolsey, the great Cardinal, who only missed the Popedom by a shave, when Rector of Lymington, was put in the stocks by Sir Amias Powlett for getting out- rageously drunk at a neighbouring fair. Some of the clergy even kept ale-houses. Nor was the State behind the Church in the depths of its potations. Henry VIII., the " Defender of the Faith," was rarely sober, and many of his most Nero- like orders were given in a state of advanced intoxica- tion. Bishop Still, of Bath and Wells, at one time Master of St. John's College, Cambridge, and Master of Trinity^ gave voice to the general demoralisation in a clever drinking song, which ran through the land like-- wildfire : — 74 THE AKKALS OF TOIL. I cannot eate but lytic mcate. My stomacke is not good, But sure I think that I can drinke With him who wears a hood. Though I go bare, take ye no care, I nothing am a colde, I stuff my skyn so full within Of jolly good ale and old. -Chorus : — Backe and syde go bare, go bare, Both foote and hand go colde ; But belly, God send thee good ale ynoughe, Whether it be new or olde. The first stringent enactments against drunkenness were passed in the reign of Edward VI . Justices were empowered to abolish taverns at their discretion, and their keepers were punished with fine and imprisonment for any breach of 5th and 6th Edward c. 25, which held them " bound by recognizances " to maintain order and suppress gambling. Only two taverns could be licensed in any borough except London, which was allowed forty ; Bristol, six ; Canterbury, Cambridge, Chester, Exeter, Gloucester, Hull, Newcastle, and Norwich, four, &c. The retail price was fixed, and no unlicensed traffic permitted ; yet, public opinion being against such restrictions, they availed but little. Nevertheless there are signs in the marvellous litera- ture of the Tudor period that men like Sir Walter Raleigh, Shakespeare, Ben Johnson, Marlowe, Beau- mont, Fletcher, Greene, Nash, and the rest, who were all hard drinkers, were not insensible to the iniquity of the habit. Raleigh, who founded the famous " Mermaid " in Bread-street, the scene of so many wit-combats of the intellectual giants of the day, inveighs against the ** bewitching and infectious vice " in unmeasured terms ; and Shakespeare (Hamlet), though he is said to have died in conse- x[uence of exposure resulting from a drinking bout, :says of the ** custom," with evident conviction : — But to my mind — though I am native here, And to the'manner born — it is a custom. More honoured in the breach than in the observance. THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 75 This heavy-headed revel, east and west, Makes us traduced and taxed of other nations. They clepe us drunkards, and, with swinish phrase. Soil our addition, and indeed it takes From our achievements, though perform'd at height. The pith and marrow of our attribute. Stuart Period (1603-1688).— James I. of England was m notorious drunkard, who indulged in orgies of the most abandoned character. Not merely drunk men, but drunk women, were his associates, to such an extent, that Tillieres, the French Ambassador, by no means a squeamish person, was utterly scandalised, ^* At Newmarket," wrote he, " he (the King), leads a a life to which past and present times present no parallel." In 1606, for example, James and his brother-in-law Christian, King of Denmark, were entertained at Theobald's by the Prime Minister, Cecil, Earl of Salis- bury. Sir John Harrington, in a letter, gives us a glimpse of the manner in which experience taught Cecil that Royalty would prefer to diversify the cares of State : — *« After dinner, the representation of Solomon, his temple, and the coming of the Queen of Sheba was made. . . . The lady who did play the Queen's part did carry most precious gifts to both their Majesties ; but, forgetting the steps arising to the canopy, over- set her caskets in his Danish Majesty's lap and fell at his feet, though I rather think it was on his face. His Majesty then got up and would dance with the Queen of Sheba, but he fell down before her, and was carried to his inner chamber. The entertainment and show went forward and most of the presenters went backward, or fell down, wine did so occupy their upper chambers. • . • The gunpowder fright is out of all our heads, and we are going on hereabouts as if the devil were con- triving every man should blow up himself by wild riot, excess, and devastation of wine and intemperance." And as it was with Court and Courtiers so it was with the people at large. Robert Burton, of ** Anatomy of 76 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. Melancholy '* fame, says of the tradesman class ; ** They will labour hard all day long to be drunk at night, and spend totius anni labores (the labours of the whole year) in a tippling feast. . . . How they like a man that will be drunk, crown him and honour him for it, hate him who will not pledge them, stab him, kill him ; a most intolerable offence, and not to be forgiven." In 1643 the Long Parliament established the Excise as a means of carrying on the war against the Crown The Royalists followed suit, both parties declaring that when the war ceased, the tax should be remitted. It has been retained on the specious pretext of ** taxing the vices of the people." Nothing, of course, is said about exempting the rents of the landlords. The Com- mon wealth, it must be admitted, laid the foundation of the whole iniquitous system of indirect taxation under which the people, almost without knowing it have been ground to the dust so long. The Protectorate, however, did undoubtedly repress inebriety with a very high hand, and by so doing, to a large extent sowed the seeds of its own downfall. The Monarchcal Restoration, with all its wild licentiousness^ was not so much a reaction against Republican institu- tions as against measures which many ardent supporters of the Commonwealth regarded as social tyranny of the worse description. Festina lente ! ** Be not righteous overmuch." Uuiversal history teaches the truth of the Tennysonian dictum in the ** Vision of Sin :" He who roars for liberty, Faster binds the tyrant's power, And the tyrant's cruel glee Forces on the freer hour. During the whole reign of Charles II., the natioa at large led by the Court, may be said to have drowned itself in aqua fortis. When it got partially sober again it once more drove out the Stuarts, but it has never been found possible to resuscitate the virtues of the Puritans. Charles II. and his libidinous crew in- flicted a wound on the national conscience so deep that it has not even yet recovered from it. THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 77 The Hanoverian Period. — At the Revolution ot 1688 permission was given to set up distilleries with the most fatal results. In 1684 there were distilled of British spirits 527,000 gallons. In 1727 the figures were 3,601,000. In London excessive mortality, poverty, murder and robbery flowed as if from a perennial fountain of woe from this comparatively new source of misery. ** Retailers of gin," says Mr. Lecky, " were accustomed to hang out painted boards announcing that their customers could be made drunk for a penny, dead drunk for twopence, and have straw for nothing ; and cellars strewn with straw were accordingly provided, into which those who had become insensible were dragged, and where they remained till they had suffi- ciently recovered to renew their orgies." A Distillery Act was passed in 1825, but it went a very little way to abolish the evils of hydra-headed spirit production. And yet it is clear that it is the distillery about which we hear so little, and not the public-house about which we hear so much from tem- perance reformers, that ought to be the great object of attack. If the citadel can be successfully stormed, the city must submit or the guns of the stronghold will be turned against it. The way to fell an oak is not to lop off a twig here and a twig there, but to strike boldly at the root. Ruskin has said perhaps the truest and most com- prehensive thing that ever has been said on this whole mystery of iniquity : — " If any encourage drunken- ness for the sake of profit derived from the sale of drink, they are guilty of a form of moral assasination as criminal as any that has ever been practised by the bravoes of any country or of any age." Of the guilty it must be clear to every one that the Chancellor of the Exchequer of this realm is unspeak- ably the most criminal. CHAPTER IV. MEDIEVAL "CLASSES" AND "MASSES." Iniquity alone has created private property. — St. Clemsnt. Nature created community : private property is the offspring of asurpation. — St. Ambrose. The rich man is a thief. — St. Basil, The rich are robbers, Better all things were in common, — St. Chrysostom. Opulence is always the product of theft committed, if not by the actual possessor, then by his ancestors. — St. Jerome. It is as easy for a camel to go through the eye of a needle as for rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. — Jesus Cmrist. Norman Royalty. — Between the compflation of Domesday Book (1086) and the forty-third year of Henry III. (1259) there are almost no certain data enabling us to investigate the " People of England Question." We learn, however, a good deal about the doings, or rather misdoings, of the " classes," and from these it is possible to infer the sufferings of the ** masses.' When the kings go mad, the Greeks pay the piper. The successor of the Conqueror, William Bufas, was a notorious ruffian. ** Never day dawned," says the Saxon Chronicle, " but he (Rufus) rose a worse man than he had lain down ; never sun set but he lay down a worse man than he had risen." Hisfather's private life had been exemplary ; the Red 78 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 79' King's was execrable. He broke into convents in fits of inebriety and outraged the nuns. When he was killed in the New Forest, no one troubled himself about the body, though his brother Henry, who succeeded him, was likewise at the time en- gaged in the chase. At last an old charcoal burner picked it up, flung it into his cart, and carried it to Winchester. Next day, still lying m the cart covered with blood and mire, it was taken to the Cathedral and buried, with the scantiest ceremony. The corpse of Henry H., it is noteworthy, was treatec with similar ignominy. Dying at Chinon, he was deserted in precisely the same manner as his great- grandfather, the Conqueror, and it was with difficulty that anyone could be induced to wrap his remains in a winding-sheet, and convey them to Fontevraud for interment. Henry L, ** Beauclerc," succeeded his brother Rufus* He was a miracle of cunning, cruelty and lust. He usurped the rights in Normandy of his eldest brother Robert, made him prisoner, blinded him by applying to* his eyes a basin of red-hot metal, and confined him for life in a dungeon. This conduct was all the more flagitious that Robert on one occasion had saved Henry from death by starvation in the Norman Castle of Mount St. Michael, where the relentless Rufus wished that he should perish of hunger. Blinding his victims was a sort of favourite pastime with Henry Beauclerc. He permitted one of the officers of his court to blind and cut off the noses of two of his own grand- daughters, children of his natural daughter, Juliana de Breteuil, who, objecting to this mutilation, was ordered by her amiable parent to be dragged through a frozen moat. In this reign the abuse of royal purveyance rose to an inconceivable height. *' Those who had nothing to give," the faithful chronicler relates, ** were driven from their humble dwellings, or the doors being torn off their hinges, were left open to be plundered ; or their miser- able chattels being taken away they were reduced to Bb THE ANNALS OF TOIL. the extreme of poverty, or in other way afflicted and tormented; while against those who were thought to possess something certain, new and imaginary offences were alleged i when not daring to defend themselves in a plea against the king they were stripped of their property and plunged into misery." In royal progresses it was no unusual thing for the nobles to burn such commodities as they could not con- veniently carry away from the houses where they had been pleased to billet themselves, and what is stranger still this mania for destruction extended to objects which might in some degree be regarded as their own. For example, in the latter part of the fourteenth century, Colin Campbell, chief of Clan Campbell, was visited at Inverary by a party of the Irish O'Neils. On the departure of the guests, Colin, to honour them, made a bonfire of his castle. Similarly, in 1528, the Earl of Athol, after entertaining the Papal Legate, burned down the house in which his Holiness' ambassa- dor had been received, on the ground that it was " the constant habitude of the Highlanders to set on fire in the morning the place which had lodged them the night before." Henry I. died (1135) from the eifect of a gluttonous feast of lampreys, leaving no legitimate son behind him. Wilham, the heir to the throne, it will be remembered, went down with the White Ship — a happy deliverance for the unfortunate toilers of England whom he had sworn to yoke to the plough like oxen. Beauclerc's character has been drawn by his contemporar}^, Henry of Huntingdon, in terms severe but just. He describes him as the murderer of many men ; the violator of his oaths; and one of those princes who cause royalty to be considered a crime. Stephen and Maud. — The next reign, if reign it^can be called, was one of unutterable woe. Henry's daughter, Maud, and his nephew, Stephen, grandson of the Con- queror,involved the nation in all the horrors of a disputed succession. Maud's imperious insolence so incensed the men of London that they stormed herpalace and drove her THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 8l into exile. She continued, however, nearly the whole of Stephen's reign to make war on him, and her cousin being a mere fighter, without the slightest tincture of statemanship, the sufferings of the people were appalling. Every noble's house became a fortified stronghold. More than eleven hundred castles were built by forced labour, and " all," according to Henry of Huntingdon, "became dens of thieves and cut-throats." Out of these dens issued the bandit lords and their retainers to blackmail and pillage the country for miles around. Captives were tortured in the most frightful manner if it was supposed that gold or silver could be extorted from them by such means. Says the Saxon Chronicle: " If two or three men came riding to a town, all the township fled before them, imagining them to be robbers. The bishops and clergy constantly cursed them, but nothing came of it, because they were all accursed and foresworn and lost. The land was all foredone by such misdeeds, and they said openly that Christ and his saints had gone to sleep." The Bishop of Winchester, Stephen's brother, with great impartiality alternately cursed Stephen and Maud, but to no purpose. In their despair the people built for themselves wretched huts in the churchyards in hope that the sacredness of such spots might pro- tect them. "All England," say the G^sta Stephanie ** wore a face of woe and desolation." At last it was arranged that Stephen should reign for life; and that Maud's son, Henry Plantagenet, should succeed him. Had the strife continued much longer, the whole nation must have been ruined irretrievably. Plantagenet Royalty. — Henry II. was popularly believed to be descended from the devil. Tradition told of an ancient ancestress of his. Countess of Anjou, who rarely went to church, and when she did do so always left before Mass. Her husband determined, on one occasion, to detain her by force. He engaged four stout squires to lay hold of her when she rose to G iZ THE ANNALS OF TOIL, go. They tried their utmost to do so : but at the Con- secration of the Host she left her mantle in their hands, and flew out of the window. Richard Coeur de Lion was quite proud of this pedigree, and excused the lawlessness and criminality of his own deeds on the ground that '* what came from the devil should return to the devil." Henry Plantagenet's career was most lamentable. He married, for her immense estates, Eleanor of Aquitaine, the divorced wife of the King of France, the most infamous woman of the age. She and his three sons, Henry, Richard, and John, led him a terrible life. The paroxysms of rage into which they threw him made him rave like a wild beast. In these transports, the chroniclers tell us, his eyes became bloodshot, his face livid, his tongue abusive and blasphemous, his hands most mischievous, strking and tearing whatever came in his way. It was in one of these violent fits of passion that he uttered the fatal words which led to the horrible murder of St. Thomas a Becket. Henry Plantagenet and Pope Adrian IV., an English- man, between them contrived the ruin of Ireland, and never in the history of mankind could it more truly be said, ** The evil that men do hves after them." Henry's last words were — he could not speak a word of English — " M audit soit It jour ouje suis ne ; tt maudits de Dieusoienf iesfils quijelasise " (** Accursed be the day on which I was born, and accursed of God be the sons I leave behind me.") Richard I. — And this terrible malediction may well be said to have taken effect. Richard I. and King John were perhaps the champion ruffians of English royalty. Richard shed blood for the mere sake of shedding blood, and, among other accomplishments, he was a cannibal. Once, in Palestine, being convalescent, he had a fancy for some tender pork. There was none to be had ; but the cook was equal to the occasion. A plump Saracen boy was decapitated and served up to THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 83 -his Majesty. Richard was so pleased with his repatt that he desired to be shown the head of the pig. In some trepidation the cook brought in the head of the young Saracen. The King laughed heartily, and observed that there was no need to talk of famine in the Christian camp with such an abundant stock of excellent provisions on hand. On another occasion he gave a feast to certain Am- bassadors sent to him by the famous Saladin, and at it many heads of Saracens graced the table. Richard triumphantly bade the envoys note how the ChrisHan$ carried on war. Once he ruthlessljr murdered no fewer than thirty thousand helpless prisoners, his savagery contrasting markedly with the comparative humanity of the great Moslem General. He tried to sell the entire city of London to the Jews, whom he oppressed most shamefully. His enormous ransom from imprisonment on the Continent nearly ruined England financially, and so little did he care for the independence of the country, that he actually made it a sort of fief of the Holy Roman Empire by bargain with the German Emperor. He was an unmitigated bravo of the worst type, with no more notion of states* manship than a highwayman. King John. — On the whole, however, his brother iohn, though naturally a much abler man, was more than is match in villainy. It was said of him in his own day : ** Foul as it is, hell itself is defiled by the fouler presence of John." He conspired against his father. He conspired against his brother Richard, and stirred up assassins to murder him. He had the eyes of his nephew, Prince Arthur of Brittany, burned out, and there is good reason to believe that he killed the poor friendless boy^with bis own hand, and threw his body into the Seine. He made England a fief of the Holv See, just as Richard had made it an appanage of the German Empire. He signed Magna Charta it is true, but had no sooner done so than in a fit of ungovernable anger, he rolled on 84 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. the ground, foaming at the mouth, and gnawing sticks and straws like a wild beast. This great instrument was extorted from the tyrant, not, as the lying legends called history generally represent, by the sole efforts of the barons, but by the combined efforts of the freemen of England, particularly the citizens of London, and the barons. The essential articles of the Great Charter are 39 and 40, viz. ; — « No freeman shall he arrested or imprisoned ^ ov dispossessed of his tenement or outlawed, or exiled or in anywise proceeded against, unless by the legal judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land," ** Justice shall not be sold refused, or delayed to any onCy* These guarantees of personal freedom were the price paid to the burgesses and other freemen as a reward of their indispensable support. The unhappy villeins, still the most numerous section of the people, reaped but little benefit by this great measure. By Article 20 however, it was provided that they should not be unreasonably fined for frivolous offences or deprived of their implements of husbandry. It was the men of London, and not the barons, that constituted themselves the never-failing guardians of the essential conditions of constitutional liberty. They were vigilant during the long reign of the imbecile but tyrannical Henry III. And they were not wanting to themselves and the cause of freedom when the ** greatest of the Plantagenets," Edward the First, the ** English Justinian," came to the throne. That able tyrant attempted to add a new clause to the Charter, undermining its very foundations, and both the clergy and barons had practically bowed to his imperious will. But in the men of London he found sterner stuff. A contemporary writer tells us how he was baffled and dc* sisted from his unscrupulous enterprise : — " He thought he could delude the plain citizens. He ordered the Sheriff of London to call a public meeting and read the new Confirmation of the Charters. The citizens met in St. Paul's Churchyard, and listened with anxious ears. At every clause, except the last, they THE ANNALS OF TOIL. gj gave many blessings to the King ; but when that last clause was read, the London burghers understood it as well as the noble lords had done, and they cursed it as loud and fast as they had blessed before. Edward took warning. He summoned the Parliament to meet shortly again, and then he struck out the detested clause and granted all that was asked of him in the forms prescribed." Thus was laid the basis of such political freedom as we €njoy to-day. The foundations of our economic freedom can hardly even yet he said to he laid. Having now glanced at the manifold crimes of the ** classes " during the two centuries that followed the unhappy Conquest of England by the Normans, it now remains for us to glean what little can be gleaned of the progress of the " masses " in the same period. The Hark. — On the threshold of our enquiry a most formidable problem presents itself. Did the ** masses " start from a state of serfdom or a state of freedom ? In 1848 appeared the well-known work of John Mitchell Kemble, ** The Saxons in England." In it Mr. Kemble makes the mark^ or township, the unit of social organisa- tion in Teutonic lands, and describes it asa ** voluntary association of freemen." This assertion so flattering to ** Anglo-Saxon " com- placency was not lost on the scholars of Germany. Von Maurer, Hanssen and Nasse at once started on the trail, and soon brought together a mass of evidence in favour of originally free marks that seemed almost over- whelming. With the characteristic industry of the German investigator, Nasse was pleased to interpret for us the vestiges of the free township in England ; and Sir Henry Sumner Maine, in his ** Village Communities in the East and the West " (1871), and Bishop Stubbs in his " Constitutional History " (1873], sub- stantially acccepted the conclusions at which German erudition had arrived. Meanwhile France had not been idle. As early M i^44i Guerardi had found in the legislation of the later S6 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. Roman Empire, the groundwork of the civilization of Western Europe. For a time his views were neglected but in 1885, Fustel de Coulanges, in his " Recherche^ sur quelques Problemes d'Histoire,** accentuated them with much ability ; and in our own country, Seebohm, in his ** English Village Community '* a work of the greatest merit, practically endorses the finding of the French School, viz., that the free mark is a mere fiction of the Teutonic mind. ' At least, so far as England is concerned, he tells us us with emphasis ; " English economic history begins with the serfdom of the rural masses under Saxon rule a serfdon from which it has taken a thousand years to set them free." And, alas ! after this thousand years of struggle, the fangs of squire and parson are even yet undrawn. The Manor. — If my own contention, in previous chapters, be correct, viz., that some three-fifths of what is now called the English people are of Celtic or British origin, Seebohm's postulate is irrefutable. Since the Roman Conquest the ** masses" of South Britain at least have been, and still are, practically slaves, and, if it could even be shown conclusively that the conquering Saxons were all freemen inter S6y the fact would possess antiquarian rather than living interest. I therefore now come to deal with the Norman manor as it existed at the Conquest. It naturally grew out of the Roman colonia as modified by the Saxon mark. Down to the end of the fourteenth century England was almost exclusively an agricultural country. Outside the walled towns, dotted all over the country, were the manors and village communities. There were then no isolated farmhouses as at present, because agriculture was conducted co-operatively. The three chief build- ings in the village were the manor-house, or residence of the lord, the church, and the mill. There were no shops, because the manor was economically self-suffic- ing. The cultivators produced their own food, and their wives and daughters wove their homely garments THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 87 of woollen and linen. Their houses were of the simplest construction imaginably They had no chimneys, the smoke escaping by the door or by the windows. The latter were mostly composed of lattice- work ; that is to say, of a net-work of crossed lath or other pliable material. Money was almost unknown except for purposes of military taxation. The Danegeld, or tax to resist the Danes, imposed by Ethelred, was the first important tax in money. Then Canute converted the heriotf or fine of horses and armour, into coin. Henry II. fol- lowed suit with scutag6y or shield-money, in lieu of military service; and Edward I. was subsequently pleased to give up the practice of seizing the goods of merchants if payment in money were tendered. But for long trade was carried on by barter or exchange of commodities, and rent was also paid in kind. Co-operatiYC Agriculture. — The land of the manor was either (i) arable, (2) pastoral, (3) forest or waste. The lord, as a rule, held about two-fifths of the soil in demesne or personal ownership, while the cultivators possessed the other three -fifths in villenage. The vil- lein's (villager's) allotment consisted ol a virgate or thirty acres, but dimidil villani (or ** half- villains *'), with fifteen acres, were not unknown ; while the cottar's portion might be anything from one acre to ten. The whole arable soil of the manor was tilled on the three field system. The first was sown with wheat ; the second with oats and beans; the third remained fallow. This system of cultivation was almost certainly of Romano-British origin, for in the laws of Wales, long anterior to any English record on the subject, we not merely find it in operation, but the rationale of sub- division among the denizens of the manor into acre or half-acre strips, separated by " balks *' of unploughed turf,is likewise explained. No man could hold two adjoining strips ; otherwise the quality of all land being more or less unequal, injus- tice would inevitably be done. Accordingly the firttf 88 THE AKHALS OF TOIL. strip went to the ploughman ; the second to the ironSi ».r., to him who supplied the plough ; the third to the oxen, r.^., their owners ; the fourth to the teamster or driver; and the fifth to the plough, i,e,f to the smith or maker and repairer. The demesne, or lord's land, seems for the most part, to have had no existence separate from that allotted to the villeins and cottars. The lord had the lion's share of the strips, good and bad, and doubtless the mansion- house ** stood in its own grounds,"of ample dimensions ; but in other respects, he seems to have " shared and shared alike." The Lord's Rent was a different matter. It consisted primarily of services to be rendered to him by the villeins and cottars. These services took the shape (i) of wuk'Wirk, i,e.y for two or three days in the week ; and (2) of additional boon-days at busy seasons of the year. On boon-days the lord graciously fed the workers and, on the last two days of harvest, each of them had the privilege of bringing a comrade with him to supper. The cottar's interest in the manor being small, his weck-woYh was generally for but one day, and he early began to eke out his scanty means of subsistence by by doing work for the better- off villeins. Such in brief — very brief — was rural England at the Conquest. Under Norman as under Saxon, or for the matter of that, Roman rule, the lot of the agricultural toiler had undergone no essential modification. In the middle of the tenth century (950), certain rules for the guidance of estate-managers, Rectitudines Singulavum Personaruntf were drawn up and they disclose very much the same conditions of economic life as does the Libir Niger (BlaickBook) of Peterborough, a compilation of the beginning of the twelfth century dealing with the administration of Church lands. But though the stream of evolution is but little affected by wars or formal statutes, it is never wholly stationary, and in the reign of Henry II. (1154-1189), if not earlier, it began greatly to deviate trom its customary channel. Coin for Kind. — In the eleventh century the customary THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 89 •services of villeins and cottars to their lords became as rigidly ** fixed" as if they had been enacted by a demo- cratic Parliament sitting at Westminster. They had their exact equivalents in corn or produce rents, and these, again, gradually came to be commuted into un- alterable money-rents. The services not being fixed by competition, their equivalent in coin became a mere — it rent. Of the commuting villein it was said, quietus est qui.e., he is quit of service. This change from payment in service or in kind to payment in money implied a profound economic revolution, and it is, therefore, well to illustrate the process. In 1 178 aDialogus de Scaccario (Exchequer) sets forth : — ^* The royal officials knew precisely from which counties wheat was owing, from which various kinds of flesh or provender for horses or other necessaries. And, when these had been paid in the proper quantity, the officials reckoned it all up with the sheriff at fixed rates in inoney. Thus, for a measure of wheat that would make bread for 100 men, is. ; for the carcase of a fatted ox, IS. ; for a ram or a ewe, 4d. ; the provender for twenty horses, 4d. likewise. . . , Accordingly the King, after taking counsel with the magnates, appointed the best men he could find for the work, and sent them all over the kingdom to visit every manor, and there estimate in money the value of the payments in kind ; and they made the sheriff of each county responsible at the Exchequer for the total amount due from all the manors in the county." From this passage two important inferences may be drawn. First, money in medieval times was a necessity felt by absentee landlords before it was felt by any other section of the community. Secondly, it was a common measure of value before it was used as a medium of exchange. Its abuse has led to the accumulation of ** capital " in the hands of the few, and added the scourges of ** interest" (usury and "profit" (extortion) to the parent-curse of land-rent. The river of human misery traced back to its source, infallibly lands us in the malarious bog ef private property in land. ^ THE ANNALS OF TOIL. Absantea Lords. — The Lord who lived on his owd manor had little or no need of money ; but when he had many manors, or habitually followed the Court, he had, like the King, to devise means of subsisting at long range. He therefore frequently let or fermed manors to difirmay for periods of fourteen, twenty-one or thirty-five years The firmar undertook to pay an annual money- rent, pocketing the difference between the stipulated sum and the entire profits of the manor. Sometimes a much more desirable arrangement was come to. The villeta or entire body of the cul- tivators would become the firmar, taking over the lord's jurisdiction as well as the charge of his demesne land. The lord was wont every three weeks to hold a Court Baron for the transference of holdings and the punishment of trivial offences, and if he had regular criminal jurisdiction, a Court Leet to inflict even the death penalty. It was in much the same way that kings and barons were from time to time induced to transfer to City Fathers their own magisterial preroga- tives. Only, when the burghers once managed to secure ^firma burgi, they were generally able to stick to it like leeches, whereas the more loosely organised Villeta succumbed to baronial pressure with the utmost facility. The Manor of Beauchamp in Essex. — The brief history of this manor will serve, in some measure, ta illustrate the changes that began slowly to set in in rural England after the Conquest. The tendency (i) to multiply the class of free tenants ; (2) to commute week-work for kind or coin ; (3) to deal similarly with boon-days ; and (4) to evolve the day-labourer, or modern wages- slave, constitutes the chief economic features of the two or three centuries which immediately followed the Norman occupation. The manor of Beauchamp was held by the Chapter of St. Paul's. At Domesday (1086), there was not a single free tenant {libere tenens) to be found on it. But there were twenty-four villeins, ten cottars, or hordariif as the Normans called them, and five slaves- THE ANNALS OF TOIL. (jr. In irSi, Dean Ralph de Deceto took another survey and then there were found to be eighteen free tenants of thirty acres, paying money rents in Ueu of week- work and bound only to boon-days, Ther« were, moreover, thirty-five free tenants of very small holdings that had been cut out {tetYa assisa) of the demesne land for their benefit. These were probably descended from the slaves (servi) of 1086. In 1222 the free tenants numbered thirty-four. As early as 1240 there were some manors on which both week-work and boon-days had been wholly commuted into money payments, and where the entire demesne was in the hands of free tenants. But such commuta- tions were not general till the reign of Edward II (1307-1327), and even then the ** old order," which had much in it that was good as well as evil, died hard. Ante-Domesday Land Tenure. — It is now necessary that I should brieliy dispose of the Land Question, so far as Saxon and Norman times are concerned. To make the matter clear — and it is a difficult task — a certain amount of recapitulation is unavoidable. Firstly, then, the further back we trace the Saxon Land System the more completely is it one of serfdom,, and not of freedom. The Dooms oflna, in the end of the seventh, and the Rectitudines Singularum Personarum^ about the middle of the tenth century, both clearly dis- close the fact that the ** tun," or " ham," of the Saxons was none other, in all essentials, than the " manor" of the Norman Domesday Book of 1086. With trifling variations of meaning, the Saxon ** thane " or ** hlaford " was the Norman ** lord " (dominus). The Thane's ** inland " was the lord's ** demesne." The Saxon " geneat " was the Norman ** villein." " Geneat-land" or **gafot-land" was ** land in villeinage." The'*gebur" was the ** villanus " proper. The ** cotsetla " was the " cottar." The ** theou " was the ** slave " (servus). The Thane's services were merely the old Roman triple necessity trinoda (necessitas), viz. (i) fyrd, follow- ing the King's banner in war; (2) burghboU, fortress- building ; and (3) brigboie, bridge building. fga THE ANNALS OF TOIL. The **geneat,** like the ** villein,'* had his wuh-worh^ and, besides, paid ** gafot '* or tribute in service, kind, or coin. If he had no special or boon-days to drudge, it was because his week-work — in recorded instances, one hundred years before the Conquest — was for five days, instead of the two or three that were the rule after that event. In the Saxon, as in the Norman period, the three- field plan of tillage prevailed. The gcbuv^ like the vilUin^ had his ten one-acre strips in each of the three common fields. He never could have two strips adjoining each other, and at first they were movable from year to year. While co-tillage prevailed this plan not only entailed no inconvenience, but was the justest that could be devised. In much later times, however, when the strips became fixed, and individualist superseded co-operative farming, a great outcry against the system not unnaturally arose, and a long series of most mischievous Enclosure Acts was the result. Between the years 1760-1844, nearly 4,000 enclosures were thus effected in the 10,000 parishes of England. These enactments set forth ad nauseam the inconveniences arising from scattered parcels of land and give authority to plough up the ** balks " and to divide the common fields into blocks marked off by hedges. In this way the entire face of the country has been changed, and the curse of private property in land inflicted on the people in its most virulent form. Had it been otherwise, had the co-operative element in the old agrarian economy eliminated the fatal landlord or individualist virus, the Republic, Federal, Social and Democratic would not still be to-day an object of aspir- ation, the formula of a hope sickeningly deferred. But a truce to digression. The co-operative three-field system of tillage was not •of Saxon, but of British or Romano-British origin. The ancient ** Venedotian Code " of Wales leaves us in little doubt on this point. The Welsh erw was the Saxon cBcer, modern English acre. The erw was the measure of a day's ploughing, the oxen being relieved THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 9J; from the yoke at mid-day. The erws were distributed according as each man contributed to the common plough, drawn by eight oxen, four abreast. ** The first erw (Venedotian Code) belongs to the ploughman, the second to the irons, the third to the exterior sod ox, the fourth to the exterior sward ox, lest the yoke should be broken, and the fifth to the driver." The driver, it may be explained was really the leader of the team. He walked backwards in front of the cattle Salvation Army fashion. Eight erws went to the owners of the oxen, two draught-beasts being supplied by each thirty aecer gehur. One erw fell to the smith, one to the carpenter, one to the ploughman, and one to the driver ; ** and so the tie ot twelve erws was completed." The smith (faber) and the carpenter (carpentarius), for keeping the iron and woodwork of the plough in due repair, had each their evws or strips ploughed for them. In the same way the priest's prayers entitled him ta every tenth evwy acre, or strip ; and thus tithes had their origin. It was only when communal husbandry fell into decay that every tenth sheaf began to be exacted in place of the tenth strips. Domesday Land Tenure. — The great Domesday Survey (1086) throws a flood of light on the agrarian problem in the eleventh century. The Crown owned, or held in royal demesne^ no fewer than 1,482 manors. It also claimed as Una res^is (Crown land) all extra- manorial estate. The monasteries likewise held vast areas of the best soil in the kingdom, while individual barons grasped the rest in manors, few or many. Under these ** lords of the soil" — king, priest, and soldier — came : — 1. The Freemen (Liberi homines), numbering I2,000r or 4 per cent, of the population. 2. The Socmen (Sochmanni), 23,000, equal to 8 per cent. 3. The Slaves (Servi) equal to 9 per cent. 4. The Cottars (Cotarii) equal to 32 per cent, 5. The Villeins (Villani) equal to 38 per cent. ^ THE ANNALS OF TOIL. It will thus be seen that the Freemen and the Socmen who were closely allied to them as tenants of the highest class, were not a numerous body at the Con- quest, and, what is noteworthy is that they are to be found almost exclusively in the Danish settlements or Danelaga, in the Mid -Eastern counties. Yet no Court Baron could be held without the presence of some Socmen. Consequently, we occasionally find one lord driven to the desperate expedient of borrowing for that purpose a few Socmen from another's manor. The Court Baron was the Court of the Manor as distinguished from the Court Leet or Court of the Township or Villa which was not necessarily co-extensive with the manor. Indeed, one part of a township not unfrequently lay in one manor, and another part in another. Similarly in the Danelaga and the North of England there were hardly any slaves, and it is only in Saxondom proper, in the South and South West m particular, that we find the population divided almost exclusively into villeins and slaves. The slaves were the mere household thralls of the lords, and they naturally . abounded most where conquest was freshest. Next in number to the slaves came the cottars (cottagers) or bordars (from bord, a cottage), over eighty-two thousand strong. Normally they possessed a cottage, garden, and five acres in the open fields. They were very evenly scattered all over the counties, not numoering less than 12 per cent, in any one of them. They were partly employed by the villeins, with their six times five acres or " virgate," and from them, recruited by the slaves, sprang the overwhelming class of landless, disinherited wage- workers of to-day to whom these pages are mainly addressed. For centuries a thousand venal pens have been busy writing the history of the ** classes," magnifying the deeds of those that " toil not, neither do they spin '' ; while almost no one has stooped so low as to tell the story of the ** masses " — to recall " the short and simple annals of the poor." THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 95 But, alas ! the poet is wrong : they are neither short nor simple. They are inexpressibly sad. "And I xeturned, and beheld the tears of them that were oppressed, and they had no comforter, and on the side of their oppressors there was power." That, indeed, in the words of Holy Writ, is a comprehensive epitome of labour-history in every age and clime. There is no other literature outside the Scriptures, within the range of my knowledge, in which the cause of toil is persever- ingly championed and the tears of those that are oppressed are regarded with unfailing sympathy. The villeins of Domesday numbered 108,407, and from them, in a great measure, sprang the middle-class, the bourgeoisie of to-day. The less lortunate among them lost their grip on the land, and largely helped to swell the class of wage- workers from above, just as the slaves fed it from below. The Extent of Cultivated Land.—This was much greater than one might be apt to imagine. It may be roughly tabulated thus :— Freemen ... 500,000 acres Socmen • ... 5^^)^^^ n Cottars and Bordars 250,000 „ Villeins 2,250,000 „ Lords in Demesne 1,500,000 „ Total ... 5,000,000 acres under plough, f.«., from one third to one-half the tillage land within the same area now. In the time of Edward the Confessor, the villeins and cottars held in villenage a good half of England, and they not merely cultivated that area, but, with the aid of the lords' slaves, the demesne lands of these gentry as well. In the Danelaga alone can there be said to have been free husbandry. Post-Domesday DeYelopments.— The Black Book a Knight CHAPTER VII. PAUPERISM AND PROTESTANTISM.— No. I. 1. Those owning the land own the occupants. 2. It were better that the hundreds should own one home each tjian that the one should own a hundred homes. 3. If none were allowed to own more land than they can use, all could have as much as they could use. — Ellis Smalley. The Land Question is the bottom question. Man is a land animal. — Henry George. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not he stolen from. — Thomas Carlyle. " I do a great deal to make you contented and happy," said a lord to his vassals. ' True, true !" said all, with one voice, *' and we have much to thank you for." One peasant only did not speak. At last he said, '• My Lord, will you allow me to ask you a ques- tion ?"" Why not ?" said the lord. Peasant : " I have two fields of wheat. One has been richly manured but badly cultivated. It is full of weeds. The other has been scantily manured but well tilled. It is as it should be. Which of the two will produce more ?*' Lord : '• The second, certainly, for you have given the corn the opportunity of developing freely." Peasant : " Well, my lord, if instead of loading us with gifts, you would leave us free to manage our own afifairs, I think we should prosper better." — Restalozzi. Results 01 Plantagenet Rule.— The Jack Cade Rebellion (1450) was closely follov^ed by the deadly Wars of the Roses. They lasted thirty years, from the first battle of St. Alban's (1455), to Bosworth Field (1485). They converted England into a perfect aceldama, and hardly a dozen specimens of our genuine ** Old Nobility " survived them. They form an 155 156 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. everlasting mtnument of monarchical and aristocratic cruelty and wickedness. Plantagenet was more fatal than Norman rule by a good many degrees. It was the policy of the Norman Kings to champion the rights of the invaluable class of old English Freemen — Libert Homines — who held their lands directly from the Crown. But this the Plan- tagenets, who owed their sceptres to the favour of the great nobles, were unable to do, however willing they might be. Hence it came to pass that at the close of the Wars of the Roses the freemen had nearly dis- appeared amid the general wreck of society. It is noteworthy that, while during the Norman Period (88 years) the annual increase of population was 14,003, under the Plantagenets (300 years) it was but 2,000! From the average comparative decrease, in this awful era of havoc, it is safe to infer that at least 3,600,000 lives were cut off by violence and brutal oppression out of the meagre population of about two millions and a half that then tenanted the land. The next great event to be dealt with is the Protes- tant Reformation, or more correctly, ** Devastation " (1536) ; but before treating of that disastrous episode it will be well briefly to indicate the tye^td of pre-Refor- mation legislation, so far as the toilers of England were concerned. Decay of Slavery and Serfdom. — To the influence of Christianity may be justly assigned the gradual abolition first of slavery and secondly of serfdom. Chattel -slavery having been formally condemned by Papal Bull, the Great, Council at Westminster, in 1102, followed suit* ''Leit no man," ran the enactment, ** for the future presmme to carry on the wicked trade of selling men in market like brute beasts, which hitherto hath been the common custom in England." But the ** common custom " long survived this humane statute. More than eighty years afterwards Giraldns Cambrensis tells us the Irish market was glutted with English slaves ; while we have it, on the authority of Hoveden, thai from William the Con^ THE ANNALS OF TOIL. I57 queror*s reign to King John's there was scarcely a cottage in Scotland without a Saxon thrall. It was not, indeed, till the reign of Charles II. that bond- age was wholly uprooted by statute in England, while in Scotland the serfdom ol colliers continued till 1775 (15 Geo. III., c. 28). It is noteworthy that, if Sir Thomas Smith's ** Com- monwealth " is to be believed, the great feudal lords were not the last to emancipate their serfs. <* Temporal men by little and little, by reason of that terror in their conscience, were glad to manumit all their villeins, but < the said Holy Fathers, with the Abbots and Priors, did not in like sort by theirs . . . and so kept them still." Some of the richest abbeys had as many as 2,000 villeins, who, however, enjoyed many privileges. Parliament and the "Free" Labourer. — Under slavery and feudalism, service for life implied re- ciprocal support for life. These systems were self- adjusting, and required no legislative intervention. But no sootier did wagedom or so called ** free labour" supersede serfdom or servile labour, than Parliament began to give the toilers much of its attention. The ** Classes," to their delight, discovered that " free " was cheaper than servile labour. The effect of emancipa- tion was to divide the workers everywhere into the fonr modern categories, wage-workers, beggars, thieves, and fros/i- tutes. Inherent in the new freedom was freedom io starve — a crueller instrument of torture, if ruthlessly applied, than the lash on the bare back. In a word, emancipation brought with it the fatal class of un- employed, <* the reserve army of labour," and all the terrible train of evils that to-day flow from competition for "wages" and competition for *' profit." To the **free" toiler, Parliament became pretty much what the Court of the Manor had been to the serf, only more arbitrary. It proceeded minutely to fix his wages, his clothing, his food, his hours of toil, etc. In 1350 the Statute of Labourers reduced the rate of wages by one half or more. It provided that, in future, carters, ploughmen, shepherds, swineherds, and other 158 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. servants should be content with such wages as pre- vailed previous to the Black Death of 1349. They were to be hired by the year and other custcttnary periods, and not by the day. In 1363 this principle was extended, and the Legisla- ture enacted that artizans and labourers shall be served once a day with meat and fish or the waste of other vic- tuals, as milk and cheese, according to their station. The clothing in use by yeomen and tradesmen must not exceed is. 6d. per yard. Carters, ploughmen, ox-herds, %hepherds and all others employed in husbandry must stick to *' black russet," not exceeding is. per yard. In 1388 the toilers were forbidden to remove from one locality to another, and in 1389 it was comprehen- sively enacted that, *' Forasmuch as a man cannot put the price of corn and other victuals in certain (piiv ce que homme ne purra mye mettre en certain le pns de hletz et autves vitaillesj, the Justices should, at Easter and Miqhaelmas, according to the price of provisions, make proclamatior^ how much every mason, carpenter, and other workman a«d labourer should receive by the day, as well as in harvest, as at other times of the year, with or without meat or drink.'' [It may here be interpolated as something to the credit of the clergy that they set a good example to the ** Classes " in respect of productive industry. The monks were the best horticulturists and agriculturists in the country. They made their own implements of hus- bandry. The great Thomas a Beket, Archbishop of Canterbury, in harvest, toiled in the fields like an ordinary monk. St. Dunstan excelled all his contem- poraries as a blacksmith — ^just as St. Paul, in his day, was, doubtless, a first-rate journeyman tent-maker.] In 1463 the apparel question was the subject of many complaints in the Commons, and it was decreed that yeomen and others under that degree should be disal- lowed ** bolsters " or other stuff in the doublets, except lining. No one under the degree of a gentleman should wear peaked boots exceeding eleven inches in length ! Persons of quality might alone use garments indecently THE ANNALS OF TOIL. IS9 short. Workers' cloth hosen (stockings and trowsers in one, worn by both sexes), were not to exceed I4d. in price. Belts must not be harnessed with ** silver.'* In 1496, II Henry VII., c. 22, after elaborately setting forth the scale of wages with and without diet, ordains that, by reason of ** late coming unto their work, early departing therefrom, long sitting at their breakfast, at their dinner and noon-meat^ and long time of sleeping at afternoon," every artificer and labourer shall be at work, from March to September, from five o'clock in the morning till seven in the evening ; that one hour shall be allowed for breakfast, an hour and a half for dinner and half an hour for noon-meat. In winter the hours were from ** springing of day " to dark, with but one hour for dinner, the additional half-hour allowed for sleep in summer being knocked off. In those days, employers being all powerful in the Legislature, without scruple fixed a minimum day's work and a maximum day's pay. Now it is the employes who, just beginning to get hold of the legislative machine, demand a maximum (eight hours' day) at a minimum day's pay. In order completely to turn the tables, the toilers will next have to settle by statute the capitalist's rate of interest, the brand of his wines, the quality of his cigars, the amount of Madam's pin money, the cost of her and the Misses' silks, satins, jewellery, etc. Origin of Pauperism. — We now come to touch on the most painful ingredient in the cup of the *' free " toiler or wage-earner — pavpevism. As slavery and serfdom waned pauperism grew— inevitably grew. In 1376 the Commons first took cognizance of a class unknown to slavedom or serfdom — ** beggars," *' staff-strikers " (cudgel-players), ** sturdy rogues," and "valliant vagabonds mighty in body." They were chiefly to be found in the towns where, under the new slavery (wagedom), there was for them "no work todoo-00," The faithful Commons were at first surprised and indignant at this new social phenomenon. The workless and foodlessman was unknown in the past. How to meet the emergency } Imprison him, said t he l60 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. wise Commons, till he consent to return home to work, and fine every one who habours runaway servants ten pounds for each offence, In 1378 and 1388 impotent beggars were treated with some consideration. If the towns or villages where they lived could not support them, they were to be taken to some other place in the hundred, rape, or wapentake, or to the place of their birth, where they were to be maintained for life. This is precisely the principle of the celebrated Act of Elizabeth (1601). % In 1391 it was decreed that a '* convenient sum of money be paid and distributed yearly of the fruits and profits of the said Churches, by those who shall have the said Churches, to the poor parishioners of said Churches." Neither did the legislators of those days fail to dis- cover the tap-root of the whole evil. They recognised that " man is a land animal," and that vagabonds ** valiant" and otherwise, are the inevitable product of landlordism. In 1488 they did their best to arrest the depopulation of the soil by passing an Act to prohibit the ** pulling down farmhouses to which at least twenty acres of land lying in tillage or hushundvie " were attached. The preamble of the Act (4 Henry VII. c 19) — an Act much applauded by Bacon — and followed by many similar enactments for a period of one hundred and fifty years, clearly shows that the era of rack- renting and cultivation for ** profit " or swag had already, alas, fully set in. It runs thus: — **The King remembe/ing that great inconveniences daily do increase by desolating and pulling down, and wilful waste of houses and towns, within this realm, and laying to pasture lands which customably have been used in tillage, whereby idleness, which is the ground and beginning of all mischiefs, doth daily increase. For where in some towns 200 persons were occupied, and lived by their lawful labours, now there are occupied two or three herdsmen, and the residue fall into idle- ness ; the husbandry, which is one of the greatest commodities of this realm, is greatly delayed ; churches THE ANNALS OF TOIL. l6l decayed ; the defence of the land against our enemies outward feebled and impaired." Impetus GiY'^n to Pauperism by Henry Yll. — The first Tudor, the victor of Bosworth field, came to the throne in the year 1485 with a fixed resolve to break up the Feudal System in so far as the maintenance of large bodies of armed retainers by the nobles was concerned. He was haunted by the feir of another Warwick., and, assuredly, it was about time that the blood-stained era of baronial *■ King-makers" should b^ brought to a close; but unfortunately, .in doing so, H^nry adminis- tered, perhaps unintentionally, a remedy which was even worse than the disease. The lands, originally granted on feudal tenure for the common defence, consisted, so to speak, of two funds, the one going to the baron or commander the other to the vassals or soldiers. Oa redistribution, the latter were clearly entitled to an equitable share, but as it was, the officers, as usual, made haste to claim every- thing, while the full privates got nothing at all but immediate and peremptory notice to quit. Here was a splendid opportunity last of rehabilitating the model class of the all but extinct " Freemen " or State Tenants, and all in vain did Henry and his more intimate advisers afterw irds endeavour by statute after statute to annul the dire effects of their stupendous error. The wool trade with continental Europe had made a single sheep worth a dozen men, and the men had to starve, steal or beg accordingly. Legislation could not undo the evil. Everywhere the nobles pulled down the homes of their ex-men-at-arms and let loose their sheep and cattle to devour their unfortunate vassals' scanty crops. It was futilely attempted to limit by law the number of sheep any individual pro- prietor might keep, but still the host of vagrants . multiplied and overran the land. Re peopling the Isle of Wight. — Only in one solitary instance was Henry's remedial legislation successful, but it deserves to be noted as an illustration of what M l62 THE ANNALS OF TOIL* might have been generally achieved but for the ruthless greed of the nobles. The Isle of Wight had been practically depopulated by landlord avarice and turned into a sheep-walk. But the Island, lying so near the French coast, was recognised by the Government as an indispensable outpost whose defence could not be left to a handful of herdsmen. It was accordingly enacted : — ** For remedy, it is ordered and enacted that no manner of person of what estate, degree, or condition so ever, shall tike any farm more than one, whereof the yearly rent ihall not exceed ten marks ; and if any several leases afore this time have been made to any persons of divers and sundry farmholds, whereof the yearly value shall exceed that sum, then the £t.id person or persons shall choose one farmhold at his pleasure, and the remnant of the leases shall be void." Let historian Froude tell us how this stringent en- actment operated. " The farmhouses were rebuilt, the land reploughed, the island re-peopled ; and in 1546, when the French army of 60,000 men attempted to effect a landing at St. Helen's, they were defeated by the militia, and a few levies transported from Hampshire and the surrounding counties," I ■ t^ PAUPERISM AND PROTESTANTISM— No, II. The Lord shall enter into judgment with the ancients of His people and the princes thereof ; for ye have eaten up the vineyards, the spoil of the poor is in your houses, What mean ye that ye beat my people to pieces and grind the faces of the poor ? — Isaiah. They remove the landmarks ; they violently take away flocks and feed thereof ; they drive away the ass of the fatherless, they take the widow's ox as a pledge ; they turn the needy out of the way ; and the poor of the earth hide themselves together, Behold as wild asses in the desert go they forth to their work, rising betimes for a prey : the wilderness yieldeth food for them and for their childrea. They reap every one his corn in the field; and they gather the vintage of the wicked. They cause the naked to lodge v^ithout clothing, that they have no covering in the cold. They are wet with the showers of the mountains, and embrace the rock for the want of a shelter. They pluck the fatherless from the breast, and take a pledge of the poor. They cause him to go naked without clothing, and they take away the sheaf from the hungry. — Job. Yet he (the rich robber) shall perish like his own dung ; they who have seen him shall say, " Where is he ?'* He shall fly away as a dream, and shall not be found ; yea, be shall be chased away as a vision of the night. The eye also which saw him shall see him no more ; neither shall hi-s place any more behold him. His children shall seek to please the poor and his hands shall restore their goods. — Ibid. He hath swallowed down riches and he shall vomit them up again. God shall cast them out of his belly. He shall suck the poison of asps ; the vipers tongue shall slay him. He shall not see the rivers, the floods, the brooks of honey and butter. That which he laboured for shall he restore, and shall not swallow it down ; ac- cording to his substance shall the restitution be, and he shall net rejoice therein. - Ibid. Recapitulation. — In last section, the legislative efforts of the ** Classae " to regulate the wages, the hours of 163 164 THE ANNALS Ob TOIL. labour,the diet, the clothing, etc., of the toihDg ^'Masses," in pre-Reformation times, were briefly recounted. It was also seen that, even in the Golden Age of Labour, the fifteenth century, when wages were unprecedentedly high and the price of commodities was unprecedentedly low, the phenomenon of pauperism from lack of employment had begun to perplex " Sovereigns and Statesmen." ** Impotent poor " as well as *' valiant vagabonds mighty in body " had begun to infest the land. Under slavedom and under serfdom Government had no such nuisances on its hands, and it was indignant that under wagedom, or the ** free " labour system, any trouble should arise. The ^' Classes " had hoped to escape all their old respon- sibility to the toilers for support in childhood, sickness, and senility, now that they had *' emancipated" their serfs, but found themselves entirely mistaken. They looked about for the cause of their disappointment, and, correctly enough discovered that there was a Land Question, and that landlordism, for the sake of increased rent was callously ** desolating " the country by convert- ing tillage land into pastoral land in such a manner as to render thousands homeless and workless. In vain they strove to arrest this fatal drain of popu- lation from country to town by legislative enactment. They foolishly tried to keep the toiler on the soil with- out giving him the soil to keep him there. They failed to see that whoever owns the land owns its occupants. Still they had a fairly clear, commonsense apprehension that the land exists for the use of all, and not for the profit of the few. To do them justice, they were before rather than behind the average Liberal candidate's agrarian confession of faith. Henry YIII. and the Reformation. — But an event was now at hand which aggravated tenfold the evils inherent in land monopoly and the wages system — to wit, the so-called ** Reformation." In the dyn- astic Wars of the Roses (1455- 1485), almost the whole of "our old nobility" had perished. These "barons bold" had been "peers of the King," and even occasionally " King-makers." There was conse- THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 165 quently now no check on the monarch's will, and England became an Autocracy pure and simple. Henry VIII., the offspring of the Roses, White and Red, ruled as an absolute prince, and yet he had the astuteness to commit nearly all his astounding crimes under the guise of Constitutionalism. His policy was to replace the self-immolated ** barons bold " by a gang of base creeping, fawning, parchment-made peers, capable of sanctioning and executing any villainy or criminal caprice that might enter his wilful and depraved mind. Hence it was that he was able to *' reform " the Church, and make himself Pope as well as King of England. But though his ** Reformation " is generally known as the Protestant Reformation, it was really nothing of the kind. Henry reformed no doctrine of the Church, or hardly any He merely robbed her of her posses- sions and divided them among the Russells, Caven- dishes, Cecils, and other ignoble minions whose descendants, or pretended descendants, cling tenaci-^ ously to the booty to this day. He was a schismatic,' not a heretic. Nay, save the mark ! was he not " Defender of the Faith " ? He had written a book against Luther, who, as early as 15 1 7, had begun to argue in favour of ** salvation by faith alone," and Luther, after calling him, by way of retort, such choice names as " a pig, an ass, a dunghill, the spawn of an adder, a basilisk, a lying buffoon dressed in a King's robes, a mad fool with a frothy mouth and a whorish face," had roundly told him : " You lie, you stupid and sacrilegious King." The Pope (Leo X-) naturally took a different view of the performance of the royal controversialist, and, writing to his ** most dear son. King Henry of England, Defender of the Faith," officially declared: ** We sit- ting in this Holy See, having with mature deliberation considered the business, with our brethren, do, with their unanimous counsel and consent, grant unto your Majesty, your heirs and successors, the title of De- fender of the Faith, which we do by these presents, l66 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. confirm unto you, commanding all the faithful to give your Majesty this title. ' In these circumstances, it was clearly not easy for Henry to embrace Lutheranism when he quarrelled with the Pope for refusing to divorce him from Queen Catherine in order to make way for Anne Boleyn. But there were other ways of avenging himself on Mother Church, and gratifying his royal lust at the same time. He resolved to make himself head of the Church in England, and being such, there could be no manner of difficulty about the divorce if he could but find a Chief Priest willing to execute his behests. Archbishop Cranmer. — Such an instrument was found to perfection in an impious hypocrite named Thomas Cranmer, whom he made Archbishop of Canterbury. This Right Rev. Father in God was a past-master in the solution of matrimonial diffi- culties. His personal experience, if not so large as Henry's, was, to say the least, peculiar. ** Before he became a priest," says Cobbett, " he had married. After he became a priest and had taken the oath of celibacy, he married another wife while the first was still alive. Being the Primate of Henry's Church, which still forbade the clergy to have wives, and which held them to their oath of celibacy, he had his wife brought to England in a chest with holes bored in it to to give her air. As the cargo was destined for Canter- bury, it was landed at Gravesend, where the sailors, not apprised of the contents of the chest, set it up on end, the wrong end downwards, and had nearly broken the neck of the poor from. There was a pretty scene ! A German fvow, with a litter of half-German, half- English young ones, kept in huggermugger on the spot which had been the cradle of (Roman) Christianity ! " With the elevation of Thomas Cranmer to the throne of St. Augustine, the *' Reformation" had fairly begun. In April, 1533, the Right Reverend Father in God be- came seriously alarmed for the safety of the King's soul. He besought the Defender of the Faith to allow him to try the question of divorce. To continue to live longer THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 167 in "incestuous intercourse " was too hazardous. Per- mission, needless to say, was graciously granted, with the result that Catherine was promptly unwifed, and Anne Boleyn, who was with child, declared to have been lawfully wedded to the Defender of the Faith several months before. The ** incestuous intercourse," about which Henry and Cranmer were so sensitive, came in, in this way. Catherine had been married to Arthur, Henry's elder brother, a weakly boy who died in his sixteenth year and possibly before the consummation of his nuptials. She was nominally, therefore, the widow of a deceased brother ; but Rome had readily given a dispensation for marriage with Henry, and of its entire ecclesiastical validity there can be no earthly doubt. Anyhow, Henry's scruple as to ** incestuous inter- course" was not a little remarkable if the following statement in Dr. Bayley's " Life of Bishop Fisher" comes within a measurable distance of the truth. When Lady Boleyn, Anne's mother, learned the King's de- termination to marry her daughter, she appealed to him in horror : '* Sir, for the reverence of God, take heed what you do in marrying my daughter, for, if you record your own conscience well, she is yotcr own daughte/ as well as mine.'' To which the King, who had previously debauced Mary Boleyn, Anne's elder sister, emphatically replied^: '* Whose daughter soever she be, she shall be my wife." Anne Boleyn. — But I am far less concerned with the flagitious motives of the vile instruments of the " Re- formation " than with the disastrous influence of that event on the welfare of the toilers. Suflice it, therefore, to summarise the proximate causes of the ** Reforma- tion" by relating the fate of Anne Boleyn, its chief author. In 1536, the Defender of the Faith accused her of conjugal infidelity with four paramours, of whom her own brother was one. Rightly or wrongly, all suffered shameful deaths, the indispensable Cranmer, as usual, doing his share of the work most thoroughly l68 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. On 15th May, 1536, Anne was condemned to death as the King's wife, on the lyth Cranmer declared officially that she had never been his wife at all ; and on the 19th she was executed as the King's unfaithful wife ! On the 19th, also, the King, appropriately to mark so auspicious an occasion, went gaily to hunt in Epping Forest. As he sat at breakfast, he listened for the signal gun which should announce Anne's death. On hearing it, he joyfully started up, exclai.ming : *' Ha ; it is done ! the business is done ! Uncouple the dogs and let us follow the sport." In the evening he banqueted, ostentatiously dressed in white as a token fo rejoicing. On the following day, the 20th, he married Lady Jane Seymour, and imm e diately set about '* reforming " the Church in good earnest, as will be seen later on. Assuredly, if ever there was an institution conceived in sin and born in iniquity, it is the ** Church of England as by law established." PAUPERISM AND PROTESTANTISM.— No. III. If there be amoi^ you a poor man of one of thy brethren, within any of thy gates, in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, thou shall not harden thine heart nor shut thine hand from thy poor brother : But thou shalt open thy hand wide uftto him and shalt surely lend him sufficient for his need, in that which he wanteth. Beware that there be not a thought in your wicked heart, saying : The seventh year, the year of release is at hand : and thine eye be evil against thy poor brother, and thou givest him nought, and he cry unto the Lord against thee, and it be sin unto thee. Thou shalt surely give him, and thine heart shalt not be grieved when thou givest him ; because for that thing the Lord thy God shall bless thee in all thy works and all thou piattest thy hand unto. — Deuteronomy. Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees and that write greviousness which they have prescribed. To turn aside the needy from judgment, and to take away the right from the poor of my people, that widows may be their prey, and that they may rob the fatherless. — Isaiah. Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this : — To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world. — St. James. The Roman Catholic Church and the Poor. — In pre- Reformation times the Catholic Church was the custodian ©f the poor. Even the tithes of the secular clergy, as distinguished from the regular or monastic, were not theirs to use as they had a mind. The following Episcopal Canon of the See of York may be taken as a fair specimen of the general practice : — ** Let the priests receive the tithes of the people, and keep a written account of all that have paid them ; and divide them, in the presence of such as fear God, ac- 169 170 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. cording to canonical authority. Let them set apart the first share for the repairs and ornaments of the Church, let them distribute the second to the poor and the stranger with their own hands in mercy and humility ; and reserve the third for themselves." In his ** Law of the Common Pleas " Baron Gilbert's description of the Catholic distribution of tithes is identical with the above. ** The revenues of the Church consisting of various descriptions of tithes, were divided thus : — One third part was taken by the priest as his own : another third part was applied to the relief of the poor ; and the other third part to the building and re- pair ofthe Church." That the parish poor did not always receive their due we learn from a Statute of Richard IL, 1392, com- pelling the monasteries, where they held the advow- sons, to make permanent provision for their relief. The Act awards, ** according to the value of sucii churches, a convenient sum of money, to be paid and distributed yearly, of the fruits and profits of the same churches, by those that shall have the said churches in proper use, and by their successors, to the poor parish- ioners of the said churches, in aid of their living and sustenance for ever ; and also that the vicar be well and sufficiently endowed." It will here be noted that the n^A/ of the poor comes before the right of the parish priest, who is sharply admonished in an Act of Henry IV., 1403, that his business is to *' perform divine service, to inform the people, and to practise hospitality, '' The Monasteries. — We come next to the Monastic Orders. At the time of the Reformation they numbered some 50,000 souls. They had enormous possessions, nearly one half of available England, and were the only ''good" landlords in the country. They gave long leases to their numerous tenants at very easy rents, and they evicted no one. They maintained the poor on their own lands in comfort, and entertained and relieved the wandering outcast. Whatever may have been their faults, they were not like the nobles, de- populators and " desolators " of the soil. In a word, THE ANNALS OF lOIL. I7I they lived— too well, it may be- but they let live, and were not niere profitmon^ers. Of the Monasteries and other kindly Houses of Hospitality there were, in England and Wales, some 1,300, or about twenty-five, on an average, to each of the fifty-two counties. When Henry VHL, now Pope Henry, in 1536 resolved to break up these great insti- tutions, and scatter their inmates, it is pretty clear that he foresaw the dire inevitable consequences to the poor, and made some pretence to provide against them. In nearly all the first grants of the sites and lands of the dissolved houses, it was stipulated that the vile grantees — the Cecils, Cavendishes, and Russells, to wit — should, so far as the local poor and the indigent traveller were concerned, step into the shoes of the ejected monks, and **keep an honest continous house and household in the same precinct." What provision the "reforming" crew of nobles actually did make for the unfortunates, whose patrimony they seized, will be seen by-and-by. But even Henry himself was astounded at their unappeasable rapacity. '* By our Lady," he exclaimed to Cromwell, Earl of Essex, his "Vicar-General," "the cormorants when they have got the garbage, devour the dish." The Vicar-General obsequiously observed that the work of plunder was then incomplete. "Tut, man," said the King, "the whole realm would not staunch their maws." Thomas Cromwell, *'Yicar General."— It may here be well to interpolate a word or two about this precious " Vicar-General " and " Vicegerent " of Old Harry's. Thomas Cromwell, Cranmer, and Henry Blue- beard are the three great pillars of the English Reforma- tion : but to say which of the three was the greatest scoundrel, passeth the wit of man. Thomas Cromwell was the son of a Putney blacksmith. He had a sister who, after his death, married a certain Welshman named Morgan Williams. This man, it is said, assumed the name of Cromwell, and was the great-great grandfather of the arch-liberticide, Oliver Cromwell, the Puritan Bonaparte of the Enghsh Commonwealth, whose real 172 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. character I shall endeavour to bring out somewhat later on. Suffice it to say that, of all the tools in the hands of despots of whom I ever heard or read, this Thomas Cromwell seems to be the most odious. He was equal to any crime, from stealing convent spoons to procuring that any person to whom the tyrant might take umbrage should be put to death without hearing or trial. It was at Cromwell's instigation that Parliament decreed that Henry's proclamations should have the force of law ! He was directly, or indirectly, the murderer of many innocent men and women, and, though he was neither g^uilty of the heresy nor the treason for which he eventually suffered, yet assuredly was his fate most just and appropriate. And when he tumbled headlong into the pit which he had dug for others, the remorseless and sanguinary wretch howled in vain for the mercy which he had never shown to others. During the forty- eight hours he was under arrest he employed his time in writing letters the most abject to Henry, whose smiles and frowns he compared to those of the Almighty ! He besought the King to suffer him *' to kiss his balmy hand once more, that the fragrance thereof might make him fit for heaven ! " "Yaliant Yagabonds." — But it was not noble Earls alone, like Thomas Cromwell, that Old Harry ** made fit for heaven." His ** reforming " zeal soon filled the whole land with "sturdy rogues" and "valiant vagabonds mighty in body." With the dissolution of the monasteries /^^//msw?, hitherto more or less manage- able, forthwith came in like a flood. Harrison, a quaint old Eliz abethan writer, distinguishes between no fewer than twenty-three orders of vagabonds, four- teen male and nine female. Among the former were " Rufflers," " Uprightmen," " Pransers," " Paliiards," " Abrams," and " Patricoes " ; among the latter, "Baudie Baskets," "Walking Mortes," " Doxes," " Delles," and " Kinching Cooes." They had a lan- guage of their own — "a speech compact thirty years since of English and a great number of odd words of their own devising, which they named Canting, The TiiE ANNALS OF TOIL. I73 first deviser thereof was hanged by the neck, a just reward, no doubt, for his deserts, and a common end to all of that profession." The " common end " was in this wise. *' The rogue being apprehended, committed to prison, and tried in the next assizes, if he happen to be convicted for a vagabond either by inquest of office or the testimony of two honest and credible witnesses upon their oaths, he is then immediately adjudged to be grievously whipped and burned through the gristle of the right ear with a hot iron of the compass of an inch about, as a mani- festation of his wicked life and due punishment received for the same. If he be taken the second time, and be proved to have forsaken service, he shall then be whipped again, bored Hke^vise through the other ear, and set to service; whence, if he depart before a year be expired,, and happen aftewards to be attached again, he is condemned to suffer pains of death as a * felon,' without benefit of clergy or sanctuary, as by the statute doth appear." "Cheerful deaths" and Plenty of Them— Yet the English '' felon," it would appear, according to Harrison, being a true-born English ** felon," was exceptionally privileged. "To use torment, or question by pain and torture, is greatly abhorred, since we (Englishmen) are found always to be such as despise death, and yet abhor to be tormented, choosing rather frankly to open our minds than to yield our bodies imto such servile halings and tearirgs as are used in other countries. And this is one cause whereof our con- demned persons do go so cheerfully to their deaths, for our nation is free, stout, haughty, prodigal of life and * blood,' as Sir Thomas Smith saith (Lib. II., cap. 25 * De Republica '), and therefore cannot in anywise digest to be used as villains and slaves in suffering continually beating, servitude, and servile torments." " Oh ! wad some power the giftie gie us To see ourselves as ithers see us ! " 4s regards the number of ** cheerful deaths " effected 174 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. among the outcast poor by the Tudors, Harrison gives us some notion : — **Our third annoy ers of the Commonwealth are rogues, who do very great mischief in all places where they come. . . . For there is not one year com monly wherein 300 or 400 ot them are not devoured and eaten up by tiie gallows in one place or other. It appeareth by Cordam (temp. Edward VI.) how Henry VII I., executing his laws very severely against such idle persons, did hang up three score and twelve thousand of them (72,000) in his time. He seemed for a while greatly to have terrified the rest ; but smce his death the number of them is so increased, that except some better order be taken, or the laws already made be better executed, such as dwell in the uplandisli towns or little villages shall live but m small safety and rest." " Beggars by their Own or Others' Default."— But with all his prejudices, this quaint chronicler was not without a certain inkling that ** The Land Question is the bottom question." He says : — ** Idle beggars are such either through other men's occasion or their own default. By other men's occa- sion (as one way, for example), when some covetous man, such, I mean, as have the castor right veine, daily to make beggars enough whereby to pester the land, espying a further commodity in their commons, holds and tenures, doth find such means as thereby to wipe many out of their occupyings, and turn the same into his private gains. Hereupon it followeth that, although the wise and better minded do either forsake the realm for altogether, and seek to Uve in other countries, as France, Germany, Barbary, India, Muscovy, and * verie Calecute,' complaining of no room being left for them at home, or do so behave themselves that they are worthily to be accounted among the second sort ; yet the greater part having commonly nothing to stay upon, are wilful, and thereupon do either prove idle beggars or else con- tinue stark thieves till the gallows do eat them up, which is a lamentable case. THE ANNALS OF TOIL. I75 "Certes, in some men's judgments these things are but trifles and not worth regarding. Some also do grudge at the great increase of people in these days, thinking a necessary brood of cattle far better than a superfluous augmentation of mankind. . . . But if it should come to pass that any foreign invasion should be made (which the Lord God forbid for His mercy sake !), then should these men find that a wall of men is far better than stacks of corn and bags of money, and com- plain of the want when it is too late to seek remedy. The like occasion caused the Romans to devise their law Agrana ; but the rich not liking of it, and the covetous utterly condemning it as rigorous and unprofitable, never ceased to practise disturbance till it was quite abolished Impetus GiYen to Pauperism by Henry YIIL— Henry VHI's Agrarian legislation was far more culp- able than his father's, and its consequences were much more aggravated. There was some shadow of an excuse for Henry VII. permitting the barons who held their lands from the Crown by military tenure to appro- priate these bodily when they were ordered by the King to dismiss their military retainers. It is indeed possible that the baronial malefactors were too power- ful to be dealt with on any other terms. But with the Conventual Lands and the vile crowd of abject sycophants on whom Henry VIII. bestowed them it was wholly different. The Cecils, Russels, Cavendishes & Co., were all fawning cowardly Courtiers who deserved the halter a thousand times over more than the industrious tillers of the soil whom they ruth- lessly dispossessed first and hanged afterwards in order to make room for quadrupeds whose market value was greater. If Henry VII reluctantly missed a notable chance of re-constituting the ** Freemen " — the Libert Homines — of older and far better days, what can be said to mitigate our reprobation of Henry VIII., the most absolute Monarch that ever reigned in England, who deliberately followed in a path which he well knew from experience could end in nothing but the 176 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. of the disinherited untold degradation and misery " Masses " of his subjects ? One cannot but marvel how, in the providence of a just God, such a colossal miscreant, as the second Tudor should have been permitted to die quietly in his bed. But from the first it has been so. Society has alwaj's wasted its time in the prosecution of petty criminals while the great ones — the really '' dangerous class " of Tudors, Cecils, Russels and Cavendishes — go their way unwhipped of justice. How long, O Lord ? How long ? PAUPERISM AND PROTESTANTISM.— No. IVo Famine is in thy cheeks, Need and oppression stareth in thine eyes, Upon thy back hangs ragged misery ; The world is not thy friend, nor the world's law ; The world affords no law to make thee rich ; Then be not poor, but break it. — Shakespeare. When he can hide the sun with a blanket, and put the moon in his pocket, I'll pay him rent. — Ibid. A fig for those by law protected ! Liberty's a glorious feast ; Courts for cowards were erected, Churches built to please the priest. — Burns. "Foolish Pitie and Mercy."— In last section it was recorded that Henry VIII. hanged 72,000 ** sturdy rogues '' {i,e,, unemployed) in his day. The popu- lation of England and Wales cannot then have much exceeded two millions and a half. Hence it is easy to comprehend the dread significance of old Harrison's grim phrase — *' devoured and eaten up by the gallows." And yet we learn from sundry statutes that there was reprehensible slackness in the adminis- tration of **law and order." In the first year, (1547) of the reign of Edward VI., the *' Sainted Young Solo- mon,' we learn from the preamble of an Act directed against " idleness and vagabondrie " that *' ihe godly Acts which had hitherto been framed on the subject had not had the success which might have been wished," <:hiefly by reason of the ** foolish pitie and mercy of 1^77 178 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. those who should have seen the said godly laws executed." These foolishly pitiful persons had seemingly forgotten that, if ** the vagabonds who were unprofitable members, or rather enemies, of the Commonwealth were punished by death, whipping, imprisonment, and other corporal pains, it were not without their deserts," inasmuch as they were of ** perverse nature," and ** given to loitering." The "Sainted Young Solomon's Godly Act."— The ** Sainted Young Solomon " and his " reforming' guardians and advisers accordingly enacted (ist Edward VI., c. 3) : ** That if any man or woman able to work should refuse to labour, and live idly for three days, he or she should be branded with a red-hot iron on the breast with the letter V, and should be adjudged the slaves for two years of any person who should inform against such idler. And the master was directed to feed his slave with bread and water or small drink, and such refuse meat as he should think proper ; and to cause his slave to work by beating, chaining, or other- wise in such work and labour [how vile so ever it he) as he should put him unto." Then, as for the penalty for running away: ** If he runs away from his master for the space of fourteen days, he shall become his slave for life, after being branded on the forehead or cheek with the letter S ; and if he runs away a second time, and shall be convicted thereof by two sufficient witnesses, he shall be taken as a felon, and s>\x^er pains of death, as other felons ought to do." After thus providing the ** pains of death," for the hardened *' loiterer," it is a matter of no surprise that masters should be empowered '* to sell, bequeath, let out for hire, or give the service of their slaves to any person whomsoever, upon such condition, and for such term of years as the said persons be adjudged to him for slaves, after the like sort and manner as he may do of any Other his moveable goods and chattels." A subsequent clause of this ** godly" Act ordains that ** Although there be no man that shall demand THE ANNALS OF TOIL. I79 such loiterer or loiterers, yet, nevertheless, Justices of the Peace shall be bound to inquire after such idle persons ; and, if it shall appear that such have been vagrant for the space of three days, he shall be branded with a V made with an hot iron ; and shall be conveyed to the place of his birth, there to be nourished and kept in chains or otherwise, either at the common works in mending highways or in the service of individuals, after all such former condition, space of years, orders, punish- ments for running away, as are expressed of any common or private person to whom such loiterer is adjudged a slave." *' For a more knowledge or surety of the keeping of him" (the loiterer) the master was authorised to ''put a ring of iron about the neck, arm, or leg of his slave," at his discretion. To give a false place of nativity was punished thus : — ** If vagabonds are carried to places of which they have falsely declared themselves to be natives, then for such they shall be marked in the face with an S, and be slave to the inhabitants or Corporation of the town, city, or village where he said he was born in, for ever." Harrison, it will be remembered, noted with the pride of a true-born Englishman how " ow;' condemned persons go so clieerfuUy to their deaths," but this genial statute affords some evidence that the " loiterers " did not uniformly submit to the branding iron, fetters and halters without an occasional protest: "If any such slave, or slaves, so adjudged, shall, at any time after such judgment, maim or wound their masters or mistresses in resisting their correction or otherwise ; or when they be manumitted or set again free, or, in the time of their service, shall conspire with one another, or by themselves go about to murder and kill or maim their masters and mistresses, or to burn their houses, barns, or corn, so that their intent come to an act tending to the effect, they should likewise be accounted felons, unless some person would take such offender into their service as a slave for ever." In this Act may be seen, as in a mirror, the rueful l80 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. form of the Sixteenth Century toiler, robbed of every attribute of manhood by King, Parliament, and Land- lord, and driven forth from his little heritage, like some guiltless Cain, with a brand of infamy on his brow. The " Merrie England " of the Fifteenth Century — when '* every mhabitant (Chief Justice Sir John Fortescue) was at his liberty fully lo use and enjoy whatever his farm produceth, the fruits of the earth' the increase of his flock, and the like ; all the improve- ments he makes are his own, to use and enjoy without let, interruption, or denial of any — " — was, alas ! no more. Protests of Bishop Latimer and Sir Thomas More. — Good and great men like Bishop Latimer and Sir Thomas More bewailed and protested, but protested in vain. Latimer, whose boyhood had lain in the golden age of English toil, lived to lament a *^ monstrous and portentous dearth, made by man, notwithstanding God doth sent us plentifully the fruits of the earth, contrary to our deserts." " If you do not remedy the evils which produce thieves,'' urged Sir Thomas More, *' the rigor- ous execution of justice in punishing thieves will be in vain. . . . Away (the evicted) trudge out of their known and accustomed houses, finding no place to rest in. For one shepherd or herdman is enough to eat up that ground with cattle to the occupying whereof about husbandry many hands were requisite. And this is also the cause why victuals be now in many places dearer." Latimer similarly bewailed the rapacity of *' rich men " as causing such ** dearth that poor men (who live by their labour) cannot with the sweate of their face have a living, all kinds of victuals is so dear — pigs, geese, capons, chickens, eggs, etc. — these things with others are so unreasonable enhanced." Insurrection of the Brothers Kett (1549).— But what, it may be asked, had become of the stout peasantry who marched with Wat Tyler and Jack Cade to Blackheath ? Had they left behind them none to play the part of men in times so much more grievous than their own ? Not exactly, for in the period 1536-1568 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. iSl the '* valiant vagabonds " repeatedly rose in arms under leaders of greater or less note. Among the most prominent of these were the brothers Kett, scions of an ancient Norman family whose name varied from Le Chat, Cat and Kett to the modern Knight. The Nor- folk branch of this house had been landowners in the county since 1483 at least and, though Robert and William are contemptuously described as ** tanner'* and ** butcher " respectively, there can be no doubt that they were ** gentlemen of England " of the best stamp. At the outbreak of the revolt Robert held the manor of Wymondham and he and his three brothers were eminently popular in the little town. They sym- pathised with the ** poor folk " whose sore plight Froude depicts thus : '* The peasant whose pigs and cow and poultry had been sold, or had died, because the commons were gone where they had fed — the yeoman dispossessed of his farm — the farm-servant out of employ, because where ten ploughs had turned the soil one shepherd now watched the grazing of flocks — the artizan smarting under the famine prices which the change of culture had brought with it ; all these were united in suffering : while the ** gentlemen " were doubling, trebling, quadrupling their incomes with their sheep-farms and adorning their persons and their houses with splendour hitherto un- known." In June 1549, land-enclosing of an unusually exas- peratmg character led to a riot at Atleborough and the Ketts presently came to the front. Robert took com- mand of the disaffected and led them first to Cringleford and then to Bowthorpe where the Sheriff, Sir Edmund Wyndham, ordered them to disperse, at their peril. He speedily, however, found it convenient to lower his tone and to take refuge within the walls of Norwich. Kett encamped on Household Hill with a following sixteen thousand strong and the word was passed to blockade Norwich and level all manner of obnoxious fences and park palings throughout Norfolk. The strictest order was maintained in Household Camp l82 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. where Kett himself sat under a mighty oak — the '* Tree of Reformation " — to dispense justice. There the ** gentlemen " charged with robbmg the poor were brought before him and convicted of land-theft and other enormities. Not a single life, however, was forfeited, but under a warrant, signed by Kett and fifty others, the county houses of the robbers were every- where entered and ample store of arms, provisions and herds ot sheep and cattle secured for use at the leaguer on Household Heath. There 20,000 sheep with ** in- finite beefs " swans, hinds, ducks, capons, pigs and deer were consumed, distribution being made on the strictest principles of Communism. On July 2ist a royal herald offered the** rebels" a free pardon. Kett, though almost morbidly averse to bloodshed, replied with firmness and dignity : '* Kings are wont to pardon wicked persons, not innocent and just men.'' Nine years previously (1540) another popular leader, John Walker of Grimston, had explicitly advocated landlord extermination : ** Let us kill them, yea, even their children in their cradles : it were a good thing if there were so many gentlemen in Norfolk as there be white bulls." But the Kett Manifesto or *' Complaints " of 1549 strike a loftier key-note : The Kett " Complaints." — ** They (the landlords) have now arrived at such a height of cruelty and covetousness, that not content with seizing everything, and getting all they can by fraud or force to spend on pleasure and effeminate indulgences, they have sucked the very blood out of our veins, and the marrow out of our bones. The commons which were left by our fore- fathers for the relief of ourselves and our fam.ilies are taken from us ; the lands, which in the remembrance of our fathers were open, are now surrounded with hedges and ditches ; and the pastures are enclosed so that no one can go upon them. The birds of the air, the fish of the sea, and all the fruits so unsparingly brought forth by the earth, they look upon as their own, and consequently use them as such. But what is the condition of the poor all this time ? What is our food ? THE ANNALS OF TOIL. :|83 Herbs and roots, and thankful may we be if, by incessant labour, we can get even these. Thankful ! that we may, for they are vexed we can live and breathe the common air, or look up to the glorious sky without first asking and obtaining their permission. We cannot any longer endure injuries so great and cruel. We will sooner betake ourselves to arms and mix heaven and earth with confusion, than submit to such attrocities. What we want is liberty, and the power in common with our superiors of enjoying the gifts of Nature. It is true our wish may not be gratified, but this one thing is certain, our attempt to obtain it will end only with our lives." At the storming of Norwich the assailants exhibited the utmost intrepidity. The very boys plucked the arrows from their flesh and handed them to the archers to be returned on the garrison. And when they triumphed their moderation was as marked as their valour. They carried off nothing to the Camp on Household Hill, except arms and ammunition. Presently Parr, Marquis of Northampton, appeared on the scene with a Royalist force consisting oiF the personal retinues of the nobles of the Privy Council, supported by a contingent of Italian Mercenaries, They contrived to secure a footing in the town but Kett again led his men to the assault, slew Lord Sheffield, and drove them out, the Italians sustaining heavy loss. Northampton fled for his life. On this occasion some pillage of the wealthier shopkeepers took place ; but the booty was afterwards made up in bundles and contemptuously flung back into the shops. The Privy Council, now seriously alarmed, dispatched John Dudley, Earl of Warwick against the ** rebels" with a well-equipped force. He managed to blow up the City Gates, and after a stubborn fight to capture sixty insurgents in the Market-place. These he hanged on the spot with a savagery worthy of the '* classes " he represented. Reinforced by a thousand German lanzknechts Warwick next felt strong enough to attack the insurgent camp at Household and in an evil hour 184 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. Kett was induced to forego the advantage of his position and expose his brave but ill-disciplined followers at Dussingdale, in the open below. They were cut in pieces, some 3,500 slain, and Kett and his three brothers taken prisoners. Only Robert and William were adjudged traitors. The one was hanged in chains from the turret of Norwich Castle, the other from the Church tower of Wymondham.* The battle over the " gentlemen" naturally thirsted for indiscriminate slaughter ; but Warwick restrained their fury. Did they want he asked them ** to be plow- men themselves, and harrow their own lands ?" They understood the point and desisted ; but yet, strange to say, the ** rebels " were not grateful ; for does not reverend antiquary Blomefield assure us that *'the rebellious stomach of the common people was not so soon brought down as their camp was dispersed " and that with inexcusable perversity they continued to *^ bare an inveterate hatred against the Earl (Warwick the clement) because of his victory ?" O, stony-hearted ** common people" who could have believed it of you ! * In 1589 Robert's grandson, a clergymaD, was burned alive for heresy. He was pronounced a " dangerous person " like his grand- father and died with a heroism worthy of the name of Kett, PAUPERISM AND PROTESTANTISM.— No. V. The State is bound to supply the necessities of the aged, the sick, and the orphan. The riches of the State arise from the labour ot the people. Therefore, the State owes to every citizen a proper nourishment, convenient clothing, and a kind of life not incom- patible with health. — Montesquieu. God has not left one man so to the mercy of another that he may starve him if he please. God, the Lord and Father of all, has given no one of His children such a property in his pecuUar portion of the things of this world, but that he has given his needy brother aright to the surplusage of his goods, and, therefore, no man could ever have a just power over the life of another by right of property in land or possessions, — John Locke. Every Englishman may claim a right to abide in his own country so long as he pleases, and not to be driven from it except by sentence of the law. But if one landlord ha/e a right to drive all the people from his estate, every other landlord has the same right ; and a^ every piece of the land in the island is held by one landlord or other, and as all would have the same right as the first driver, all the people, except the landlords, might be driven into the sea. — Blackstone. The Great Plague and the Great Fire. — Deterioration in the condition of the workers now proceeded at a rapid pace. As wealth accumulated men decayed. The prices of commodities went up, while wages were forcibly held down by Act of Parliament. In 1495 an ordinary artizan could purchase, with his wages, 199 pints of wheat; in 1593, 82 pints; and in 1610 only 46. This signifies that, in the reign of the first Stuart, James I., the worker could obtain only one-fourth of the necessaries 185 l86 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. and comforts of life within the reach of his predecessor in the time of the first Tudor, Henry VII. Calamity on calamity was heaped on the disinherited poor. They were '* devoured and eaten up by the gallows " on the one hand, and scourged by pestilence on the other. In 1603, no fewer than 36,000 persons were swept off in London. Twenty years later about the same number perished, while in 1636 and 1665 (the year of the Great Plague) the capital lost respectively 10,000 and 68,500 of its inhabitants. Indeed, up to the eighteenth century, so enormous was the mortality of all the large towns that the deaths seem greatly to have exceeded the births. Nor is this to be wondered at when the inconceivably filthy habits of the townsmen are taken into account. The streets and open sewers were polluted and noisome beyond measure. The very floor of the ordinary Englishman's house, as Erasmus describes it, was one mass of putres- cence. In 1666, occurred the mighty conflagration which destroyed the City of London. It was a blessing in disguise. At any rate, after that event, the Plague languished, and in 1679 ^^ finally disappeared trom the bills of mortality. Plunder of the Trade -Guilds. — But fresh miseries were in store for the poverty-stricken people. Henry VIII. squandered the enormous estates and treasures of the conventual institutio is in an incredibly short time — ** hurled them away in the wanton waste of his bound- less extravagance." The national income, chiefly from land, was then about four millions per annum, and from one-third to one-half of this amount, including the entire interest and patrimony of the poor in their native soil he dissipated among the Russels, Cavendishes, Cecils, and other Court minions who backed the " Reforma- tion." There remained, however, other subjects of pillage. There were the Trade-Guilds to plunder. These existed even before the Conquest. They had gradually acquired property, charters and guild-halls, wherever craftsmen congregrated. A craft-brother would bequeath house and lands to found a school, or THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 187 hospital, it might be, leaving the surplus income, if any, to the discretion of the Guild. The Guild-managers exacted apprenticeship fees and fees for taking up free- dom by inheritance, servitude, or purchase. These funds and numerous benefactions for the lending of money without usury to the poorer brethren, for appren- ticing poor boys and girls, for bestowing marriage- portions, and for pensioning widows and aged craftsmen, the Guild-managers carefully husbanded. But unfor- tunately forthe Guilds, many of the bequests of members provided for masses and other spiritual functions, and this afforded Henry and the '^ Reformers " a pretext for wholesale robbery. The Guild estates, like the Abbey propert}^ were condemned on the plea of ** super- stitious uses." In the last year but one of the tyrant's reign, an Act was passed by both Houses of Parliament confiscating at a blow the estates of the Guilds, those of the City of London alone excepted, and had Henry not died before the enactment could be carried out, it is highly probable that the Universities and Public Schools would have shared the same fate. As it was the loss to the skilled artizan was incal- culable. He no longer had a Benefit Society to fall back on in the hour of need. Loans without usury were at an end. His Pension Fund was swept into the all- devouring Exchequer, and he had soon nothing but the starvation wages decreed by the Justices in Quarter Sessions to rely on. Debasement of the Currency. — Nor was this the worst. Henry had laid yet another rod in pickle for the galled back of the toiler. In 1543 he flagitiously debased the currency to the extent of two ounces of alloy in twelve of genuine metal. In 1545 the debasement was six ounces in twelve, and in 1546 it was eight ounces. In 1551 Edward the Sixth's Guardians even went further, issuing a vile mixture of nine parts alloy to three of silver. The shilling was then worth about 2jd. In 1560 Queen Elizabeth had to call in 632,ooolbs. of this base coin ; but the evil was l88 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. done, and its economic effects have survived the removal of the cause even to this day. Says Thorold Rogers, in his invaluable Work and Wages: — ** The issue of base money is rapidly and irremediably mischievous. It affects all except those - who are quick at measuring the exact extent of the fraud, and by turning base coin into an article of traffic, can trade on the knowledge and skill they possess. To the poor, and, indeed, to all who live by wages and fixed salaries, it is speedily ruinous. The effect of Henry's and Edward's base money, though it lasted only sixteen years, was potent enough to dominate in the history of labour and wages from the sixteenth century to the present time." While wages rose from i to ij, prices rose from i to 2j. In other words, if the worker received gd. instead of 6d. a day in wages, he had to pay for meat, bread, and butter, or cheese, not is., as heretofore, but 3s., 2S. 5d., and 2s. 6d. respectively. And, as if to ensure and render perpetual for all time such infamous frauds and robberies of the toilers, the Royal Bluebeard in 1546, for the first time in the history of Christian England, gave statutory sanction to the crime of Usury. That mystery of iniquity, condemned alike by all moralists of eminence, whether Pagan or Christian, I dealt with pretty exhaustively in my two little works. The Old Order and the New^ and The Gospel of the Poor, which, I am glad to say, have secured recognition, incommensurate indeed with the vital importance of the subject, but greatly beyond my most sanguine expectation. Having therem said my say on the topic, I cannot, at present, do more than refer the reader for further information, to said booklets. Anti-Combination Laws. — It was now possible for the first time in two centuries, to give full effect to the Statute of Labourers, That Act had been amended, re- affirmed, and intensified on many occasions ; but in spite of chains, the branding-iron, slavery, and»>;the gallows, it had signally failed to keep down wages. The economic position of the toiler was too strong THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 189 to be forced by any political enactment. But now it was as weak as water, and he went to the wall at once. Stripped by the Government of every vestige of property in lands and goods, he had to choose between actual starvation and virtual slavery. Need we wonder that for the next three hundred years he suc- cumbed to the latter ? Besides, could not recalcitrant workmen be legislatively punished for ** combination concerning their work or wages "? Accordingly, as early as 1549 (Edward VI., 2-3, c, 15), it was enacted that workers daring to combine in their own interest should, for a first offence, be fined £\o or twenty days' imprison- ment on bread and water ; for a second offence, £10 or the pillory ; and for a third delinquency, £\6^ the pillory, the loss of one ear, and judicial infamy. This precious enactment was confirmed by Charles II., and remained the law of the land till the general repeal of nearly all such restrictions by 6 George IV., c. c, 129 (1826). "Four Acres and a Cow."— And yet the " Classes " were not happy. With all power in their hands they found it unprofitable, if not uncongenial, to exterminate the toilers. They partially lost faith in the gallows, and tried various expedients to stem the submerging tide of pauperism which they themselves had so industriously set in motion. In the 31st year of Elizabeth's reign, for example, they passed a sort of **four acres and a cow" Act, which has not received the attention it deserves. It is entitled, "An Act against the Erecting and Maintaining of Cottages." It recites that ** great inconveniences have been found by experience to grow by the erecting and building of great numbers and multitude of cottages, which are daily more and moie increased in many parts of the realm," and then enacts that, in future, no such tenements shall be erected unless /o«y rr^;'^ of land be attached to it. In 1638 Charles I. appointed a Special Commission to enforce the provisions of this Statute, which was not repealed until 1775 by 15 George III., "C. 23. pyer crowding in Cities. — The over-growth of cities igO THE ANNALS OF TOIL. and the evil of over-crowding were likewise vividly before the minds of legislators. In 1581 Elizabeth issued a proclamation forbidding the erection of new buildings within three miles of the City gates, and Charles I. in 1630 followed suit with an ordinance against building on new foundations in London or Westminster, or within three miles of the City or the King's palaces. It was also forbidden to receive extra inmates into urban dwellings as tending so *' to multiply the inhabi- tants that they could neither be governed nor fed " ! We may be disposed to smile at such fears and pre- cautions, but it is certain that the statesmen of to-day are face to face with the very same problems that disturbed the equanimity of the Elizabethans, and it is not at all clear that they are any nearer a rational solution. Which of them is prepared to advocate the only two effective remedies known — Land Commimali- sation and Free Railway Travel ? PAUPERISM AND PROTESTANTISM.— No. VI. If any encourage drunkenness for the sake of profit derived from the sale of drink, they are guilty of a form of moral assassination. as criminal as any that has ever been practised by the bravoes of any country or of any age. — John Ruskin. Banish swinish drunkards out of thine house, which is a vice impairing health, consuming much, and makes no show. I never heard praise ascribed to the drunkard but for the well-bearing of his drink, which is a better commendation for a brewer's horse or a drayman than for either a gentleman or a serving man. — Lord Burleigh to his Son, Robert Cecil, Though I look old, yet I am strong and lusty For in my youth I never did apply Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood, Nor did not with unbashful forehead woo The means of weakness and debility ; Therefore my age is as a lusty winter, Frosty, but kindly. Shakespeare — "As You Like It." Wine is a mocker. When it goes plausibly in no man can know how it will rage and tyrannise. He that receives that traitor within his gates shall too late complain of surprisal. It insinuates sweetly, but in the end it bites like a serpent, and hurt slike a cockatrice. Even good Uriah is made drunk. The holiest may be overtaken — Bishop Hall. — The Food Question. — It has already been seen that, whereas in 1495 a worker's wages were equivalent in wheat — ** the staff of life " — to 199 pints, they had sunk to 82 in 1593, and to 46 in 1610. From this it may readily be inferred that the toilers were no longer as in Chief Justice Fortescue's time 191 192 the: annals of toil. (1422 — to 1551) **fed in great abundance with all sorts of flesh and fish of which they have plenty everywhere." They were in truth, very generally reduced to a com- pulsory vegetarian diet, without almost any of that rich variety of roots and fruits which sets forth the table of the voluntary vegetarian of to-day. Many excellent plants now commonly grown in the fields were, even in the beginning of the Seventeenth Century, unknown, or rarely cultivated. Potatoes, in King James the First's reign, were a very costly delicacy. His Queen used them sparmgly in the Royal household, and they cost her two shillings per pound. In 1619 a cauliflower cost one shilling, while sixteen artichokes were valued at 3s. ^d. Tea and sugar were very little known till after the establishment, in 1637, of a new East India Company, empowered to trade with China and Japan. But even then tea, coffee and chocolate do not appear to have been prepared as now, in private households. In 1660, Charles II. procured from Parliament a subsidy of tonnage and poundage on all imported and exported commodities ; but no notice of the above article is taken in the schedule of rates annexed to the Act. In another Act of the same session, however, an excise duty was levied on the Uqtiour of tea, coffee and chocolate — a pro- ceeding which seems to imply that the beverages were bought from the compounders ready made. In James the First's reign beef cost 3f d. and mutton 3f d. per pound. The wages decreed by the magistrates in Quarter Sessions during the same period ranged from 6d. to lod. per day without food. They reckoned that half a day's earnings would, **in husbandry," buy a day's food. In the fifteenth century, on the other hand, the price of a worker's board was a shilling a week, and often considerably less. His wages were seldom less than three times the cost of his maintenance under contract ! The following list of prices directed to be observed by London poulterers and victuallers, in 1633, may not be without interest : — THE ANNALS OF TOIL. I93 s. d. A pheasant cock 60 A turkey - - 4 4 A heron ----26 A duck - - - - - - - - -08 A bittern 26 A pewit - - -010 A dozen blackbirds, or thrushes - - - .10 A goose 24 A capon, fat and crammed 24 A hen - - - -12 A rabbit 02 A dozen wild pigeons - - - - - -18 Three eggs - -01 A pound of fresh butter - - - - .-06 A pound of tallow candles 03!^ A sack of coal (four bushels) 06- While these prices ruled, the King's master saddler's pay was twelve pence per day, and his master-mason at Windsor was similarly recompensed. It will thus be seen that the best city artizan was not much better off than the rural ** labourer in husbandry." The ** Classes " had effectually reserved all the good things to themselves, whether in town or country. They gave themselves up to unheard of gluttony and drunkenness. (Vide '' Drinks," Bk. I., pp. 64-77). Repression of the Liquor Traffic— It is noteworthy that, though, in the reign of the ** British Solomon," ** Court " ** Classes ' and *' Masses" ahke, notoriously drowned themselves in liquor. Parliament took alarm at the prevailing dissipation. In 1604 i^ enacted ** that only travellers and travellers' friends, and labourers for one hour at dinner-time, or lodgers, can receive entertainment under penalty \ " inasmuch as a tavern '^ is not meant for harbouring of lewd and idle people to spend and con- sume their money and time in a lewd and drunken manner." And not content with dealing sharply with the drunkard-maker, the Legislature in 1607 turned upon the drunkard himself with fine and imprisonment. A penalty of five shillings (say twenty at least, in to-day's currency) was imposed for intoxication, with the alter- native of six hours in the stocks, while drinking in one's o 194 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. own neighbourhood was similarly punished on the cumulative principle. The preamble of the latter Act clearly indicates the growth of Puritan influence in the House of Commons : — '* Whereas the loathsome and odious sin of drunken- ness is of late grown into common use, being the root and foundation of many other enormous sins, as blood- shed, stabbing, murder, swearing, fornication, adultery, and such like, to the great dishonour of God and of our nation, the overthrow of many good arts and manual trades, the disabling of divers workmen and the general impoverishment of many good subjects, abusively wast- ing the good creatures of God, be it enacted," etc. Drinks and Drinkshops. — But no perceptible amend- ment followed these measures. In the reign of Charles 1., Thomas Heywood — '* a sort of prose Shakespeare," Charles Lamb calls him — wrote : — The Russ drinks quass; Dutch, Lubeck beer, And that is strong and mighty : The Briton he metheglin quaffs, The Irish aqua vitcs ; The French affects the Orleans grape, The Spaniard tastes his sherry ; The English none of these can 'scape, But he ivith all 'maTces merry. Inns speedily came to have a representative character, as Heywood did not fail to note : The gentry to the King's Head, The nobles to the Crown, The knights unto the Golden Fleece, And to the Plough the clown ; The Churchman to the Mitre, The shepherd to the Star, The gardener hies him to the Rose, To the Drum the man of war ; The usurer to the Devil, and The townsman to the Horn ; The huntsman to the White Hart, To the Ship the Merchants go, But you that do the Muses love The sign called River Po ; The bankrupt to the World's End, The fool to the Fortune hie, Unto the Mouth the oyster-wife The fiddler to the Pie THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 155 The Origin of Excise Duties. — In 1643, the Long Parliament, after its rupture with the Crown established the Excise on the Dutch model — that " base and sordid people," as old Cobbett calls the Hollanders. The Royalists at Oxford followed suit, both parties protesting that this new and most unpopular impost on ale, beer, cider, and perry should end with the war. But, instead of ending with the war, its application was extended to many other commodities, to the great relief of the landlords ; and, at the Restoration, it was made hereditary in the Crown. To the Common- wealth must, in a very great measure, be set down the discredit of our entire system of indirect taxation by which the workers, almost without knowing it, are craftily robbed by the Government and sweated by the " classes." Still, it cannot be truthfully alleged that the Common- wealth encouraged intemperance for the sake of revenue. Convictions for drunkenness were, on the contrary, of incessant occurrence. The delinquent was brought into Court drunk, and sentenced by the Justice as *' drunk in my view." He was invested with the '' drunkard's cloak," which consisted of a cask, with a hole at the top through which the offender's head protruded, with a hole on either side for his hands. His legs were left free for perambulation, and in this ludicrous plight the unhappy drunkard did penance. But the Puritans, to their own cost, were *' righteous overmuch." They overdid repression. The Republic was lost, not so much for want of Republicans, as because many staunch Republicans became disgusted with what they rightly or wrongly regarded as intolerable social tyranny. He that roars for liberty Faster binds the tyrants' power ; And the tyrant's cruel glee Forces on the freer hour. It is instructive to have this description of CromweU's funeral from the eye-witness Evelyn : — ** It was the joyfullest funeral I ever saw, for there were 196 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. none that cried but dogs, while the soldiers hooted away with a barbarous noise, drinking and taking tobacco in the streets as they went." A French nobleman, travelling in England during the Protectorate, thus describes its condition : — '* There is within this City (London) and in all the towns which I have passed through, so prodigious a number of houses where they sell a certain drink called ale, that 1 think a good half of the inhabitants may be denominated ale- house keepers. These are a meaner sort of cabarets. But, what is more deplorable, there the gentlemen sit and spend much of their time, drinking of a muddy kind of beverage, and tobacco, which has universally besotted the nation, and at which, I hear, they have consumed many noble estates." ComparatiYe Sobriety of the " Masses." — With the restored Monarchy intemperance came in like an irresistible flood. Court and nation drowned them- selves in aqua fovtis. In time, the people became partially sober, and again drove out the Stuarts, but it was impossible to revive the ascetic virtues of the Puritans. Charles II. and his libidinous crew inflicted a wound on the moral sense of the nation so deep that it has never recovered from it. Yet it says something for the sobriety of the *' masses " as compared with their ** betters" that Mr. Lecky, the historian, isable to affirm. *' Among the poor .... the popular beverage was still ale or beer, the use of which — especially before the art of noxious adulteration was brought to its present perfec- tion — has always been move common than the abuse,'' The consumption appears to have been amazing. It was computed in 1688 that no less than 12,400,000 barrels were brewed in England in a single year, though the entire population probably little exceeded 5,000,000. At the revolution (1688) the conduits ran with wine. WilHam of Orange was a heavy drinker of Hollands gin, both as Prince and King. When over on a visit to Charles II., the '' Merry Monarch," Evelyn tells us, made the Dutchman so drunk that he ** broke the win- dows of the maids of honour and other mischiefs." THE ANNALS OF TOIL. I97 After his wife's death (Mary) the banquetting-house at Hampton Court was described as **a Royal gin-temple." *' If the history of this well-bred vice was to be written,'^ says De Foe, '* it would plainly appear that it began among the gentry and from them was handed down to the poorer sort, who still love to be like their betters* The further perfection of this vice among the gentry appears in the way of their expressing their joy for any public blessing. ** Jack," said a gentleman of very high quality, when, after a debate in the House of Lords, King William was voted into the vacant throne, ^' Jack, go home to your lady, and tell her we have got a Pro- testant King and Queen, and go make a bonfire as big as a house, and make the butler make ye all drunk, ye dog." Distillers of " Firewater." — The '' Glorious Revolu- tion," among other ** public blessings," gave permission to greedy unscrupulous capitalists to set up distilleries, with the most pernicious results. In 1684 there were distilled of British spirits only 527,000 gallons. In 1727 the figures had mounted up to 3,601,000 gallons. From this new source, as from a perennial fountain of woe, a resistless stream of human misery began to flow. In London, in particular, mortality, poverty^ robbery and murder rose to the most alarmng height. And what wonder when, as Mr. Lecky tells us : *' Retailers of gin were accustomed to hang out painted boards announcing that their customers could be made drunk for a penny, dead drunk for twopence, and have straw for nothing ; and cellars strewn with straw were accordingly provided into which those who had become insensible were dragged, and where they remained till they had sufficiently recovered to renew their orgies." In 1825 a Distillery Act was passed, but it went a very short way to abate the hydra-headed evils of ** fire- water " distillation. Nevertheless, it is evident that the distillery, and not the public-house, is the citadel that must be stormed by temperance reformers, if any really effective curb is to be put on the deplorable jg8 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. traffic in intoxicants. The drink problem is the hardest of all others to solve, and he who first masters it, be he scientist or statesman, will be, next to the Blessed Nazarene, the greatest benefactor of his kind. Sir Walter Raleigh on " the Bewitching and Infec- tious Yice." — How strange it is that the gifted Sir Walter Raleigh, who founded the ** Mermaid," in Bread Street, where Shakespeare, Bacon, Ben Johnson, Beaumont, Fletcher, and so many more of the immortals held high revel, should have penned the following memorable counsels : — '* Take especial care that thou delight not in wine, for there was not any man that came to honour or preferment that loved it, for it trans- formeth a man into a beast, decayeth health, poisoneth the breath, destroyeth natural heat, brings a man's stomach to artificial heat, deformeth the face, rotteth the teeth, and, to conclude, maketh a man contemptible, soon old and despised of all wise and worthy men, hated in thy servants, in thyself, and companions ; for it is a bewitching and infectious vice. A drunkard will never shake off the delight of beastliness, for the longer it possesses a man the more he will delight in it, and the older he groweth, the more he will be subject to it : for it dulleth the spirits, and destroyeth the body, as the ivy doth the old tree, or as the worm that engendereth in the kernel of a nut. Take heed, therefore, that such a cureless canker pass not thy youth, nor such a beastly infection thy old age ; for then shall all thy life be but as a beast, and after thy death thou only leave a shameful infamy to thy posterity, (who shall study to forget) that such a one was their father." CHAPTER VIII. THE COMMONWEALTH, CROMWELL/ AND COLLEC- TIVISM— No. I. It was called a Democracy, but it was, ia reality, the rule of one Hian. — Thucydides on Pericles. Under no form of Government is it so dangerous to erect a political idol as in a Democratic Republic, for once erected, it is a political sin against the Holy Ghost to lay hands upon it. — VoN HoLST. I confess that I feel humiliated at the truth, which, cannot be disguised, that, though we live uuder the form of a Republic (the United States), we are, in fact, under the rule of a single man. — Judge Story. The dragon of despotism is not slain by decapitation, for where one head, called by the name of a King, has been cut off, another, in the form of a President or First Consul, has often grown out in its place. — G. Harwood. Workers and "Yagabonds" under the Common- wealth. — In the year 1604 (by 2 Jac. I.) the terrible statutory penalties imposed by the Tudor monarchson ** rogues and vagabonds," i.e,, the disinherited poor, were mitigated to the extent that in future those unfortunates should be merely ** branded on the left shoulder with a hot iron of the breadth of a shilling, having a Roman R (rogue) upon it, and placed to labour; if, after such 199 200 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. punishment, they are found begging and wandering, they shall be adjudged felons and suffer death." This law was modified by 12 Anne (171 3) and not before. By 2 Jac. I., c. 6, the powers of Justices arbitrarily to fix wages was extended to " all labourers, weavers, spinsters, and workmen, or workwomen whatsoever, either working by the day, the week, month, year, or taking work at any person s hands whatsoever to be done in great or otherwise." This enactment was rigorously enforced throughout the much extolled period of the Commonwealth, and for generations afterwards. The magnificent political drama summed up in the words, "Commonwealth," '* Protectorate," *' Restora- tion," ** Revolution " (1688) had in truth but small interest for the toilers of once " Merrie England." Theiv Annals, alas, are nowhere to be found except in the meagre records of wages, and the cost of the necessaries of life. Englishmen naturally turn with pride to the daring achievements of the Long Parlament, which first taught Kings — as old Boswell of Auchenleck admonished Dr. Johnson — that they had a lith in their necks ;" but it is melancholy to reflect that the late Thorold Rogers only recorded the sober truth when he wrote in Wovk and Wages ; '* The eager spirits who crowded into the House of Commons, the mounted yeomen who rode with Hampden, the men who fought and won at Mars- ton Moor and Naseby, thought no more of the peasant and workman, had no more care for bettering him, than the Irish patriots of 1782 cared for the kernes and cottiers on whose labours they lived. For in the midst of this battle of giants, when the King was made subject first, and his foe, the Parliament, followed him in submission to the great army which Cromwell wielded as dexterously as a swordsman does his weapon, the English people who lived by wages were sinking lower and lower, and fast taking their place in the contrast with the opulence which trade and commerce began, and manufacturing THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 201 activity multiplied, as the beggarly hewers and drawers of prosperous and progressive England. In 1651 the magistrates of Essex in Quarter Sessions at Chelmsford, fixed the wages of artizans and labourers at is. 6d. and is. a day respectively ; and this was the price they generally secured. The price of wheat in this year was nearly 50s. a quarter ! " Wages in Coin and in Wheat (1595-1832.)— The following tables of comparative prices, calculated on a somewhat different principle from that followed by Thorold Rogers, will help to illustrate the decline in the condition of the ^'beggarly hewers and drawers of prosperous and progressive England." Column four (wages in pints of wheat ") is the testing column, and it shows clearly that when the prosperity of the middle class, in the time of the Commonwealth, was notoriously at its zenith, the wretchedness of the toilers had almost touched its nadir. H USBANDRV Wages. Year. Wheat PER Quarter. ^ Wages PER Week. Wages in Pints OF Wheat. 1495 e. d. 4 10 15 9 37 8 69 1 54 45 3 39 4 84 5 82 47 8 60 64 10 91 8 96 8 84 8 57 2 62 1 63 9 8. d. 1 lOi 2 6 8 5 6 10 6 9 5 11 8 11 5 4 6 7 4 8 1 8 IL. 11 5 14 6 12 10 11 12 199 1593 82 1610 46 1651 48 1661 (51 1682 66 1685 51 1725 1751 79 96 1770 1790 79 82 1786 70 1803 63 1811 1889 76 73 1824 89 1829 91 1882 90 202 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. WAGES OF CARPENTERS, BRICKLAYERS, MASONS, PLUMBBKS, AND OTHER ARTIFICERS. Year. Wheat per Quarter. Wages PER Week. Wages in Pints OF Wheat. 1495 s. d. 4 10 15 9 37 8 69 1 39 4 34 5 40 2 36 1 32 1 41 2 47 H 43 49 11 58 8 79 9 82 8 91 8 114 8A 8 57 2 62 1 63 9 B d. 2 9 3 9 4 6 7 6 5 9 6 15 9 16 15 6 15 6 15 9 16 16 6 17 3 18 28 3 30 33 6 33 33 33 33 292 1593 123 61 55 74. 89 1610 1651 1683 1725 1730 200 1740 1750 227 247 193 169 190 1760 1770 1780 1790 169 150 116 175 167 150 199 295 276 265 1795 1800 1805 1810 1813 1819 1824 ..... .. 1829 1832 The grand struggle of the Seventeenth Century in truth, lay, not between King and People, but between the monarch and the capitaHst, or middle class, which had now attained to great wealth by sucking the orange of labour to the rind. Nevertheless, the indirect benefits to the whole nation of the victory over despotic, semi- feudal royalty were not to be despised. The first realised fruits were the American Republic ; the second, the French Republic ; and the third, not now per- adventure so far off, the British RepubUc, Federal, Social, and Democratic. Overthrow of the Monarchy. — Let us now very briefly glance at the train of events which brought Charles I. to the block, and made Cromwell King injall but name. It is a mistake to suppose that THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 203 Charles was a worse ruler than his immediate predecessors, Henry VIII., Mary (the ** Bloody"), Elizabeth, or James I. Indeed, he was personally, perhaps, the most respectable of our Monarchs, and Cromwell even credited him with ** great parts and great understanding." But the sins of his fathers were visited on him. Besides, he was notoriously insincere in all his dealings, and it was the impossibility of binding him to any compact whatever that nerved the Commons to put him to death. His execution however, was a *' blunder worse than a crime," as Vane, Blake, and Sidney foreboded. It was discovered by all manner of soft-hearted and soft-headed people in the three Kingdoms that he was " a Blessed Martyr," and they accordingly insisted on the Restoration of his son, Charles 11. , who was an unquestionable Satyr. It was the philosophy of Casca in Julius Ccesav verified to a nicety; *' Three or four wenches where I stood cried ' Alas, good soul !' and forgave him with all their hearts ; if Ceasar had stabbed their mothers they would have done no less." But the fiat had gone forth^ and on the 4th of Jan., 1649, the House of Commons resolved. — '* That the People are under God the original of all power : that the Commons of England in Parliament assembled, being chosen by and representing the People, have the supreme power in this nation : that whatever is enacted or declared for law by the Commons of Parliament assembled hath the force of law, and all the people of this nation are concluded thereby, although the consent and concurrence of King or House of Peers be not had thereto." The Monarchy and Peerage were both formally abolished. ** The office of a King in this nation," it was resolved, '* is unnecessary, burthensome and dangerous," The Peers were simply voted *' useless and dangerous," and when they afterwards attempted to resume their legislative functions, the Commons would not so much as deign to receive a messenger from them. The Proclamation of the Republic. — The Act con- 204 "THE ANNALS OF TOIL. stituting England a Republic, went straight to the mark. It set forth *' that the People of England, and of all the Dominions and Territories thereunto belonging, are and shall be and are hereb}^ constituted, made established and confirmed to be a Commonwealth and Free State and shall henceforth be governed as a Commonweath and Free State by the Supreme Authority of the People — the Representatives of the People in Parliament — and by such as they shall appoint and constitute Officers and Ministers for the good of the People, and that without any King or House of Lords." It is, historically, very remarkable how the Middle Class, whenever they have had a revolutionaryjaxe to grind, have uniformly spoken in the name of the whole *' People," with the workers left severely out. It was so in all the three great Revolutions — English, Ameri- can, and French. A governing class invariably ignores the very existence of those outside it. The unenfran- chised have no rights ; only duties to their political superiors. It must not be forgotten that, even in these democratic days of ours, there is still an entire sex outside the pale of the Constitution. But this by the way. The Republican affirmation of allegiance — there was no oath — was cbmmendably simple: '* I do declare and promise that I will be true and faithful to the Commonwealth of England, without a King or House of Lords." The Great Seal was ordered to be smashed in face of the House, and a new one substituted — the Great Seal of England, 1648, bearing the legend, ** In the first year of freedom, by God's blessing restored, 1648." A Cabinet or ** Council of State" was formed, con- sisting of forty-one members to hold office for one year ; quorum nine. The President was at first elected at each sitting; latterly for a month. John Milton was chosen Secretary for Foreign Tongues, at the modest salary of ;^30o per annum. And the splendid achievements of this Parliamentary THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 205 Executive by sea and by land, in peace and in war, are without a parallel in our own, or almost any other history. The high-water mark of national greatness was attained. Trade and commerce expanded by leaps and bounds. Princes, Popes, and Cardinals did suit and service to the majestic nation that had put down kings, peers, and prelates, and dared to assert its own kingless, but more than royal sovereignty. THE COMMONWEALTH, CROMWELL, AND COLLEC- TIVISM.— NO. 11. Under the shell there was an animal, and behind the documen; there was a man. — Taine. A people, therefore, that sets up Kings, Dictators, Consuls, Praetors, or Emperors, does, d, not that these may bs great, glorious rich or happy, but that it may be well with themselves and posterity. — Algernon Sydney. I do not believe with the Rochefoucaulds and Montaignes, that fourteen out of fifteen men are rogues, I believe a great abatement from that proportion may be made in favour of general honesty. But I have always found that rogues would be uppermost, and I do not know that the proportion is too strong for the higher orders, and for those who, rising above the multitude, always contrive to nestle themselves into the places of power and profit. — Thomas Jefferson. Cromwell the Liberticide. — The English RepubHc or Commonweahh, whose rise was briefly sketched in the last section, lasted for four years and three months — down to April 20th, 1653, when it was overthrown by what would now be called a coup d'etat. Parliament, the civil authority of the nation, was ignominiously turned out of doors by its own victorious General, Oliver Cromwell. This man had in his composition many of the elements of true greatness, but the demon of ambition and the lust of domination ruined all. He was the prototype of the familiar Bonapartes and Balmacedas of our own day. Not that he resembled these colossal malefactors in personal characteristics. Cromwell was an eminently 306 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 207 pious, prayerful, and respectable liberticide, but he all the same cut the throat of the Commonwealth of England quite as effectually as Napoleon I. or Napoleon III. destroyed Republican Government in France. And, strange to say, he seems to have been able, almost to the last, to mask his self-seeking designs from such genuine Republicans as Sir Harry Vane, Admiral Blake, Algernon Sydney, Sir Arthur Hazelrig, Colonel Hutchinson, Henry Martin, General Ludlov^, Bradshaw, Scot, Sir Peter Wentworth, and the v^hole Council of State. One or two sharp-witted men did, indeed, fathom his objects, and predict what was coming. Among these was Lieutenant-Colonel John Lilburne, the Leader of the Levellers or Ultra-Democrats of the day. Four years before the fatal 20th of April, ^' Free- horn John," as he was called, had written : " The present contest is merely no more than Self in the Highest, and to set up the false saint and most desperate apostate, murderer, and traitor, Oliver Cromwell, by a pretended election of his mercenary soldiers, under the false name of ' godly interest,' to be King of England, that being now too apparently all the intended liberties of the people he ever sought for in his life." Brave, simple-minded Major General Harrison, being a Fifth Monarchy believer, *' was assured," he told Colonel Streater, "that the Lord General (Cromwell) " sought not himself, but that King Jesus might take the sceptre." Streater grimly responded, *' Christ had better come before Christmas, or He will come too late." Republican indictment of Cromwell. — Now, here we have the gravamen of Democratic and Republican accusation against Cromwell. He never, it is true, took to himself the name of King ; but he unquestion- ably took the substance of Royalty, and that he lusted after the title I have no doubt whatever. In 1657, when a Committee of his mock Parliament eventually offered him the Crown, he declined it in much the same way as Casca, in '* Julius Caesar," says the 208 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. great Julius put away from him the symbol of royalty :— " I can as well be hanged as tell the manner of it : it was mere foolery. I did not mark it. I saw Mark Antony offer him a crown — yet 'twas not a crown neither, 'twas one of those coronets — and, as I told you, he put it by once; but, for all that, to my thinking, he would fain have had it. Then he offered it to him again , then he put it by again ; but, to my thinking, he was very loath to lay his fingers off it." Very loath indeed ! His speeches on what he called ** the great business of the Kingship " are a perfect study in the wordy art of which the G.O.M. is the greatest living master. Like the G.O,M., he could become absolutely incomprehensible at will, plunging into a sea of verbal distinctions which defy all analysis. But he dared not take the Crown, for even some of his ** creature colonels " as Lilburne aptly styled them, revolted to the point of throwing up their commissions. The proposal had the support of neither the Monarchists nor the Republicans, and had consequently to be with- drawn per force. Oliver had to content himself with the title of '' Lord Protector." Why King Charles L was 'Ruined." — At an earlier stage in the Revolution, Cromwell would have been satisfied with the post of Lieutenant-General of the Kingdom, and the title of Earl of Essex. He and his son-in-law Ireton entered into negotiations with King Charles, and were prepared to make considerable concessions, when the following incident, related to Lord Broghill, his confidant, by Cromwell occurred : — "The reason for an inclination to come to terms with him (Charles) was that we found the Scots and Presbyterians began to be more powerful than we (Cromwell and the Independents), and were strenuously endeavouring to strike up an agreement with the King and leave us in the lurch ; wherefore we thought to prevent them by offering more reasonable conditions. But while we were busied with these thoughts, there came a letter to us from one of our spies, who was of the King's Bedchamber, acquainting us that our final doom was decreed that day. What it was he could not tell; but a letter was gone to the Queen with the contents of it, which letter was sewed up in the skirt of a saddle, and the bearer of it would come, with the saddle upon his head, about ten o'clock the THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 209 following morning, to the Blue Boar Inn, in Holborn. where he was to take horse for Dover. The messenger knew nothing of the letter in the saddle, but some one in Dover did. We were then at Windsor, and immediately on receipt of the letter from our spy, Ireton and I (Cromwell), resolved to take a trusty fellow with us, and in troopers' habits to go to the inn, which we accordingly did, and set our man at the gate of the inn to watch. The gate was shut, but the wicket was open, and our man stood to give us notice when anyone came with a saddle on his head. Ireton and I sat in a box near the wicket, and called for a can of beer, and then another, drinking in that dis- guise till ten o'clock, when our sentinel gave us notice that the man with the saddle had come, upon which we immediately arose, and when the man was leading out his horse saddled, we came up to him with our swords drawn, and told him we were to search all who went in and out there, but as he looked like an honest fellow, we would only search his saddle, which we did, and found the letter we looked for. On opening it we read the contents, in which the King acquainted the Queen that he was now courted by both the factions, the Scots and Presbyterians, and the Army j that which of them bid fairest for him should have him: that he thought he could ^close sooner with the Scots than the others. Upon which we speeded to Windsor, and finding we were not like to have any tolerable terms from the King, immedi'itely resolved to ruin htm," How Parliament was " Ruined." — So much for the mode and motive of the King's ruin. Now for those of Parliament. In the ** Life of Henry Neville," a member of the Council of State, the following occurs : — " Cromwell, on this great occasion, sent for some of the chief City divines, as if to make it a matter of conscience to be determined by their advice. Among these was the leading Mr. Calamy, who very boldly opposed Mr. Cromwell's project (to eject Parliament), and offered to prove it both unlawful and impracticable. Cromwell answered readily upon the first head ' unlawful,' and appealed to the safety of the nation being the supreme law. * But.' says he, 'pray, Mr. Calamy, why impracticable?' Calamy replied, 'Oh! 'tis against tha voice of the nation ; there will be nine in the ten against you ? ' ' Very well,' says Cromwell, ' but what if I should disarm the nine, and put a sword into the tenth man's hand, would not that do the business ? * " The Cromwellian "Protectorate" of Fact and of Fiction. — Undoubtedly in that way was the business done, and no other. Cromwell's Protectorate, about which so much arrant nonsense has of late years been written, was an outrageous military despotism from first to last — as like the rule of Kaiser Wilhelm, at Berlin, as two peas. No Tudor or Stuart ever treated Parlia- P 210 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. ments with such contumely as did Oliver Cromwell. He nominated them, brow- beat them, *' purged" them, •dissolved them, expelled them at will. By his own authority he levied taxes, gagged the Press, and generally exceeded the decapitated Charles Stuart in every form of Constitutional illegality. Finally he divided the country into eleven Satrapies, and governed unequivocally by the swords of his Major-Generals. He spent endless sums in espionage, and relieving the landlords from their just obligations to the State, robbed the toilers through the odious medium of Customs and Excise. At home he was a deep-dyed Centraliser ; abroad he was an unscrupulous Jingo. It is his policy that the Liberal Party, as Home Rulers, stands pledged, at this moment, to reverse. In Ireland his name must ever be regarded with execration and loathing. His disastrous attack on San Domingo constituted a violation of inter- national morality as shameless as the seizure of Silesia by Frederick the Great (so-called) — an unique act of royal rascality and blood-guiltiness. His recklesssness of human life had about it something of the cal- lousness of a Sulla or a Marius. At the storming of Drogheda he exultingly wrote : '* Divers of the officers and soldiers being fled over the bridge, about a hundred of them possessed St. Peter's steeple. . . These being summoned to yield to mercy, refused. Where- upon I ordered the steeple of St. Peter's Church to be fired, when one of them was heard to say, in the midst of the flames, " God damn me, God confound me, I burn, I burn." I believe all their friars were knocked on the head promiscuously but two ; the one of which was Father Peter Taaf, whom the soldiers took next day, and made end of." After the Coup d'Etat not one man of head, heart and honour, with the single exception of Milton, adhered to him. With all his marvellous power of self-deception, of identifying his own fatal ambition with the pur- pose of Almighty God, he was at last constrained to admit that the ** godly interest," had deserted him. THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 211 On his deathbed the ** Grand Juggler" as Lilburne called him, asked his chaplain if it were possible for a man once in grace to go to perdition. '» No ! " replied the chaplain. " Then,'' said Oliver, with a touch of inimitable *' other- worldliness," ** I am safe; for I know I was once in grace." Had Cromwell, instead of conspiring against the Republic devoted his splendid energies to laying its foundations deep and strong in the affections of the people, how different, how much brighter, might have been — nay, assuredly would have been — the destinies of England, and of the world to-day! As it was, his guilty ambition restored the Stuarts, who seemed a minor evil by comparison, and threw back civilization for a couple of centuries. No Englishman who ever lived has so much to answer for as this *' Man of Blood and Iron " whom even the genius of Carlyle has been unable to white-wash. THE COMMONWEALTH, CROMWELL AND COLLECTIVISM— No. III. It is as easy for a camel to go through the eye of a needle as for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. — Jesus Christ. Iniquity alone has created private property. — St. Clement. Nature created community ; private property is the offspring of usurpation. — St Ambroise. The rich man is a thief. — St. Basil. The rich are robbers. Better all things were in common. — St. Chrysostom. Opulence is always the product of theft committed, if not by the actual possessor, then by his ancestors. — St. Jerome. If any man have not the spirit ol Christ, he is not of Him ; the name maketh not the bishop, but the life. Good people, affairs can only go well in England when there shall be neither serfs nor nobles, and when all shall be equal. — Wyclif. This land is a common heritage. When have we ever wielded our rights in this paternal inheritance ? Who can show us the con- tract by which we have given it up ? Never listen to those men who prove to you out of the Gospel that you are free, and end by ex- horting you to bow your head in slavery. Curses on the false priests who have never understood the essence of Christianity. — MUNZER, The Levellers. — I think I am fully justified in saying that it is not generally known that, during the period oi the English Commonwealth, there was a considerable party of Levellers, or, as we should now call them 212 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 2I3 Social Democrats, who regarded Oliver Cromwell, and all his piously-unscrupulous capitalistic crew, as a good many degrees more unbearable than Charles Stuart and the feudal aristocracy. That party had its social ideal, its political program, and even its military or militant history, as I shall now briefly — very briefly — endeavour to show. Our pretended historians — with perhaps the exception of Carlyle in his Letters and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell — have either ignored, belittled, or totally mis- represented the Socialist movement of the Seventeenth Century ; but facts will speak for themselves. First, then, for the Levellers' social ideal. Under date 17th April, 1649, Bulstrode Whitelocke, in his invaluable contemporary ** Memorials of English Aflairs," notes : — *' The Council of State had intelligence of new Levellers at St. Margaret's-hill, near Cobham, in Surrey, and at St. George's Hill, and that they digged the ground, and sowed it with roots and beans ; one Everard, once of the Army, and who terms himself a prophet, is the chief of them ; and they were about thirty men, and said that they should shortly be four thousand. They invited all to come in and help them, and promised them meat, drink and clothes ; they threatened to pull down park pales, and to lay all open, and threaten the neighbours that they will shortly make them all to come up to the hills and work. The General (Fairfax) sent two troops of horse to have account of them." " A Large Declaration," — They were not permitted to " dig the ground and sow it with roots and beans " — albeit the ground was lying untilled, and a few days later (20th April) there is the following instructive entry by Whitelocke : — *^ Everard and Winstanley, the chief of those that digged at St. George's Hill, in Surrey, came to the General and made a large Declaration to justify their proceedings. ** Everard said that all the Liberties of the People were lost by the coming of William the Conqueror, and that ever since the People of God had lived under 214 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. tyranny and oppression worse than that under Egyptians. *^ But now the time of deliverance was at hand, and God would bring His people out of this slavery, and re- store them to their freedom in enjoying the fruits and benefits of the earth. ^* And that there had lately appeared to him a vision, which bade him arise and dig and plough the earth, and receive the fruits thereof, and their interest is to restore the creation to its former condition. ** That as God had promised to make the barren land fruitful, so now what they did was to renew the ancient community of enjoying the fruits of the earth, and to distribute the benefit thereof to the poor and needy, and to feed the hungry and clothe the naked. ** That they intend not to meddle with any man's property nor to break down any pales or enclosures, only to meddle with what was common and untilled, to make it fruitful for the use of man ; that the time will suddenly be that all men shall willingly come in and give up their lands and estates, and submit to the community. ** And for those who should come in and work they should have meat, drink, and clothes, which is all that is necessary to the life of man, and that for money there was no need of it, nor of clothes, more than to cover nakedness. '* That they will not defend themselves by arms, but will submit to authority and wait till the promised opportunity be offered, which they conceive to be at hand. ** While they were before the General they stood with their hats on, and being demanded the reason thereof, they said because he was but their fellow creature. Being asked the meaning of that place, * Give honour to whom honour is due,' they said their mouths should be stopped that gave them that offence." The Agreement of the People.— Here it will be ob- served, we have all the elements of Quakerism, before George Fox, William Penn, Barclay of Urie, and others THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 215 of that persuasion were ever heard of; but there was at first a dominant section of the Levellers who, like Oliver, believed in the sword of the flesh more even than that of the spirit, and it will be well now to out- line the political program of these militant Demo- crats. It was known as the ** Agreement of the People," and was published by Lieut-Colonel Lilburne^ Walwyn, Prince, Overton, and other leading Levellers, ist May, 1649. The *' Agreement " is set forth in thirty concise propositions, of which the following will suffice : — 1. The Supreme Authority of this Nation to be a Representative (Body) of 400. 2, That 200 be an House and the major>oice (majority) con- cluding to (binding) the nation. 4. No members of one Representative (Parl'ament) to be chosen of the next. 8. The next and ^future Parliaments to stand for one whole year. 10. They not to make laws to compel in matters of religion. ir. None to be compelled to fight by sea or land against his conscience. 19. No Excise or Customs to be above four months after next Parliament. 20. Men's persons not to be imprisoned for debt, nor their Estates free. 23, Tithes not to continue longer than the next Representative (Parliament). 24. Every Parish to choose its own Minister, and to force none to pay. 26. None to be exempted from offices for his religion only. 27. The People in all counties so choose their own officers. 20. No forces to be raised except by the Representative (Par- Sfement) in being. Alterations in the Agreement. — In another entry in the Whitelocke Memorials, we read : — *♦ John Lilburne delivered a paper to the House, with the hands of many of his Levellers to it, in the name of 'Addresses to the Supreme Authority, propounding several alterations in the * Agree- ment of the People :' as that in the agreement there be a reserve from ever having any Kingly Government, and a bar against the House of Lords. " That provision be made of work and comfortable maintenance tor all sorts of poor, aged, and impotent people ; a speedy and less troublesome way of deciding controversies in law, with those pro- posals curtailed : 2l6 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. I. '* That they would not dissolve the House till a new Represen- tative the next day be ready to succeed, 3, " That the same persons may not be continued long in military power. 5. ** To open the Press for printing freely. 6. " To abate the charge of the law and the stipends of Judges and OflScers and to ease the Taxes. 7. "Toni^ricige affairs by Committees of short continuance, to be often accountable for their trust. 8. *' To prohibit, upon strict penalty, all Commissioners, magis- trates, and officers fion exceeding their commissions, and to encourage complaints against them." It is easy to conceive how supremely unpalatable to Cromwell and his '^cieature Colonels" were these drastic principles and unambiguous *' Agreements of the People " advanced by the liouest Levellers. Even Carlyle, to his credit be it said, with every desire to magnify his "hero," Oliver — the best and the worst work Carlyle ever did — yet cannot find in his heart to condemn the "stalwarts" of the Commonwealth, who like Lilburne, protested against the " New Chains " of Cromwell as resolutely as against the old fetters of "the Man, Charles Stuart." Mutiny of the Levellers.— On the 26th, at the Bull, in Bisliopsgate, a troop of Levellers in Whalley's regiment mutinied, and Carlyle thus describes the event : — " They want this and that ; they seize their colours from the Cornet, who is lodged at the ^ Bull ' there ; the General (Fairfax) and Lieutenant-General (Cromwell) have to hasten thither, quell them, pack them forth on their march, seizing fifteen ot them first to be tried by court martial. Tried by instant court martial, five of them are found guilty, doomed to die, but pardoned ; and one of them, Trooper Lockyer, is doomed and not pardoned. Trooper Lockyer is shot in Paul's Churchyard, on the morrow. A very brave young man, they say ; though but three-and-twenty, * he has served seven years in these Wars,' ever since the Wars began. * Religious,' too, * of excellent parts and much beloved ' ; but with hot notions as to human freedom, and the rate at which the millenniums are attainable." Poor Lockyer ! He falls shot in Paul's THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 217 Churchyard on Friday, amid the tears of men and women. Lockyer's corpse is watched and wept over, not without prayer, in the eastern regions of the City, till a new week come ; and on Monday, this is what we see advancing westward by way of funeral to him. ** About one thousand (Whitelocke) went before the corpse, five or six in a file; the corpse was then brought, with six trumpets sounding a soldier's knell, then the trooper's horse came, clothed all over in mourning, and led by a footman. ** The corpse was pdorned with bundles of rosemary, one half stained in blood, and the sword of the deceased along with them. " Some thousands followed in ranks and files, all had sea green-and-black ribbon tied on their hats and to their breasts, and the women brought up the rear. ** At the new churchyard at Westminster some thousands more of the better sort met them, who thought not fit to march through the City. Many looked upon this funeral as an affront to Parliament and the Army ; others called these people ' Levellers ' ; but they took no notice of any of them." Why should they ? They had Right on their side and "The* Millenniums," while ** Parliament and the Army " had nought but Property and Law, '* Blood and Iron." THE COMMONWEALTH, CROMWELL, AND COLLECTIVISM.— No. IV. A Third Voice : *' Deserts ! Whose deserts ? Yours ? Yom have a gold ring on your finger, and soft raiment about your body ; and is not the woman up yonder (Queen Mary) sleeping, after all she has done, in Deace and quietness on a soft bed, in a closed room, with light, fire, physic, tendance ; and I have seen the true men of Christ lying famine-dead by scores, and under no ceiling but the cloud that wept on them, not for them. First Voice : Friend, tho' so late, it is not safe to preach. You had best go home. What are you ? Third Voice : What am I ? One who cries continually with sweat and tears to the Lord God that it would please Him out of His infinite love to break down all kingship andqueenship, all priest- hood and prelacy ; to cancel and abolish all bonds of human allegi- ance, all the magistracy, all the nobles, and all the wealthy, and to send us again, according to His promise, the one King, the Christ, and all things in common, as in the days of the first church, when Christ Jesus was King. First Voice : If ever I heard a madman — let's away Why, you long-winded^ — Sir, you go beyond me — I pride myself on being moderate. Good-night ! Go home. Besides, you curse so loud, The watch will hear you. Get you home at once. — Tennyson: "Queen Mary." " England's Standard Advanced."— How Levellers Arnold and Lockyer were done to death by Martial Law was recorded in last section. Let us now see what finally became of Seventeenth Century Socialism in England. We read in Bulstrode Whitelocke's Memorials of English Affairs^ under date May loth, 1649 : — ** Captain Smith's Troop in Oxfordshire met with other troops of the Levellers at Banbury, and there posted up their Declaration : — 218 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 2I9 1. Against the present Parliament and their pro- ceedings. 2. Against the Council of State. 3. Against the Council of the Army. 4. Against the proceedings of the late High Court of Justice. ** Captain Thomson was a principal ringleader of these men : he had been formerly condemned by a Council of War, but by the mercy of the General was spared ; now he marched up and down 200 horse, and declared to join with those of Colonel Scoope's, Colonel Harrison's and Major-General Skippon's Regiments in their De- claration and Resolution. ** He published a Declaration of his own in print, intitled England's Standard Advanced, or a Declaration from Mr. William Thomson and the oppressed people of this Nation for a new Parliament, by the ' Agreement of the People.' " Thomson's Declaration, to be found in Clement Walker's History of Independency, is a vigorous document of which the following excerpts will suffice : ** Whereas it is notorious to the whole world that neither the faith of Parliament, nor yet the faith of the Army formerly made to the people of this nation, in behalf of their Common Right, Freedom and Safety, has been at all observed or made good, but both abso- lutely declined and broken, and the people only served with bare words and fair-promising papers, and left utterly destitute of all help or delivery : And that this hath principally been by the prevailency and treachery otf some eminent persons (now domineering over the people) is most evident." Cromwell and the ** Creature Colonels" are here reflected on and the Declaration proceeds : — ** The power of the sword is advanced and set in the seat of justice : the civil laws are stopt and subverted ; the military introduced even to the hostile seizure, imprisonment, trial, sentence and execution of death upon divers of the free people of this nation, leaving no visible authority, but developing into a factious junto, 220 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. usurping and assuming the name, stamp and authority of Parliament, to oppress, torment, and vex the people, whereby their lives, liberties and estates are all subdued to the wills of these men : no law, no justice, no right or freedom, no ease of grievances, no removal of unjust barbarous taxes, no regard to the cries and groans of the poor to be had, while utter beggary and famine (Hke a mighty torrent) hath broken in upon us, and already seized upon several parts of the nation. . . *' Be it therefore known to all the free people of England and to the whole world that we are associated together upon the bare accompt of Englishmen, with our swords in our hands, to redeem ourselves and the land of our nativity from slavery and oppression, to avenge tlie blood of war shed in the time of peace, to have justice for the blood of Mr. Arnold, shot to death at Ware, and for the blood of Mr. Robert Lockyer, and divers others who of late, by martial law, were murdered in London. . . *' And particularly for the preservation and deliver- ance of Leiutenant-Colonel John Lilburne, Mr. Will Walwin, Mr. Thomas Prince, Mr. Richard Overton, Captain Bray and Mr. William Sawyer from their bar- barous and illegal imprisonment. And we declare that if a hair of their heads perish in the hands of those tyrants that restrain them, if God shall enable us, we will avenge it seventy times seven fold upon the heads of the tyrants themselves and their creatures. '* And we do implore and invite all such as have any sense of the bonds and miseries upon the people, any bowels of compassion in them, any piety, justice, honour or courage in their breasts, any affection to the Freedoms of England, any love to his neighbour or native country, to rise up and come in to help a distressed, miserable nation to break the bonds of cruelty, tyranny and op- pression and set the people free. ** Signed by me, William Thomson, at our Rendezvous in Oxfordshire, near Banbury, in behalf of myself and the rest engaged with me. May 6th, 1649.'* Death of the Leveller Corporals. — The insurgent THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 221 *evellers, though mustering some five thousand strong, o not appear to have been in a majority in any one of le regiments of the Commonwealth. Consequently ley could act with very little concert, and paid the enalty. Cornet Thomson, the Captain's brother, lornet Dean and others headed a thousand mutineers t Salisbury, but were surprised by a midnight attack f Cromwell at Burford, and hopelessly hemmed in. )very tenth man was sentenced to be shot. Some who ^ere penitent were spared. Thursday 17th May, 1649, we read: — **This day in ►urford Churchyard, Cornet Thomson, the chief leader, ^as brought to the place of execution, and expressed imself to this purpose : That it was just what did befal im ; that God did not own the ways he went ; that be ad offended the General. He desired the prayers of le people, and told the soldiers who were appointed to tioot him, that when he held out his hands they should o their duty. And accordingly he was immediately, fter the sign given, shot to death. ** Next after him was a Corporal brought to the same lace of execution ; when looking upon his fellow- lutineers, he set his back against the wall, and bade lem who were appointed to shoot, * Shoot ! ' and died esperately. ** The third, being also a Corporal, was brought to le same place, and wiihout the least acknowledgement f error, or show of fear, he pulled off his doublet, Landing a pretty distance from the wall, and bade the Dldiers do their duty ; looking them in the face till they ave fire, not showing the least kind of terror or feaiful- ess of spirit." Nor was it otherwise with the Captain, Of him we ead, 2ist May: *' Letters from the General that Thomson eing gone from Northampton to the town of Welling- orough, Mr. Butler was sent with a select party of orse to pursue him, who fell into his quarters and took is men, and Thomson himself escaped to a wood. Sutler pursued, beset the wood, and sent a party into t, where they found Thomson : 222 . THE ANNALS OF TOIL. ** He was well mounted, and though alone, yet he desperately rode up to Butler's party, shot a Cornet and wounded another, and then retreated to a bush, having received two shots himself. *' When the party began again to draw near to him, he charged again with his pistol, and received another shot and retreated ; the third time he came up, and said he scorned to take quarter, and then a Corporal with a carbine charged with seven bullets gave him his death's wound." Cromwell as a " Gentleman of England." — Such, then, was the end of Militant Socialism in England in tlie Seventeenth Century. It was ruthlessly stamped out by Cromwell, who never showed so much energy as when he made a forced march of fifty miles to surprise the mutineers at Burford. Before starting he had told the Council of State : ** You must cut these people in pieces, or they will cut you in pieces.'' He even complained of the Socialist instincts of ** Barebones Parliament," whicli was made up solely of his own and the '' Creature Colonel's," nominees. " Nothing," he said, *' was in the hearts of these men, but ' overturn, overturn.' " ** What," he asked, with true squirearchal impervi- ousness, ** was the purport of the levelling principle but to make the tenant as liberal a fortune as the land- lord?" Was ever such social blasphemy heard of! ** I was by birth a gentleman" — on the authority of Joseph Chamberlain, the breed is not yet extinct in England — and, in this classification, the *' Lord Pro- tector " (Lord Destroyer ?) discerned "• a good interest of the nation and a great one.'' The starvmg toilers — three- fourths of the ''nation" — whose cause the brave, upright and self sacrificing Lilburnes andThomsons championed, had neither part nor lot in the great Oliver's polity. And yet the very memory of these faithful forerunners of the Cunningham Grahams and the John Burnses, the Tom Manns, and the Ben Tillets, has almost perished ; while the piously-unscrupulous *' Man of Blood and Iron '' has been set on high by Thomas THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 223 Carlyle, Frederick Harrison, Allanson Picton and many minor prophets. So be it. Victvix Causa plactiit Diis, sed victa Catoni. It is always thus. God hides such things from the wise a!nd prudent, and reveals them unto babes. Let the chival- rous old sage of Chelsea say a parting word for the Leveller Cornets and Corporals of the Commonwealth of England : — ** So die the Leveller Corporals. Strong they, after their sort, for the Liberties of England ; resolute to the very death. Misguided Corporals ! But history, which has wept over a misguided Charles Stuart and blubbered, in the most copious, helpless manner, near two centuries now, whole floods of brine enough to salt the herring fishery, will not refuse these poor Corporals also her tributary sigh. With Arnold of the Rendezvous at Ware ; with Lockyer of the Bull, in Bishopsgate ; and other misguided martyrs of the Liberties of England then and since, may they sleep well." Amen ! THE COMMONWEALTH, CROMWELL, AND COLLECTIVISM.— No. V. Lilburne : The most turbulent, but the most upright and courage- ous of mankind. — Humtory e's Hsiof England. I thank you for your friend Lilburne, and desire you to send me as many of his books as you can. I learn much by them; and in earnest I find a great benefit by reading his books, for though they want judgment and logic to prove what they promise, yet they bring good materials to prove somewhat else they do not think of. — Clarendon Papers, Vol. II., p. 363. " Free-Born John." — Such was the opinion of Royalist Chancellor Hyde regarding *' Free-born John," the Leader of the Uitra-Repubhcans, or Social Democrats of England, in the seventeenth century. " Free-born John " was altogether a remarkable character, about whom it is absolutely necessary that something, however perfunctory, should be said. John Richard Green in his so-called Short History of the English People bestows on him about a line and a half! " Free-born John " was a younger son of Richard Lilburne, of Thickney-Pucharden, a large landed pro- prietor in the county of Durham. He was born in the year 1618. Though of ancient ancestry, according to the custom — the sensible custom — of the period, he was, at twelve years of age, apprenticed to a wholesale clothier in London. Richard Lilburne peve seems to have been like his son John a most pugnacious or" irreconcileable " personage. It IS noteworthy that ** Dick " Lilburne was, some say, the last Englishman who joined issue in the ancient 224 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 225 custom of trial by battle. His contention was with one Ralph Auxton regarding lands of the value of ;^200 per annum. The two champions appeared in court, armed cap-a-pie. The Judges, however, managed to put off the trial till, at the instance of Charles I., Parliament brought in a Bill to take away trial by combat altogether. Lilburne as Anarchist. — ^John Lilburne inherited all and more than ail, his father's dislike of '' law and order." From the first, we are told, he was addicted to '' contention, novelties, opposition of Government, and violent and bitter expressions." So much was this so that Henry Martin, the Sir Wilfrid Lawson of the Commonwealth, said of him that, **if the world was emptied of all but John Lilburne, Lilburne would quarrel with John and John would quarrel with Lilburne." In a word John Lilburne was what would now be called an Anarchist of the deepest dye. He repudiated human authority in every shape and form, and fell back on the declaration of Christ: '*The Princes of tbe Gentiles bear dominion over them., and their great ones exercise authority upon them ; but among you it shall not be so. He who would be the greatest among you let him be the least, let him be servant of all." John's first tilt at authority was a complaint to the City Chamberlain against his masters ill-usage. He obtained redress, and, ** having thus obtained more liberty, he purchased a multitude of books favourable to his notions of politics and religion, and having his imagination warmed with a sense of suffering and re- sentment, he became at length so considerable among his party as to be consulted upon the boldest of their undertakings against the hierarchy, while yet an ap- prentice." {'' Chalmers' General Biographical Dic- tionary "). In 1638 Lilburne was sentenced to be publicly whipped from the Fleet Prison to Palace Yard, Westminstec, there to stand for two hours in the pillory, and after- wards to be kept in gaol until a fine of ;^5oo should be paid. His offence was the printing and publishing of Bastwick's '♦ Merry Litany," and Prynne's ** Newes Q 226 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. from Ipswich," which were adjudged seditious. ** He underwent his sentence with an undismayed obstinacy, uttering many bold speeches against the bishops, and dispersing many pamphlets from the pillory, where, after the Star Chamber had ordered him to be gagged, he stamped with his feet. The spirit he showed upon this occasion procured him the nickname of '' Free-born John" among the friends to the Government, and among his own party the title of Saint." Towards the end of 1640 he was liberated, and the following year ParHament awarded him an indemnity of ;^3,ooo for illegal imprisonment. The moment Parliament determined to levy war against the king, Lilburne volunteered and was a Captain of foot at Edgehill. His bravery was phenomenal, but at Brentford he was taken prisoner and carried to Oxford by the Royalists. These meant to execute him, but the Parliamentarians threatened such serious reprisals that he was incontinently liberated. He was before long promoted to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel of a crack regiment of Dragoons, and distinguished himself greatly at the battle of Marston Moor. "England's New Chains." — In 1645, becoming dis- gusted with the hypocrisy of the leaders of his party, he threw up his commission, and was committed to Newgate for treason spoken in Westminster Hall. The House of Commons promptly ordered his release. In 1647 he was committed to the Tower for speaking evil of Oliver Cromwell, and was in durance vile when the Levelhng or Socialist party, of which he was chief, was destroyed, as has been related, by " Noll " at the Rendezvous at Ware. All the while ** Free-born John's " pen was at least as active as his sword. In prison and out of it, pamphlet followed pamphlet with astonishing frequency. The names of a few of these will suffice the general reader, though to tne close student of English history the con- tents are of much interest. Take, for example, ** Come out of Her, my People," **The Oppressed Man's Op- pression," ** England's New Chains Discovered," THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 227 "Second Part of England's New Chains," ** The Resolved Man's Resolution," ** The Hunting of the Foxes from Newmarket and Triptoe Heath to White- hall, by Five Small Beagles," the ** Beagles," being Lilburne, Overton, Walwyn, Prince, and another. In 1649 he was again committed to the Tower, but on trial he was unanimously acquitted by the jury. Somehow the juries were always unaccountably friendly to ** Free-born John." He addressed himself to them with remarkable adroitness, and, on the occasion in question, he had a medal struck upon one face of which were inscribed the names of the jury, and on the other these words, ** John Lilburne, saved by the power of the Lord, and the integrity of his jury, who ave judges of law as well as fact. Oct. 26th, 1649." Lawyers at least will understand the significance of the words I have italicised. In 1652 Lilburne was fined £y,ooo, and banished the realm under the pain of death. He took up his abode in Holland, whence he issued pamphlet after pamphlet ; but finding this unsatisfactory work, he returned to England in 1653, ^^^ ^^^ immediately arrested. To the great joy of London, a jury again acquitted him : but it was nevertheless thought proper to keep him in captivity '' for the peace of the nation." He was detained by Cromwell successively in the Tower, Elizabeth Castle, Jersey, and Dover Castle, In 1656, becoming a Quaker or Tolstoyan, he ceased from ** carnal sword-fighting and fleshly bustlings and contests," and was liberated, but only to die of galloping consumption in August, 1657, at the early age of thirty- nine. Moral of Lilburne's Career. — Lilburne's life properly understood, affords as memorable an example of integrity, ability and determined courage as any in British annals. He was a long way before his time, but in the not remote future now his memory will be resuscitated and revered. His "Agreement of the People" was the very foundation stone of modern democracy in Europe and America. Above all he was the first to fathom the infinite rascality 228 THE ANNALS OF TOIL, of that most cunning and masterful of traitors and tyrants, the ''false saint Oliver." '■'■ His very words," says Andrew Bisset, in his every way remarkable Omitted Chapters of English History, *' read against him at his trial in October, 1649, actually came to pass to the very letter three or four years after they were written and published : ' The present con- test of the present dissembHng interests of Independents for the People's Liberties in general,' he says ' is merely no more but Self in the Highest, and to set up the false saint, and most desperate apostate, murderer, and traitor, Oliver Cromwell, by a pretended election of his mercenary soldiers, under the false name of ' godly interest,' to be King of England (that being now too apparently all the intended Hberties of the people that ever he sought after in his life) ; that so he might rule and govern them by his will and pleasure, and so des- troy and evassalize their lives and properties to his lusts : which is the highest treason that ever was com- mitted or acted in this nation in any sense or kind ; either (i) in the eye of the law ; or (2) in the eye of the ancient (but yet too much arbitrary) proceedings of Parliament ; or (3) in the eye of their own late declared principles of reason (by pretence of which, and by no rules of law in the least, they took away the late King's head).' " Cromwell and Hannibal Compared. — Lilburne was the one man in England who clearly foresaw the end of the Commonwealth from the beginning. He dis- cerned that the victorious General of an army which has rendered itself all-powerful, can always, if so dis- posed, make himself supreme. George Washington might have done so if *' Self in the Highest " had been his God. In 1782 Washington refused '* with great and sorrowful surprise" (his own words) the Supreme Power and Crown which certain discontented officers offered him. And again, to quote too seldom quoted Bisset : '' A far greater soldier than either Washington or Cromwell, Hannibal, might have had, according to the worshippers of successful crime, a more glorious end if, THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 229 after the battle of Cannae, he had turned his victorious army to the destruction of his own country's constitution, such as it was. But Hannibal, though making no pretensions, like Cromwell, to saintship, was content to employ his unequalled strategic genius in over-reaching and destroying enemies who were on their guard against him, not in over-reaching and destroying friends and colleagues who trusted him. And in strange contrast to the English Christian, the Carthaginian heathen, to borrow the eloquent words of Arnold, * from his child- hood to his latest hour, in war and in peace, through glory and through obloquy, amid victories and amid disappointments, ever remembered to what purpose his father had devoted him, and withdrew no thought, or desire, or deed from their pledged service to his country.' " Hannibal was a greater man than Cromwell assuredly, but the Proto- Anarchist, '* Free-born John " was a true hero with a truer ideal than either, requiescat in pace. End of Book H. Printed by W. Reeves, 17, Grant Road, Addiscombe, Croydon. BELLAMY LIBRARY. ^No. 32, THE ANNALS OF TOIL. BEING LABOUB-HISTOBY OUTLINES, ROMAN AND BBITISH. IN FOUR PARTS, PABT III. J. MORRISON DAVIDSON. (Of the Middle Temple) Ba«rist£R-at-Law. Author of " Politics for the People " " The Old Order and the New," •The New Book of Kings," " The Book of Lords," "Thk Book of Erin,' " Home Rule for Scotland," •' Villagers' Magna Charta," " Gospel of the Poor," *• Let there be Light ! " London : •^ VM. REEVEC, 0^, CIIARIMG CROOG RD., W.O LONDON: FRANCIS RIDDELL HENDEHtOII 26. PATERNOSTER SQUARE. Printed by William Rbxvks, 83, Chahing CROSt Road, LOKDOM, W.C. TO "THAT WISE MAGICIAN WITH THE BROW SERENE," ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE, LL.D TheVe H§rabl$ Presidsnt of the L.N. S THIS BOOKLET IS GRATEFULLY INSCRIBED. Of the illustrious Sbbi of *' Evolution " as of ANOTHER BE IT RECORDED Ht had Companion on tht Multitude* Mark VIII., s. FOREWORDS. Hitherto it is questionable if all the mechanical inventions, yet made, have lightened the day's toil of any human being. They have enabled a greater popu- lation to live the same life of drudgery and imprison- ment, and an increased number of manufacturers and others to make large fortunes. — John Stuart Mill. No Revolution ever rises above the intellectual level of those who make it, and little is gained where one false notion supplants another. But we must some day, at last and forever, cross the line between Nonsense and Common Sense. And on that day we shall pass from Class Paternalism, originally derived from fetish fiction in times of universal ignorance, to Human Brotherhood in accordance with the nature of things and our growing knowledge of it ; from Political Government to Industrial Administration ; from Com- petition in Individualism to Individuality in Co- operation ; from War and Despotism, in any form, to Peace and Liberty. — Thomas Carlyle. THE ANNALS OF TOIL. BOOK III. CHAPTER IX. EVE OF THE CAPITALIST REGIME (1660-1760).— No. I Ah ! The shamble-knife for the freeman's sword, For the bravest heart ever throbbed in man ; And the sledge and the axe, and the hangman's cord, For the rasping steel in the battle's van ! — Stewart Ross. They never fall who die In a great cause. The block may soak their gore, 'J heir heads may sodden in the sun ; their limbs Be strung to city gates and castle walls ; But still their spirits walk abroad, — Byron. O, thou that sea-walls sever, From lands unwalled by seas, Wilt thou endure for ever, O, Milton's England these ? Thou that wast his Republic, Wilt thou clasp their knees ? Those Royalties rust-eaten, Those worm-corroded lies That keep thy head storm-beaten. And sunlike strength of eyes, From the open air and heaven Of intercepted skies. — Swinburne. It were bootless, for the purpose of these Annals, to give any detailed account of the expiring efforts of Seventeenth Century Republicanism to maintatn its 233 234 "T^^ ANNALS OF TOIL. hold on the Government of England. The military usurpation of Cromwell had so disgusted the nation that, on the fall of his son ** Protector " Richard, the Royalist Reaction, though held in check for a time — first by the so-called ** Rump " of the Long Parliament, and then by the Committee of Public Safety appointed by the officers of the Army to act provisionally and call into existence a new Legislature and Executive — inevitably carried all before it in the long run, and rivetted on the unfortunate country the chains of Monarchy and Aris- tocracy which have bound it ever since. The Committee of Public Safety.— Ultra-Royalist Clement Walker, in his History ojf Independency, thus amusingly describes the personnel of the Committee of Public Safety : — ** These following persons were pitched upon, viz : Fleetwood, whose folly would have exempted, but they were afraid he would have cryed, knowing also that the best play ever hath a fool in it. Lambert, a seeming Saint, but Chief Engineer of the Model. Deshorow, a drunken clown, once a sneaking petty fogger, now Lord Chancellor of Ireland, and a traytor. Whitelocke, a lump of ingratitude and deceit. Sir Harry Vane, Chief of the Seven Deadly Sins. Ludlow, once a gentleman, but since by himself levelled into the plebian ranks. Sydenham, nothing good but his name. Strickland, once a Rumper, after a Lord of Noll's edition, then a convert to * the good old cause.' Berry, the wickedest villain among 10,000. Lawrence, once an Upstart Privy Councillor, now scarce a Gentleman. Sir James Harrington, per risum multum possis cognoscere, Wareston^ a mickle-knave, guedfaw Sir. Ireton and Tichhovn, two of the City Puckloists who lie leger in the Common Council, to discover plots for the getting of money. Henry Brandith, fit for mischief, else he had not been here. THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 235 Thompson, a dull fellow, but a soaking Committee-man. Hewson, the Commonwealth's upright setter. Snivelling Colonel Clarke, Factious Colonel Ltlburne, Preaching Colonel Bennet and Cornelius Holland, a, most damnable Apostate both to God and his King." ''Seven Unalterable Fundamentals." — This Pro- visional Government published '* Seven Principles and Unalterable Fundamentals," to wit : — 1. That no Kingship shall be exercised in these nations. 2. That they will not have any Single Person to exercise the office of Chief Magistrate. 3. That an Army may be continued, so as to secure the peace of these nations, nor the conduct thereof be altered but by the consent of the Conservators appointed. 4. That no imposition may be upon the consciences of them that fear God. 5. That there be no House of Peers. 6. That the Legislative and Executive Power be not in the same hands. 7. That the Assemblies of the Parliament shall be elected by the People of this Commonwealth, duly quahfied." These "Unalterable Fundamentals" were all, alas, fundamentally altered by the traitor Monk, and the vile, libidinous crew of Royalists that came back to power with Charles Stuart, the Second of that odious name. In a delirium of abject servility, the nation (i.e., the " Classes ") threw itself at the feet of the most shameless libertine that ever occupied the throne of England or of Scotland. He and his advisers treated it as it deserved, sold it to France, and overwhelmed it with contumely. But what of the good men and true who had valiantly battled for the " Agreement of the People "—for the ** Fundamentals " of Democracy ? Let me record how heroically some of these all but forgotten champions of English Freedom met their fate. Death of Major-^Seneral Thomas Harrison. — At 236 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. the Restoration, Major- General Thomas Harrison, regi- cide, " the bravest of the brave,'* declined either to give a verbal pledge not to disturb the Government or to save his life by flight. ** If I had been minded to run away," said he, ** I might have had many oppor- tunities. But being so clear in the thing, I durst not turn my back nor step a foot out of the way, by reason I had been engaged in the service of so glorious and great a God." On the scaffold, Harrison's hands and knees were seen to tremble. ** It is by reason," the old man ex- plained, " of much blood I have lost in the wars and many wounds I have received in my body, which causeth this shaking and weakness in my nerves. I have had it these twelve years." " Where is your * good old cause ' now ? " cried a scoffer in the crowd. Harrison smiled cheerfully, and, clapping his hand on his breast, exclaimed : ** Here it is, and I am going to seal it with my blood." When he was half dead the common hangman cut him down ; cut off his genitals before his eyes ; burned his bowels ; severed his head from his body; and quartered the trunk for exposure on Westminster Hall and the gates of the City. Harrison was the man who is reputed to have pulled the Speaker out of the Chair when Cromwell ejected the Long Parliament, but his own explanation of that memorable event deserves attention: **The breaking, of the Parliament was the act and design of General Cromwell, for I did know nothing of it. That mornings before it was done, he called me to go along with him to the House, and after he had brought all into dis- order, I went to the Speaker and told him : * Sir, seeing things are brought to this pass, it is not requisite for you to stay there.' He answered he would not come down unless he was pulled out. * Sir,' said I, * I will lend you my hand,' and he, putting his hand into mine, came down without any pulling, so that I did not pull him. . . . Afterwards, when Cromwell and his party did set up themselves in their room, I abhorred THE ANKALS OF TOIL, 237 them and their ways, and suffered imprisonment by reason I would not join with them in that iniquity, and go against my conscience. There is nothing of this that lies as guilt upon me." Death of Justice Johr Cook. — Justice John Cook, regicide, was Solicitor- General at the trial of King Charles, and in the absence of Attorney- General Steele conducted the prosecution. A contemporary writer describes him as ** a most sweet man and very painful, and doth much good." Cromwell averred that Cook, ** by proceeding in a summary and expeditious way, determined more causes in a week than Westminster Hall in a year." At the Restoration he was excluded by name from the Act of Indemnity, and met his inevitable doom with a courage and cheerfulness that extorted the admiration even of the bitterest foes of the " good old cause." Writing to a friend from the Tower, he had declared : ** I cannot con- fess any guilt. It is such a cause that the Martyrs would gladly come again from Heaven to suffer for, if they might. I look upon it as the most noble and high act of justice that our story can parallel ; and, so far as I had any hand in it, never any one action in all my life comes to my mind with less regret or trouble of conscience than that does." On the scaffold he said : — ** I desire never to repent of anything I have done therein (the trial of Charles) ; but I desire to own the cause of God and of Christ ; and am here to bear wit- ness to it, and as far as I know anything of myself I can freely confess it." Here the Sheriff interrupted, desiring him to forbear any such expressions. Mr. Cook replied : ** It hath not been the manner of Englishmen to insult over a dying man, nor in other countries among Turks or galley-slaves." The hangman, all besmeared with Cook's blood, approached Hugh Peters, who was about to suffer, and rubbing his bloody hands together, asked : ** Come, liow do you like this, Mr. Peters, how do you like this ^38 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. work ? '* Peters replied : ** I am not, thank God, terri- fied at it. You may do your worst." Death of Sir Harry Yane. — But the noblest Roman bf all the Martyrs of English Freedom was Sir Harry Vane, the greatest and most spotless statesman of his age. *' He is too dangerous a man to let live if we can safely put him out of the way," wrote Charles n. Vane was protected alike by Statute and by the solemn pledge of the King to the Convention Parlia- ment. But what of that ? Though not a regicide, he was the soul of the Republican Party — altogether too dangerous a man to let live — nay, on the scaffold he was too dangerous to let speak to the multitude. Stretching out his hands, he had said : ** I do here appeal to the great God of Heaven and all this assembly or any other power, to show wherein I have defiled my hands with any man's blood or estate or that I have sought myself in any public capacity or place I have been in," when his voice was ordered to be drowned by the drummers. The trumpeters *'murred" derisively in his face, and he was silenced. Laying his head on the block as calmly as on a pillow, Vane prayed, ** Father, glorify Thy servant in the sight of men, that he may glorify Thee in the dischargeof his duty to Thee and to his country." "The Lord go with your dear soul," sobbed the agonised crowd. He never once changed countenance, and when his head was struck off, an observer, curious in such matters, noted that it was instantly still. He wore a red silk vest, the " vic- torious colour " of the Commonwealth. Truly, " there were giants in those days." EVE OF THE CAPITALIST REGIME (1660-1760).— No. II. They beheaded Charles I., and they drove James II. out of the KiDgdom; they went so far as to set his family aside for ever, and they put the present Royal Family in its stead, This was all very well ; but when King James had been driven out the Lords and Baronets and Squires conceived the notion of ruling for ever over King and People. They made Parliaments which used to be Annual, of Three Years of duration : and when the members had been elected for Three Years the members themselves made a law to make the people obey them for Seven Years. Thus was the usurpa- tion completed J and from that time to this they have filled the seats just as it has pleased them to do ; and they have done with their property and persons just what they have pleased to do. — Cobbett, They therefore passed a law to enable themselves to borrow money of rich people, and by the same law they imposed it on the people at large to pay, for ever, the Interest of the money so by them borrowed. The money which they thus borrowed they spent in wars, or divided among themselves, in one shape or another, . . The funds is no place at all, Jack. It is nothing. Jack. It is moonshine It is a lie, a bauble, a fraud, a cheat, a humbug. People think that " funds " is a place where money is kept. It means the descriptions of several torts of debt. — Ibid. The Puritan Revolution of 1648 I felt constrained to notice at some length, because in it was to be found a distinctly CoUectivist or ** Levelling " element, as it was then called. But the ** Blessed Restoration " of the ** Merry Monarch," Charles 11. (1660), followed in 1688 by the expulsion of his brother James II. and the ** Glorious Revolution " which brought in the " Dutch Deliverer," William of Orange, and the rule of the ** base, bloody and brutal Whigs," I can afford to pass over almost in silence. The workers had neither part, nor lot in these see-sawings of the territorial ** classes," It will be well now, however, briefly to trace the growth 239 240 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. of Capitalism as distinct from feudal or semi-feudal Landlordism. The Growth of Commercialism. — In the fifteenth century England did a fair trade with France, Spain, and more especially with the Low Countries, her chief exports being wool for the French looms, tin, and lead. Spain and Portugal sent us in return iron and war- horses ; France, wines ; the Flemings, velvets, linens, and fine cloths ; the Genoese, Italian silks and glass. English ships did not then venture into the Mediterranean, but a great fleet of Venetian trading vessels annually visited the southern shores of England, laden with silks, satins, fine damasks, cottons, Eastern spices, precious stones, camphor, saffron, etc. The trade ultimately ceased to be profitable, and the Venetian Fleet appeared on our shores for the last time in 1532. The quasi-Republican Federation, known as the Hanseatic League, formed in 1241 for the mutual pro- tection of mediaeval trading communities, embraced in 1360 no fewer than sixty-six important cities in North- ern Europe. The League had a big London Mart in the ** Steelyard," where the Cannon-street Station now stands. It flourished till 1597, when it was abolished. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, first Bruges and then Antwerp were the great Continental emporia to which English commodities were consigned ; but war and religious persecution eventually ruined them, and London became the general mart for the products alike of Europe, Asia and America. The Protestant refugees from the Continent brought with them to England their arts, enterprise and wealth, and did much to establish her maritime supremacy. Thirty- eight Flemish mer- chants, settled in London, contributed the then large sum of ;^5,ooo to help to equip the destroyers of the Spanish Armada, In Elizabeth's reign, also, great commercial companies began to be formed and chartered, the Great East India Company, among others. Bristol on the west coast, THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 24I and Hull and Boston on the east, rapidly rose into prominence. All the while, as has been seen, though ** wealth accumulated, men decayed." As the ** classes *' grew rich the " masses " grew, relatively at least, poorer and poorer. Queen Elizabeth's famous sea-dogs, Drake and Frobisher, Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir John Hawkins and Sir Richard Grenville were, if the truth must be told, little or nothing better than pirates ; and the Common- wealth's and Cromwell's wars against the Dutch and the Spaniards were unquestionably the products of the basest Capitalistic avarice, and the most mistaken and indefensible commercial jealousy, on the part of the huckstering English middle-class. Howbeit, that class continued — by rapine and slavery abroad and sweating the worker, skilled and unskilled, at home — to grow and prosper like a ,^reen bay tree. They even succeeded in almost extirpating the bold yeomanry of England whose prowess in the field, in the stirring days of the Common- wealth, had been at once the dread and admiration of Monarchical Europe. Expropriation of the Yeomen. — Down to 1700 the small cultivating freeholders with their families formed one-sixth of the population of England. The *' Glori- ous" or Aristocratic ** Revolution " of 1688, which was accomplished without their aid, paved the way for their extinction, a process which has been going on continuously ever since, and is now well nigh complete. The cause of the disappearance of the yeomen was this : After the Revolution (1688), the landed gentry, who had made it, found themselves supreme, both in national and local affairs and the wealthy merchants and manufacturers discovered that they could only acquire political power and local standing by buying out the small cultivators. To become ** gentlemen of England " they must first become landowners. Accordingly, we find many, perhaps most, of the lords of the soil of England, descendants of unscrupulous sweaters of industry. For example, take James Lowther, created Earl of 242 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. Lonsdale in 1784. He did not ** come over at the Con- quest.'* His progenitor was a successful Turkey mer- chant. The Barings' ancestor was a clothier in Devon- shire. Anthony Pethy, a clothier in Romsey, Hamp- shire, was similarly ancestor on the female side of the Pethy-Fitzmaurices. Lords Conway and Walpole married daughters of John Shorter, merchant of London^ and so customary had it become to commingle blue and sweating blood for mutual profit, even in Defoe's day, that that prince of pamphleteers observes : ** Trade is so far from being inconsistent with a gentleman, that, in short, trade in England makes gentlemen ; for after a generation or two, the tradesmen's children, or at least their grandchildren, come to be as gentlemen, statesmen, parliament men, privy councillors, judges, bishops and noblemen, as those of the highest birth and the most ancient families." Need we wonder then, that with such baits as these, the successful sweater set himself to buy out every small freeholder who could be induced to sell, and that with the aid of primogeniture, entail, and strict marriage settlements, landed estates should have swollen to the immense dimensions we behold to-day. It is this else- where unknown union of aristocracy and plutocracy, of land and capital, of the *' gentlemen of England " and the upstart men of screws, looms, ships, and railways, that constitutes the strength of British Toryism. Dis- solve this tacit union, and the whole fabric of" Society '* would collapse in less than no time. But the process of agglomerating land by the means described, has now gone so far that the privileged " classes " have at last become thoroughly alarmed for the stability of the entire system, and the result we see in our Holdings Bills. Howbeit, the effort to resuscitate the yeomanry will not in the long run succeed. Com- munal possession is the goal to be attained, and it is almost phenomenal that the G. O. M. of all men, should have been the first to declare to the collec- tive wisdom at St. Stephen's that no Small Holdings Bill can satisfy that does not provide (i) for Parish THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 245 Councils (2) Compulsion and (3) a Tenure less than Freehold. Growth of Population. — Before passing on to the great Industrial Revolution effected by ingenious inven- tions, and the application of steam-power to industrial production, it may be well to note the growth of the population. Before 1801 there are no official returns, and we are left to inference. A Census Bill was proposed in 1753 and was passed by large majorities in the Commons, but the Lords ignominiously threw it out. In the preface to the Census of 1831, Mr. Finlaison (Actuary to the National Debt Office) makes the follow- ing computation, which may be accepted as the most accurate attainable. In 1700 the approximate popula- tion of England and Wales was 5,134,516, and in 1750, 6,039,684. In 1801 there was a totdl 0^9,187,176 souis. The modern industrial epoch of machine- production commences with the second half of the Eighteenth Century and during that period the rate of increase was 52 per cent, as compared with 17 per cent in the first half. And not merely were three millions added to the population in fifty years, but the distribution of the population underwent a marked change. Villages became towns, and sparsely inhabited districts became populous and vice versa. In 1769, Arthur Young, the celebrated agricul- turalist thus estimates the population according to occupation : — Farmers (freeholders and leaseholders), their servants ") . and labourers ] 2,800,000 Manufacturers of all kinds 3,000,000 Landlords and their dependents, Fishermen and miners 800,000 Persons in commerce 700,000 Non-industrious poor 500.000 Clergy and lawyers 200,000 Civil servants, Army and Navy 500,000 Total 8,500,000 EVE OF THE CAPITALIST REGIME —No. III. At present, all the wealth of Society goes first into the possession of the Capitalist . . he pays the landowner his rent, the labourer his wages, the tax and tithe-gatherer their claims, and keeps a large, indeed, the largest, and a continually augmenting share of the annual produce of labour for himself. The Capitalist may now be said to be the first owner of all the wealth of the community, though no law has conferred on him the right of this property. . . This change has been effected by the taking of interest on Capital . . and it is not a little curious that all the lawgivers of Europe en- deavoured to prevent this by Statutes — viz., Statutes against usury, . . . The power of the Capitalist over all the wealth of the country is a complete change in the right of property, and by what law or series of laws was it effected ? — Rights of Property Contrasted : Anon. Lond : 1832. My own, sayest thou ? What is it ? From what secret places hast thou brought it into the world ? That which is taken by thee beyond what would suffice to thee is taken by violence. . . . It is the bread of the hungry thou keepest ; it is the clothing of the naked thou lockest up ; the money thou buriest is the redemption of the wretched. — St. Ambrose. If covetousness is removed there is no reason for gain ; and it there is no reason for gain, there is no need of trade. — Tertullian. Lend, hoping for nothing again. — Jesus Christ. Domestic Manufacture. — At the eve of the Industrial Revolution, effected by machine-invention and steam power (1750), the domestic system of manufacture generally prevailed. The artizan did not confine him- self solely to his bench or his loom, but tilled as well the small plot of ground attached to his cottage. He was comparatively well off when Adam Smith wrote in 1776. Employer and employed were much on the same social jevel. At least their relations were of a personal, and not of the mere cash-nexus description, 244 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 245 In the woollen trade, for example, the head of the family would receive from the manufacturer a certain quantity of warp and weft to be worked up, and wife and weans would cheerfully aid in the common task^ realizing, in some measure, the poet's ** vision of con- tentment, spinning at the cottage door." Wages, it is true, were not large, averaging in the North and Mid- lands, according to Arthur Young, only 9s. 6d. a week ; but then expenditure was abnormally low. The rent of a cottage, with its attached piece of land, was not more than 6^d. a week ; while bread could be had for ijd. a pound, and meat at from 24d. to 3id. Mr. H. de B. Gibbins, in his Industrial History of England, thus lucidly explains this leisurely old idyllic system of domestic manufacture : " Manufacturers would ride a long way to buy wool from the farmers, or at the the great fairs, such as those of Stourbridge, Lynn, Boston, Gainsborough, and Beverley, all of which were celebrated for their wool sales. This wool was then brought home and sorted, then sent out to the hand- combers, and, on being returned combed, was again sent out, often to long distances, to be spun. It was, for instance, sent from Bradford, in Yorkshire, to Orms- kirk, in Lancashire, or to Wensleydale ; or, again, from near London to Kendal and back. When spun, the fine wool or * tops ' were intrusted to some shopkeeper to * put out ' among the neighbours. Then the yarn was brought back and sorted by the manufacturer himself into hanks, according to the counts and twist. The hand- weavers would next come for their warp and weft, and in due time bring back the * piece,' which often v;as sent elsewhere to be dyed. Finally, the finished cloth was sent to be sold at the fairs, or at the local * piece halls ' of such central towns as Leeds or Halifax.*' In 1 70 1, English woollen exports were worth ;^2, 000,000. In 1770, they were worth ;^4,ooo,ooo or from one- third to one- fourth of the whole. This fact readily accounts for the rage for enclosures, and the conversion of arable land into pastoral. No fewer thaii- ^46 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 700 Enclosure Acts were passed by the Legislature between 1760 and 1774. In 1760 only 43,000 persons were engaged in the cotton trade. It was confined to Lancashire, with Manchester and Bolton for headquarters ; and the value of the entire product was under ;^6oo,ooo. The export value was about one-twentieth that of our exported woollen fabrics. In the hosiery trade there was, at this time, no concentration to speak of. At Derby was manufac- tured silk hosiery, and at Leicester woollen. London had 1,000 frames; Nottingham had 1,500; Leicester 1,000 ; Derby, 200; Surrey, 350: the Midlands, 7,300; and so on. Coventry excelled in ribbons. Stockport, Knutsford, Congleton, and Derby spun most of the silk which was woven by the refugee workmen of Spitalfields. The linen trade was specially well distributed among the three kingdoms. It was, of course, the chief manufacture in Ireland. Mining Industries. — At this period (1750) the mining industries, though not unimportant, were in a very backward condition. The iron trade had seemingly seen its best days in the Seventeenth Century. The lack of fuel was an insuperable draw- back. In the Weald of Sussex, then the chief centre of the industry, the destruction of the circumja- cent forests was so great that Parliament had intervened with legislative restrictions. Still, in the Weald in 1740, there were ten furnaces, producing annually 1,400 tons. Gloucestershire, Shropshire, and Yorkshire, had each six furnaces, and Newcastle even then could boast of large ironworks. Carron iron was not manufactured in Scotland till 1760. In 1737, it is calculated that Eng- land imported 20,000 tons of iron, and produced 17,000. In 1881 our steel and iron exports (3,820,315 tons) were valued at ;^27, 590,908, and our imports at ;^3,705,332. In the interval Watt's steam-engine had done its magi- cal work in raising and transporting both coal and iron ore ; while the inventions of Smeaton, Cranage, Onions THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 24f and Cort had brought the processes of manufacture al- most to perfection. And yet, alas, with all this wealth of discovery and invention, the workers are more miserable than ever. The capitalist has appropriated the fruits of science just as he has appropriated every other good gift of God to man, and none may taste of them unless he pays inexorable ** ransom." Talk of the ** rent of ability ! " The Capitalist exacts the rent of other men's ability from Tubal Cain to Archimedes, from Archimedes to James Watt, and from James Watt to Edison. The hardware trade was not so much concentrated in the middle of the eighteenth century as now, though, even in 1727, Sheffield was a chief centre of the industry, and Birmingham employed 50,000 workmen. Wood- stock, e.g. J manufactured ** polished steel*'; South Shropshire, locks; and Warrington, Bristol and Gloucester, pins. Mechanical Arts when Adam Smith wrote. — In Adam Smith's time the mechanical arts were not in a very promising condition, and hence, doubtless, the inability of the great father of economics to foresee the woeful outcome of the CapitaHstic System of production which he only beheld at its promising, and seemingly hopeful and helpful birth. ** According to the same author," says the lamented Toynbee, in his ^' Industrial Revolution of the Eighteenth Century in England," "there had been only three inventions of importance since Edward IV.'s reign — the exchange of the rock and spindle for the spinning-wheel ; the use of machines for facilitating the proper arrangement of the warp and wool before being put into the loom ; and the employment of fulling mills for thickening cloth instead of treading it in water. In this enumeration, however, he forgot to mention the fly-shuttle, invented in 1738 by Kay, a native of Bury in Lancashire, the first of the great inventions which revolutionised the woollen industry. Its utility consisted in its enabling a weaver to do his work in half the time, and making it possible for one man instead of two to weave the widest cloth." 248 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. The reason why there were so little regard for invention and so limited an application of the principle of the division of labour was undoubtedly the atrocious character of the roads. They were such as to make Arthur Young swear. On ** that infernal " road, between Preston and Wigan he saw three carts break down in a single mile, the ruts being four feet deep. ** Very shabby," ** vile," ** execrable," <* most infamously bad," " made with a view to immediate destruction '* were the highways the renowned agriculturalist traversed in his day. In time Macadam, Watt and Stevenson changed all that, giving us unrivalled turn- pikes of stone, and rails of steel, and then the Age of Invention and Capitalistic Concentration set in in earnest. But before we pass on to the weary economic era in which we now find ourselves, let us glance for a moment, with the eyes of the immortal author of** Robin- son Crusoe," at the old toiling England, which we are leaving behind us, and say if the latter was altogether without its redeeming features : — ** The land near Halifax," he tells us, ** was divided into Small Enclosures from two acres to six or seven each, seldom more. Every three or four Pieces of Land had an house belonging to them. . . hardly an house standing out of speaking-distance from another. . . . We could see, at every house a Tenter, and on almost every Tenter a piece of Cloth, or Kersie, or Shalloon. . . . At every considerable house was a manufactory. . . Every clothier keeps one horse, at least, to carry his manufactures to the markets ; and every one generally keeps a cow or two or more for his Family. By this means the small Pieces of enclosed Land about each house are occupied, for they scarce sow corn Ti enough to feed their poultry. The houses are full of ' lusty fellows, some at the dye-vat, some at the looms, others dressing the cloths ; the women and children carding and spinning ; being all employed from the youngest to the oldest. • . . Not a Beggar to be seen, nor an idle person." CHAPTER X. THE COMING OF THE CAPITALISTS.— No I. Hitherto it is questiooable if all the mechanical inventions yet made have lightened the day's toil of any human being. They have enabled a greater population to live the same life of drudgery and imprisonment, and an increased number of manufacturers, and others, to make large fortunes. — John Stuart Mill. It is not to die, or even to die of hunger that makes a man wretched. But it is to live miserable, we know not why ; to work sore, and yet gain nothing; to be heartworn, weary, yet isolated, unrelated, girt in with a cold, universal laisaz Jaire. — Thomas Carlyle. Machinery and Misery. — We have now fairly reached the era of great inventions and huge *' factories." In 1753 a Mr. Laurence Earnshaw, of Mottram, Cheshire, invented a machine to spin and reel cotton at one operation. He showed it to his neighbours and then deliberately destroyed it, lest its adoption should deprive the poor of bread ! Then came Hargreaves with his " Spinning-Jenny," in 1764. Hargreaves was himself a weaver, of Standhill, near Blackburn, and his invention, which enabled him to spin eight times as much yarn as he could with the one thread hand spinning wheel, rendered him so unpopular that he had to quit Lancashire in peril of his life. In 1767, Arkwright's spinning throstle, or ** water- frame," by substituting rollers for fingers, effected an incalculable industrial transformation. Arkwright was, of all trades in the world, a Preston barber ! 249 250 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. In 1785 Crompton's ** mule " saw the light. It combined the principles of Hargreaves' ** jenny "and Crompton's ** throstle." Hence the name "mule." The '*mule" enables a single spinner to work, if need be, 12,000 spindles ! As a consequence, the displacement of labour soon became alarming. Every new jenny threw seven spinners in every eight out of employment. The throstle more than trebled the dislocation, whilst the mule deprived whole armies of workmen of their means of subsistence. Meanwhile the coffers of the manu- facturers swelled to bursting, and their rapacity knew no bounds, The turn of the spinners came first ; that of the weavers followed. How to weave as well as spin by machinery now became the problem, which was par- tially solved by the Rev. Dr. Cartwright, Kent, with his *' power-loom " invention in 1785. It underwent many improvements before it could drive the hand- weaver from the field, but eventually, he too, followed the hand-spinner into oblivion. Watt and The Steam Demon. — But a greater in- dustrial magician than Hargreaves, Crompton, or Arkwright was now at work. The immortal James Watt, in 1764, invented the steam engine, and with it fundamentally revolutionized every department of human activity. The very conditions of being — time and space — were profoundly altered, and the race of man entered on a new and untried destiny. Watt's engine was first put to use in mining operations, but in 1785 it began to creep into the textile industries. The steam factory displaced the water mill, and the production of commodities assumed unprecedented pro- portions. The Factory System was at length in full swing. The '* Coming of the Capitalists " was an accomplished fact. With much complacent naivete, Nasmyth, of steam- hammer fame, in giving evidence before the Trades' Union Commission, thus epitomised the results of his own inventions: ** All that class of men (the best paid THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 25I lirtificers) who depended on mere dexterity are set aside altogether. By these mechanical contrivances, I re- duced the number of men in my employ by 1,500 hands ^*.^., fully one-half. The result was that my profits were much increased." Doubtless ! And, as the '* hands " were reduced and the em- ployers' *^ profits" were increased, the workers' ** wages" naturally fell— fell to a point that makes us wonder how, in the circumstances, the toilers were able to survive and reproduce their species. For, be it noted, that, in the period now under consideration, the ** Classes" were warring against human liberty in every quarter of the globe, and piling up an Unnational Debt of the most unheard of magnitude. ** A long war and a short crop ! " was the favourite toast of the ** gentlemen of England," both tending to raise rent by diminishing the supply of grain. The following table speaks volumes : — Year. Weavers' Weekly Wages. Wheat per Quarter, 1802 13s. lOd 699. Od. 1806 10s. 6d b4s. Od. 1812 6s. 4d 137s. Od. 1816 5s. 2d 83s. Od. 1817 4s. 3|d 126s. Od. It soon came to this, under the new steam-factory dispensation, that families of five and six frequently came to earn less than a single adult male worker, before the era of great inventions (1760), had received for shorter hours and infinitely less irksome and unhealthy toil. In truth, an epoch of downright slavery in its most repulsive aspects had now set in — an epoch of which we have not yet, by any means, seen the end. Its most atrocious feature was child -labour. The Capitalist as Kidnapper. — The happy hunting ground of the Capitalist kidnapper was the work- house. In virtue of the new gospel of " freedom of contract " the factory-lord of the North sought the workhouses of the South, and contracted with the ** overseers " for the supply of so many head of pauper children, aged from five to nine, to be "appren- ticed," as it was ironically called, to his infernal 252 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. industry. This part of the business was most fre- quently entrusted to ** middlemen," who carried on wholesale operations in infant flesh and blood, keeping their pitiable little victims, whose sole crime was poverty, in dark cellars in Cottonopolis till they could strike a suitable bargain with some factory-king or his deputy. They were then ** shipped " for their destina- tion, in truck or canal boat, like so many cattle, whereupon their ** apprenticeship " began in good earnest. The mills ran day and night, and the " apprentices " worked by relays. Their hours varied, but sixteen and eighteen at a stretch were by no means uncommon. They were literally fed on the husks that the swine did eat. The lash was in constant requisition. Many died under it and were " buried darkly at dead of night '' in unhallowed graves, Naturally they sometimes ran away and broke their contract. They were generally caught, and dire to them were the consequences. " Even young women, if only suspected of intending to run away, had irons rivetted to their ankles reaching by long links and rings up to the hips ; and in these they were compelled to walk to and from the mill and to sleep." To prevent flight, the strongest precautions were taken. While at work they were locked up ; while asleep in their filthy bothies they were locked up ; they were guarded to and from the factory like so many convicts. In defiance of all decency the boys and girls were thrust into the same bothy, if there chanced to be any lack of accommodation. Is it to be wondered at, if in such circumstances, immorality, juvenile, as well as adult, abounded ? Night work doubled the normal rate of illegitimacy and drunkenness, and unbridled sexual indulgence reigned. When the night shift was incomplete manufactures of the baser sort would not hesitate several times a week to work the ** hands" thirty and even forty hours at a stretch, until they murmured in their misery " Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die/' All the while it I THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 253 was the boast of the ** classes " that a slave could not breathe in England, and that the moment he touched British soil his fetters dropped from his limbs of their own accord, and he began lustily to bawl, ** Britons, never, never shall be slaves. " Samples of Capitalistic "law-and-order." — Let us now instance a few particular samples of Capitalist ** law and order '* testified to by unimpeachable witnesses. It was e.g., given in evidence before the Factories Inquiry Commission of 1833, that a certain Scottish manufacturer pursued a runaway of sixteen on horse- back, overtook him, and lashed him back before him with a long whip the whole way as fast as his horse could trot. When runaways were not flogged they were inhumanly imprisoned. One hapless maiden, it is on record, was first imprisoned for twelve months for ** breach of contract '* and then ** brought back and worked for her meat, and she had to pay the expenses that were incurred. So she worked two years for nothing to indemnify her master for the loss of her time." 'Tis, oh to be a slave, Along with the barbarous Turk, Where woman has never a soul to save, If this be Christian work. Mr. H. de B. Gibbins, in his interesting little volume " English Social Reformers," tellsseveral pathetic tales, of enlightened nineteenth century "enterprise," and all on incontestible authority. Weigh the signifi- cance of these as legitimate issue of the profit-monger- ing capitalistic instinct : — A lame Huddersfield lad lived over a mile from the mill in which he worked. He could move with much difficulty ; ** So my brother and sister used, out of kindness, to take me under each arm, and run with me to the mill, and my legs dragged on the ground, in con- sequence of the pain. I could not walk, and if we were 234 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. five minutes late the overlooker would take a strap and beat us till we were black and blue.*' The evidence of a Leeds girl was to the following effect. She began factory work at six years of age, and worked from 5 a.m. till 9 p.m. : ** When the dofFers flagged a little, or were too late, they were strapped, and those who were last in doffing were constantly strapped, girls as well as boys. I have been strapped severely, and have been hurt by the strap excessively. Sometimes the overlooker got a chain and chained the girls, and strapped them all down the room," Such barbarity would scarcely have been permitted on a West India plantation, but in Yorkshire it was thought nothing strange. A Keighley overseer, in his evidence, related how a man came to him, saying, ** My little girl is dead." I asked : ** When did she die ?" And he said : ** In the night : and what breaks my heart is this : she went to the mill in the morning, but she was not able to do her work. A little boy said he would help her if she would give him a halfpenny on Saturday. But at night, when the child went home — perhaps about a quarter of a mile, — she fell down several times on the road through exhaustion, till at length she reached her door with difficulty. She never spoke audibly afterwards ; she died in the night." For the credit of human nature — nay of Capitalist human nature — we could sincerely wish the following in cident were untrue. Unfortunately it is too true : A girl in a Stockport mill was caught in the machinery, whirled round, and dashed to the floor a mangled mass, with both legs broken. From her poor wage, a humane Christian employer and *' Captain of Industry " care- fully deducted is. 6d. for the unexpired portion of the week ! It is some pleasure, however, to record the sequel. Lord Shaftesbury (then Lord Ashley) took the case into Court and obtained ;^ioo damages for the suflferer and ;^ 600 in costs. May the memory of this true noble never fade ! THE COMING OF THE CAPITALISTS —No £1. Work, work, work, Till the brain begins to swim ; Work, work, work, Till the eyes are heavy and dim ! Seam, and gusset, and band, Band and gusset, and seam, Till over the buttons I fall asleep And sew them on in a dream ! C) men with sisters dear, O men with mothers and wives. It is not linen you're wearing out, But human creatures' lives ! Stitch, stitch, stitch, In poverty, hunger and dirt, Sewing at once with a double thread A shroud as well as a shirt. — Tom Hood. Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers, Ere the sorrow comes with years ? They are leaning their young heads against their mothers, And that cannot stop their tears The young lambs are bleating in the meadows. The young birds are chirping in their nests. The young fawns are playing with the shadows. The young flowers are blowing towards the west ; But the young, young children, O my brothers. They are weeping bitterly ! They are weeping in the playtime of the others, In the country of the free 1 —Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Inversion of Family Life by the Factory System.— The domestic system of rural manufacture, once fairly superseded by town and factory industry, a strange inversion of the order of family relations followed. Female labour and child labour, under the 255 256 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. new conditions of machine-production, became even more efficient — and what was of far more consequence in the eyes of the Capitalist, much cheaper — than that of adult males. Wife and child became the bread- winners ; the father and husband had to perform household duties. Sometimes the wife, sometimes the children, ruled the new proletariat home. The result was what may be termed the " Subjection of Man." Of this singular state of the ** lord of creation " Friedrich Engels, in his exhaustive treatise on the Working Class in England in 1844,* gives the following pathetic illustration : — ** A Leeds workman, by name Robert Pounder, writing to Richard Oastler, the great Factory Reformer, of whom something shall be recorded by-and-bye, relates how a brother toiler, being a tramp, came to St. Helens in Lancashire, where he looked up an old mate. He found Jack living in a damp cellar, quite unfit for human habitation. Where my friend went in there sat poor Jack near the fire and what think you did he ? Why he sat and mended his wife's stockings with the bodkin, and as soon as he saw his old friend at the doorpost, he tried to hide them. But, Joe, — this is my friend's name — had seen it, and said : * Jack what the devil art thou doing ? Where is the missus ? Why is that thy work ? ' And poor Jack was ashamed and said, * No I know this is not my work, but my poor missus is in the factory ; she has to leave at half past five and has to work till eight at night, and then she is so knocked up that she cannot do aught when she gets home, so I have to do everything for her, for I have no work, nor had any for more than three years, and I shall never have any more work while I live.' And then he wept a big tear and continued, * There is work enough for women folk and children hereabouts, but none for men ; thou mayest sooner find a hundred pound on the road than work for men ; but I should never have believed that thou or any one else would have seen me mending my wife's stockings, for it is bad work. But slie can hardly stand on her feet ; I am afraid she will * London : W. Rppvcp. 5/- THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 257 be laid up, and then I don't know what will become of us, for it's a good bit that she has been the man in the house and I the woman. It is bad work, Joe ! * and he cried bitterly and said : * It has not always been so.' * No,' said Joe ; * but when thou hadn't no work, how hast thou shifted?' 'I'll tell thee, Joe, as well as I can, but it was bad enough ; thou knows when I got married I had work plenty and thou knows I was not lazy.' * No, that thou wer't not.' * And we had a good furnished house and Mary need not go to work. I could work for the two of us but now the world is upside down. Mary has to work and I have to stop at home, mind the child, sweep and wash; bake and mend, and when the poor woman comes home at night she is knocked up. Thou knows, Joe, it's hard for one that was used different.' * Yes, boy, it is hard,' and then Joe began to cry again, and he wished he had never married and he had never been born ; but he had never thought, when he wed Mary, it would come to this. *I have often cried over it,' said Jack. Now when Joe heard this he told me he had often cursed and damned the factories, and the masters, and the Govern- ment with all the curses that he had learned while he was in the factory as a child." And why should not Jack curse and damn the factories, and the masters, and the Government with all the curses he could learn or coin ? For him and his it was a cursing matter all round. Lord Shaftesbury (then Lord Ashley) told the House of Commons (March 15, 1844) of an every day occurence : A man berated his two daughters for frequenting a public house. They replied, '* Damn you, do we not keep you ? " and left their parents to starve. Infant Life in the Factory Inferno.— But the de- struction of family-life was not all. The bodies and souls of individual workers suffered unspeakably in the new Capitalist Inferno. Richard Oastler began his crusade against the New Industral Slavery in 1830, and this is the picture he drew of infant factory . life at that date — a picture by no means exaggerated, 258 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. as after evidence given before Parliamentary Commis- sions proved : — ** I virill not picture fiction to you, but I will tell you what I have seen. Take a little female captive, six or seven years old ; she shall rise from her bed at four in the morning, on a cold winter day, but, before she rises, she wakes, perhaps half a dozen times, and says, * P'ather, is it time ? Father, is it time ? ' And at last when she rises and puts her little bits of rags upon her limbs, weary yet with the last day's work, she leaves her parents in their bed, for their labour (if they have any) is not required so early, She trudges alone through rain and snow, mire and darkness, to the mill, and there for 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, or even 18 hours she is obliged to work with only thirty minutes' interval for meals and play. Homeward again at night she would go, when she was able, but many a time she hid herself in the wool in the mill, as she had not strength to go. And if she were one moment behind the appointed time, if the bell had ceased to ring when she arrived with trembling, shivering limbs at the factory door, there stood a monster in human form and as she passed, he lashed her. This (holding up an overseer's whip) was hard at work in this town (Bradford) last week. The girl I am speaking of died ; but she dragged on that dreadful existence for several years." From the sleep wherein she lieth none will wake her, Cryino^, " Get up, little Alice, it is day !" If you listen by that grave in sun and shower, With your ear down, little Alice never cries! Could we see her lace, be sure we should not know her, For tlie smile has time for g:rowing in her eyes ! And merry go her moments lulled and stilled in The shroud by the Kirk chime ! " It is good when it happens," say the children, " That we die before our time." Had Mrs. Browning the speech of Oastler before her when she penned her exquisitely mournful **Cry of tjie Children " ? They are not altogether unworthy of each other. Mortality in the Factory. — But if child mortality in THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 259 the factory was appalling, it hardly fared better with the survivors. Want, overwork and wretched dwel- lings stunted, deformed and enfeebled their frames j while their minds, takmg on the colour of their sur- roundings, became the prey of every brutal instinct and passion. Curvature of the spinal column and legs, from pro- tracted standing, were the despair of the doctors. ** Foot-flattening " was a common phenomenon. Swol- len joints, varicose veins, and persistent ulcers on the thighs and calves abounded. Cripples swarmed in every manufacturing centre. Of 1, 600 '* hands," employed in Lanarkshire Mills, not more than 10 were found to be over forty-five years of age. In Stockport and Manchester out of 22,094 factory workers, only 143 were over forty-five years. ** Hands" of forty were spoken of by their employers as *'old people (!)." On the frames of girls approaching the age of puberty the heat of the factories had the same effect as that of a tropical climate. Maturity and even pregnancy at eleven years of age were not unknown. It is not difficult to imagine what the offspring of such child- mothers would be like, especially as the mothers were wont to work up to the very hour of confinement, and one witness declared in evidence : " 1 once heard a manufacturer ask an overlooker, ** Is So-and-so not back, yet ? " ** No." ** How long is it since she was confined ?" ** A week.'' *< She might surely have been back long ago. That one, over there (pointing to a "hand"), only stays three days." The Factorylord's Jus Primae Noctis. — Indeed, during the period under review, the ** output" of child-'* hands," with all attainable speed, was abso- lutely necessary to the Capitalist's contentment and welfare. The children might be " adulterated," and " shoddy " like his other products, but they were 26o THE ANNALS OF TOIL. an indispensable part of the " plant,** and, as is well known, the Factory lord very frequently assisted per- sonally in running this particular department of the mill by a rigid exaction of the Jus Primce Noctis of the feudal baron. Adam Smith very correctly assigns the reason : — ** The demand for men, like that of any other commodity^ necessarily regulates the production of men, quickens it when it goes too slowly, and stops it when it goes too fast." Just so! Here we have the very quintessence of Malthus. O, great God of Demand and Supply, who is like unto Thee, in the Heavens above, or the Earth beneath, or the waters under the Earth ! THE COMING OF THE CAPITALISTS.— No. l^> " Allah ! Allah ! " cried the stranger, " Wondrous sights the traveller sees ; But the greatest is the latest, Where the drones control the bees ! '* Now Dives daily feasted, and was gorgeously arrayed, Not at all because he liked it, but because 'twas good for trade. That the people might have calico, he clothed himself in silk. And surfeited himself on cream that they might have the milk. He fed five hundred servants that the poor might not lack bread, And had his vessels made of gold that they might have more lead. And e'en to show his sympathy with the deservmg poor. He did no useful work himself, that they might do the more. As has been seen, the pauper children of England and Scotland, in the beginning of the century, were sold wholesale into factory bondage by the Parish Overseers under the euphemism of " Apprenticeship." They were herded together under such insanitary conditions that epidemic disease spread right and left, and the *^ classes " were soon in abject terror of their lives. They accordingly took compassion on them- selves, and in 1802 passed the " Moral and Health Act," promoted by the elder Sir Robert Peel. It ordained that the factory lords should clothe their young slaves, and not work them over twelve hours a day. It also made some slender provision for their education, and there was even a pretence of appointing Factory Inspectors. Anyhow, the statutes recognised the pauper apprentices as in some measure human beings, which was a novelty in their forlorn existence. Till then they had been treated a shade worse than brute beasts, as the following extract from the well- attested memoir of Robert Blincoe will show : — 261 262 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. The lean Appi^eniloe end the fat Pig.—" The store pigs and the apprentices used to fare very much ahke; but when the swine were hungry, they used to grunt so loud, they obtained the wash first to quiet them. The apprentices could be intimidated, and made to keep still. *'The fatting pigs fared luxuriously compared with apprentices. They were often regaled with meal balls, made into dough, and given in the shape of dumplings. Those who were in a part of the buildings contiguous to the pig-sties used to keep a sharp eye upon the fatting pigs and their meal balls, and as soon as the swineherd withdrew, Blincoe used to slip downstairs, and, stealing slyly towards the pig-trough, plunge his hand in at the loopholes, and steal as many dumplings as he could grasp. The food thus stealthily obtained from the pig-trough was exultingly conveyed to a hiding place, and there greedily devoured. The pigs, though usually esteemed the most stupid of animals, learned from experience to guard their food by various expedients? Made wise by repeated losses, they kept a keen lookout and, the moment they ascertained the approach of the half-famished apprentices, they set up so loud a chorus of snorts and grunts, it was heard in the kitchen, when out rushed the swineherd, armed with a whip, from which combined means of protection for the swine this accidental source of obtaining a good dinner was soon lost ? Such was the contest carried on for some time at Litton Mill between the half- famished apprentices and the well-fed swine.' Blincoe and his fellow victims used joyfully to say, when they saw the swine being fed, " The pigs are served ; it will be our turn next." The Act, 1802, applied only to pauper apprentices, leaving the wretched plight of ''free " children, whose parents resided in the neighbourhood of the factories, wholly unalleviated. Again Sir Robert Peel came to the rescue, and in 1816 a Select Committee of the House of Commons was appointed to inquire into the matter. In 1819 the House of Lords followed suit, and eventu- THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 263 ally in that year was passed 59 Geo. III., 66. It (i) prohibited the employment of children under nine years of age ; (2) fixed twelve hours' daily toil as the maximum for persons under sixteen ; (3) prescribed reasonable time for meals ; (4) ordered factory walls and ceilings to be washed twice a year with quicklime and water. Unfortunately the Act of 18 19 applied only to cotton mills, whereas that of 1802 covered wool factories as well. Richard Oastier to the Rescue. — In 1825 Sir John Cam Hobhouse (afterward Lord Broughton) continued his laudable endeavours to shorten Saturday labour by legal enactment. In 1830 Richard Oastier, the re- nowned ** Factory King," began to agitate in Yorkshire for a Ten Hours Bill. The opposition of the manu- facturers was most violent, but in 1831 some headway was made. A Bill was carried prohibiting night-work (7.30 p.m. to 5.30 a.m.) in cotton factories to all persons under twenty-one. Under eighteen years, hours were not to exceed twelve per day — nine on Saturday. This Act was far from satisfactory to "King Richard" (Oastier), and stout Tom Sadler, M.P. for Newark, who became the Parliamentary leader of the Ten Hours Movement, on the eve of the Reform Bill of 1832. Though both were men of acknowledged ability and high character, both were Church and State Tories, and the oditmi politicum helped greatly to embitter the agitation and obscure the issues. In March, 1831, the mill owners, mostly Liberals, threw down the gauntlet to the factory reformers, at an influential meeting at Halifax, when they passed four- teen resolutions formally traversing every position taken up by the ** short time " operatives and their champions. They credited themselves with an unimpeachable character for humanity and kindness, and bewailed their impending ruin as a class, and as the indubitable backbone of the nation. A ten hours bill would annihilate " profit " and without ** profit" production must cease and the workers starve ! Q. E. D. Oastier replied with crushing effect by presenting 264 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. them with a perfectly fair and lucid synopsis of their own resolutions. Here it is, and it can be read with considerable ad- vantage in the Hght of Salisbury's wretched rechauffe of obsolete economics, lately (1892) served up by him and Balfour to the deputation of the Eight Hours Hyde Park demonstrators : — Satanic Synopsis of Capitalist Contentions.— 1st. God's laws must bend and break at the call of avarice and self-interest. 2nd. Money is of more value than principle, morality,^ and religion. 3rd. Government is no longer of any use, because it is unable to protect the innocent and weak against the rapacity of the guilty and the strong. 4th. The state of this country is really such that its very existence depends upon excessive application and over- working on the part of the operatives. 5th. It is better that the labourino^ classes should live by excessive and overpowering toil of their infants than that the parents should labour for the support of their offspring. 6th. The exorbitant taxes which we are obliged to pay, the loss we sustain by the East India Company, the Corn Laws, and every other abuse, as a matter of clear right and justice, must and ought to be paid out of the blood, bones, and sinews of our infantile population. Tory Tom Sadler on the " Liberal " Factorylords. — On i6th March, 1832, Tom Sadler was able to move the second reading of his Ten Hours Bill, He sought to limit to ten hours the labour of all hands under eighteen years of age, not merely in cotton mills but in wool, flax, and s k factories also. He had completely mastered his subject, and spoke long and earnestly. The revelations which he made were startling, and 5reat was the animosity he aroused. It is only possible to quote from the speech very sparingly, but no one who has ever read Sadler's indictment, moderate as is THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 265 its tone, will ever have it effaced from the tablets of his memory : — " Then, Mr. Speaker, in order to keep the children awake, and to stimulate their exertions, means are made use of to which I shall now advert, as a last instance of the degradation to which this system has reduced the manufacturing operatives of this country. Sir, children are beaten with thongs prepared for the purpose. Yes, the females of this country no matter whether children or grown-up, I hardly know which is the more disgusting outrage, are beaten upon the face, ^rms and bosom — beaten in your free market of labour, as you term it, like slaves. These are the instruments ! [Here the hon. member exhibited some black, heavy leathern thongs, one of them fixed in a sort of handle, the smack of which, when struck upon the table, resounded through the House]. **They are quite equal to breaking an arm, but the bones of the young, as I have before said, are pliant. The marks, however, are long visible, and the poor wretch is flogged, I say, like a dog, by the tyrant overlooker. We speak with execration of the cart-whip of the West Indies, but let us see this night, an equal feeling rise against the factory-thong of England." Referring to the horrible immorality which notori- ously prevailed in many of the mamnon-dens of Yorkshire and Lancashire, Mr. Sadler ventured, using all possible delicacy, to say : — Rampant Immorality in the Mills. — **The great increase of debauchery of another kind, it would be absurd to deny. I never did hear it denied that many of the mills, at least, those in which night-working is pursued, are in this respect, little better than brothels. The science of human physiology has been, I may say, disgustingly advanced, having been able to demon- strate how extremely near the confines of actual child- hood the human female may become an unhappy mother, from the disgraceful scenes which have occurred in some of these mills and factories. 266 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. I will give an appalling proof of the general misery and degradation. It appears that during the last year (1831), there were delivered by the living-on-charity of Manchester no fewer than 4,562 poor married women. Far more than half, therefore, of the mothers of Manchester, are assisted by public charity — in a word, nearly three-fifths of the children of that town are branded with the stigma of pauperism at their birth." Ah! well might this heroic Tory exclaim, "Our ancestors could not have supposed it possible — posterity will not believe it true that a generation of Englishmen could exist, or had existed, that would work lisping infancy of a few summers old, regardless alike of its smiles and tears, and unmoved by its unresisting weakness, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, sixteen hours a day, and through the weary night also, till, in the dewy morn of existence the bud of youth was faded and fell ere it was unfolded." And what, it will be asked, was the reward of Tom Sadler's humanitarian zeal on behalf of lisping infancy. The House gave him a Committee of Inquiry, and the Capitalist Reform Bill of 1832 speedily reformed him out of parliamentary existence altogether ! How truly wonderful are the ways of Representative Government ! THE COMING OF THE CAPITALISTS.— No. IV. Woe unto the world because of occasions of stumbling ! For it must needs be that occasions come ; but woe to that man through whom the occasion cometh — Jesus Christ. Is it well that, while we range with science, glorying in the time, City children soak and blacken soul and sense in City slime ? There, among the gloomy alleys, Progress halts on palsied feet. Crime and hunger cast our aaidens by the thousand on the street. There the master scrimps his haggard seamstress of her daily bread, There a single sordid attic holds the living and the dead ; There the smouldering fire of fever creeps across the rotted floor, In the crowded couch of incest, in the warrens of the poor. — Tennyson. It was related, in last section, how the Tory member for Newark, Michael Thomas Sadler, on the very eve of the Reform Bill of 1832, obtained a Committee of the House of Commons to investigate the grounds of his demand for a Ten Hours Bill. Before that Com- mittee, presided over by Mr. Sadler, eighty-nine witnesses were examined, and no fewer than 11,618 questions were asked. The evidence given was of the most convincing character, and proved every one of Sadler's Ten Hours Bill contentions up to the hilt. Remedies for '' Fatigue ' in Infants. — For example, Abraham Whitehead, a clothier residing near Holm- firth, testified : — " My heart has been ready to bleed for them (the children) when I have seen them so fatigued, for they appear in such a state of apathy and insensibility as really not to know whether they are doing their work or not. They usually throw a bunch of ten or twelve cordings across the hand, and take one oflf at a time ; but I have seen the bunch entirely 267 268 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. finished, and they have attempted to take off another when they have not had a cording at all ; they have been so fatigued as not to know w^hether they were at work or not. The errors which they make when thus fatigued are that, instead of placing the cord- ings this way [describing it] , they are apt to place them obliquely, and that causes a flying, which makes bad yarn ; and when the billy-spinner sees that, he takes his strap or the billy-roller, and says, * Damn thee, close it, little devil, close it,' and he smites the child with the strap or the billy-roller. It is a very difficult thing to go into a mill in the latter part of the day, particularly in winter, and not to hear some of the children crying for being beaten for this very fault I knew a boy very well of the name of Senior, with whom I went to school : he was struck with a billy-roller on the elbow ; it occasioned a swell- ing ; he was not able to work more than three or four weeks after the blow, and he died in consequence. . . . I have seen a little boy, only this winter, who works at a mill, and who lives within two hundred or three hundred yards of my door i he is not six years old, and I have seen him, when he had a few coppers in his pocket, go to a beer-shop, call for a glass of ale^ and drink as boldly as any full-grown man, cursing and swearing, and saying he should be a man as soon as some of them." The Crime of *' Drowsiness " and its Reward. — A mill-hand, Jonathan Downe, told the Committee how the crime of drowsiness was punished in Marshall's Mill, Shrewsbury : " Provided a child should be drowsy (there were plenty working at six years of age), the overlooker walks round the room with a stick in his hand, and he touches the child on the shoulder, and says, *' Come here ! " In the corner of the room is an iron cistern ; it is filled with water ; he takes this boy and holding him up by his legs, dips him overhead in the cistern, and sends him to his work for the remainder of the day ; and that boy is to stand dripping as he is at his work — he has no chance of drying himself. THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 269 Another method of punishment in the same den of Mammon was the following : ** There is a stool fixed up at one end of the room ; the boy who offends is put to stand on this stool, sometimes on one of his legs with the other up, and he has a bar to bear in his arms, thus [here the witness elevated his arms above his head] and there he is to stand for ten minutes, or a quarter of an hour, or half an hour, just according as the over- looker chooses ; and provided he should lower his arms, and it is a great weight to bear for a quarter of an hour, I have seen the overlooker come this way and say, * Hold up,' and sometimes the boy will strive to hold it up and not have strength to raise it, and the overseer has a stick or strap, and cuts him till he actually does get it up, and the tears will run down his face while he is there standing. I have seen it there frequently, and it is the regular practice." But what need of further witness ? The mill-owners did not even attempt rebutting evidence, they took refuge, like the Cambrian Railway Company, in the personal persecution of those who testified against them. And so successful were they in this pecu- liar line of argument, that Mr. Sadler had somewhat abruptly to close the labours of the Committee with the medical evidence. Baneful Effect of the Reform Act (1832) on the Factory Labour Cause. — In December, 1832, Parlia- ment was dissolved. The Yorkshire factory '* hands " had prophesied : " Experience has taught us that manufacturing capitalists, with some exceptions, are our opponents ; the Reform Bill will increase the influence of that body as a power in the State and therefore prove injurious to our interests." And so it came to pass. Leeds and Huddersfield rejected Mr. Sadler, Tory and Churchman, and his legislative career in consequence, prematurely ended. He was succeeded in the parliamentary leadership by Lord Ashley, afterwards better known as the philan- thropic Earl of Shaftesbury. Writing to Mr. Oastler, under the date of i6th Feb., 1833, Lord Ashley gener- 270 THE ANNALS OF TOIL, ously observed :^— ** It is very cruel upon Mr. Sadler that he is debarred from the joy of putting the crown upon his beloved measure (the Ten Hours Bill) ; how- ever his must be the honour, though another may com- plete it ; and for my part, I feel that if I were to believe that my exertions ought to detract the millionth part from his merits, I should be one of the most unprincipled and contemptible of men." But Httle did his lordship understand the difficulties of the task he had undertaken. The power of the factory lords in the Reformed Parliament, was at least trebled, and Richard Cobden, John Bright, the G.O.M., and " freedom of contract '' had now to be reckoned with. In 1834, however, a government measure of some value came into operation, but it did little more than whet the appetite of Lord Ashley and the Ten Hours men, whose hunger was not fully appeased till 1847. " The Law and the Needle." — But worse even than this delay in legislation was the non-enforcement of the existing law, such as it was. At Blackburn, the magistrates, **in reply to a complaint under the factory law, had from the bench refused a hearing. They declared, * Oh, that is Oastler's law ; we have nothing to do with it ; take your complaints to him.' " On learning this, Mr. Oastler, in the presence of these very men, thus addressed a crowded audience in the theatre : ** If after this your magistrates should refuse to listen to your complaints under the Factory Act, and again refer you to me, bring with you your children, and tell them to ask their grandmothers for a few of their old knitting needles, which I will instruct them how to apply to the spindles in a way which will teach these law-defying, mill-owner magistrates to have respect even to * Oastler's law,' as they have wrongly designated the factory law." In a pamphlet arising out of this incident, The Law and the Needle, Mr. Oastler, with great vigour, expounded the text Where there is no Law there is no Property, Property, in truth, whether real or personal, is the mere creature of THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 2^^ law; yet, as a matter of history, the "classes" have never hesitated to break it whenever they have conceived it to be inimical to their interests. Lord Ashley fully apprehended the danger they — and he as one of them — incurred by setting the law at naught, when he asked, " Could Parliament be surprised that the operatives of the manufacturing districts thought that it (Parliament) was inclined to legislate for the richer in opposition to the poorer classes ; and that as a necessary consequence they (the operatives) held in equal contempt the makers of the law, the administrators of the law, and the law itself?" The Martyrdom of Oastler. — But it was not long before Oastler was made to feel that where there was no property there might be very inconvenient law. He had been steward of extensive estates in York- shire belonging to one, Thomas Thornhill, of Rid- dlesworth, in Norfolk. In that capacity he had been greatly underpaid, and had in consequence become Thornton's debtor, in the course of fourteen years, to the amount of ;^2,709 iis. 4jd. At the end of that period Mr. Thornhill raised his steward's salary from ;/r3oo to ;^5oo a year, the latter undertaking by promissory note to clear off the balance against him by annual payments out of this increased stipend. Unfor- tunately, however, for Oastler, he could not see eye to eye with his employer on the question of the enforce- ment of the New Poor Law — the inhuman, Malthus- inspired Act of 1834 — ^^^ Thornton, in consequence, dismissed him. In July, 1840, Thornton sued the ** discharged steward " for the amount then due to him before Lord Chief Justice Tindal and a Special Jury. Oastler stated to the Court that he resisted the action, not because he denied his indebtedness, but because fraudulent detention of money had been imputed to him. ** The Lord Chief Justice {Times report) observed that there was no imputation whatever on Mr. Oastler's character. ** Mr. Oastler said that was all he ever wished to be settled. 272 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. "Fitzroy Kelly (Thornton's counsel) said he felt great pleasure at this unpleasant affair being satis- factorily settled, "Lord Chief Justice Tindal : * I am very glad Mr. Oastler, that this action is brought to such a satisfactory settlement,* " Mr. Oastler bowed to his lordship," and speedily discovered that for him the *^ satisfactory settlement " really signified four years' incarceration for debt in the Fleet Prison ! THE COMING OF THE CAPITALISTS.- No. V. The working class is the only class that is not a class. It is the nation. It represents, so to speak, the body as a whole, of which the Other classes only represent special organs. Those organs, no doubt, have great and indispensable functions, but for most purposes of Government the State consists of the vast labouring majority. Its welfare depends on what their lives are like. — Frederic Harrison. '* Freedom " is something substantial. A man who is ignorant is not free. A man who is a tramp is not free. A man who sees his wife and children starving is not free. A man who must toil twelve hours a day in order to vegetate is not free. A man who is full of cares is not free. A wage worker whether labourer or clerk, who every day for certain hours must be at the beck and call of a ** Master " is not free. — Lawrence Gronlund. All human interests, combined human endeavours and social growths in this world have, at a certain stage of their development, required organising and work. The grandest of human interests — labour— does not require it ! — Thomas Carlyle. Be careful, sirs, how you judge God's revolutions as the pro- ducts of man's invention. — Oliver Cromwell. Death of Sadler. — In last section we left Oastler safely incarcerated in the Fleet Prison, and Sadler effectually excluded from the ** Reformed " Parliament by the vigorous exertions of the " Liberal *' factory lords of Leeds and Huddersfield. Sadler did not long survive this exclusion, dying at Belfast, 1835. He was a good, and in the true sense of the word, a great man. He combated the Malthu- sian theory of the super-fecundity of the human species 273 274 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. with remarkable acumen, and his work on Ireland is one of the best ever written — on what Lord Clare, not without reason, called " the damnable country." In the Parish Church at Leeds a monument was erected to his memory by public subscription, and another exists in the churchyard of Balleylesson, County Down. Peace to his ashes ! Oastler in the Fleet. — And now for a glance at cap- tive ** Factory King " Oastler in the Fleet. In the Leeds Intelligencer of May 22nd, 1841, under the heading, " Life of the Fleet," a "visitor" writes: — I found Mr. Oastler in good health and spirits, but he looks thin ; for what with his * Fleet Papers,' his corre- spondence, his hard reading and constant succession of visitors * from early morn till dewy eve ' he sadly over- leaps his favourite and salutary doctrine of ten hours a day. Men of all parties flock hither. On Monday morning I breakfasted with his Majesty. The party consisted of eight, namely, two Polish counts, a French captain, an author, two editors of public journals, a gentleman from Huddersfield, and your humble servant. Though the beverage consisted of tea ' and coffee, there was so much sprightliness and bonhommie, that one might have supposed that care finds no en- trance within the walls of the * Fleet,' ** The apartment is not large. *' The Monarch, for once, made his bed his ' Throne ' ; I was honoured with the chair of State; the friend from Huddersfield attended to the tea-kettle and the tea and coffee pots ; the gallant Captain took command of the egg department ; and there was an appointed purveyor of ham and bread and butter, all of the best quality. " I have seen many a * public breakfast,' but none wherein I found more enjoyment, none with near so much intellect or animation of conversation." Sir Fitzroy Kelley's Magnanimity.— But im- prisonment is imprisonment under the happiest THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 275 conditions, and both Mr. Oastler and the ** cause " suffered by it. It greatly impaired both Mr. Oastler's health and usefulness, and it is pleasant to record that Sir Fitzroy Kelly, Q.C., the leading counsel against the " Factory King " in the action which brought his "Majesty" to the Fleet, was among the first that bestirred themselves to effect the " dismissed steward's " release from durance. **On Sunday, June 13th, 1841 (Mr. Oastler writes), after my return from Church, being seated in my cell, engaged in conversation with a fellow-prisoner (a respectable London solicitor), a knock at the door announced a visitor. A servant in livery entered, the bearer of a hamper and a card. He informed me that his master was at * the gate,' having been refused admission because at that hour on Sundays * the gate * was closed ; but that the turnkey had allowed him to bring in the hamper. On looking at the card I said : " ' You must be mistaken ; Mr. Fitzroy Kelly cannot wish to see me.' " * Is your name Oastler, Sir ' ? *' * Yes, certainly.' " * This hamper is directed for you, Sir.' " There could not be any mistake. I ran to the lobby, desired the turnkey to see the warden, and ask permission that Mr. [not then knighted] Fitzroy Kelly might be admitted. That request was instantly granted. . . . " * If you will accept of my services as your adviser and friend,' said Mr. Kelly, * and will communicate to me the particulars of your own case, as you would have explained to the Court had you not stopped me, and consented to a verdict, I will, to the best of my ability, endeavour to persuade Mr. Thornhill to grant your release. I am sure there is not any reason why you should suffer imprisonment.' " Liberation of the Factory King. — This generous offer was gratefully accepted by Mr. Oastler, but Kelly's intervention was in vain. Thornhill insisted on his whole pound of flesh, and in the long run 276 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. got it in this wise : An Oastler Liberation Com- mittee was formed, presided over by Lord Faver- sham. The sum of ^"3,243 15s. lod. had to be raised. Eventually that feat was achieved, and after four years seclusion in the Fleet, the " Factory King " emerged again into public life. On Shrove Tuesday (Feb. 20th), 1844, Mr. Oastler made a triumphal entry into Huddersfield. There was an immense procession with bands and banners inscribed, ** Oastler and no Bastile" (the workhouse). *< The Ten Hour's Bill," etc. At Leeds where his reception was equally enthusiastic, Mr. Oastler said, '* My friends, I rejoice that I have come out at such a time. The Government confess that something must be done. We, theirefore, of the Old Ten Hours Bill school, are still in our places— to ^tell them, that if they will not adopt some measure or ( other to regulate machinery — machinery, which being unregulated in its operations has already destroyed its tens of thousands of the middle classes, and which is now destroying its hundreds even of the higher classes of manufacturers, must go on, if unrestricted and un- \ regulated, until one successful manufacturer shall 1 possess himself of the whole, and when he has acquired ' his accumulated millions, we can tell him, that he will find no happiness in his wealth, but he will be more miserable in the possession of his millions than he was when he only possessed a few thousands." Lord Shaftesbury on Bright, Cobden, and the G.O.M, — In 1844 Peel's Government " confessing that some- I thing must be done " brought in a most inefficacious 1 measure — a sort of comprehensive Ho.w-iVg^To- Do- 1 1 1 JBin» This Bill Lprd Ashley endeavpured to amend I by a clause restricting the, workiiig.JijQ^^ of young I *"* hands " to t£in. Virtuous Free Trade Peel threatened ; resignation, and thereby coeYcM^lTe. House" ~rn to the j rejection of the amendment by a_majority of 38 — 197 to 159. In 1846 Lord Ashley returned to the charge with a Ten Hours Bill. Again Sir Robert Peel begged the I THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 277 House to refuse its assent, while Cobden expressed his ai mety lest"tiigi:ggjll anvfpr^'^ shbutd fall into a measure foFwhich the working classes would not thank them,r> and which might procure them great unpopularity.'* John Bright sagely prognosticated that the Bill, if' passed " would cause in the first place, an extraordinary delusion, and in the second place, a fatal disappoint- ment.^* ~- i The following e xtracts from a journal kept by Lord) Ashley (so rriuc'h~"better known as Lrord bhattesbury)( need no "comment, but I trust all friends of the Eight ) Hours Day, will read, mark, and inwardly digest them > at the present juncture : — " Bright was ever my most malignant opponent. Cobden, though bitterly hostile, was better than Bright. He abstained from opposition to the Colleries Bill^and gave support to the Calico Printing Works Bill. ' " Gladstone is on a level with the" rest, he gave no support to the Ten Hours Bill. He voted with Sir R. Peel to rescind the famous division in favour of it. He was the only member who endeavoured to delay the Bill which delivered women and children from mines and pits ; and never did he say a word on behalf of the factory children until, when defending slavery in the West-Jndies, he taunted Buxton with indifference to slavery in England." ^^ b.-"^ Great, O most reverend G. O. M ^is gopul ar delusi^i^, and prevail it shall. "^ THE COMING OF THE CAPITALISTS.— NO. VI. Competirion gluts our markets, enables the rich to take advan- tage of the necessity of the poor, makes each man snatch the bread out of his neighbour' s mouth, converts a nation of brethren into a mass of hostile isolated units, and finally involves capitalists and labourers in one common ruin. — Rathbone Greg. A class is fixed, when nine-tenths of those comprising it can never get out of it. Why mock working men by putting rare exceptions for a general rule ? — Jesse Jones. We can say that Interest, Profit and Rent being nothing but the spoils which Private Monopoly of the Instruments of Production at present enable Individuals to exact, will become things of the past as soon as the Commonwealth takes possession of the whole indus- trial and agricultural plant. — Laurence Gronland. Will not one French Revolution suffice, or must there be two ? There will be two if needed ; there will be twenty if needed ; ihere will be just as many as needed. — Carlyle. Man has it in his power by his voluntary actions to aid the intentions of Providence, but to learn these intentions he must consider what tends to promote the public good. — J. S. Mill. The Magna Charta of the Factory " Hand " Passed (18^7). — Despite the antagonism of Bright and Cobden, Peel and Gladstone, victory at last crowned the efforts of the Factory Reformers. In 1847 was passed the Ten Flours Act, the Magna Charta of the factory " hand." It was the result of nearly twenty years' agitation, and many good men and true had fallen in the struggle. Pom Sadler, as has been recorded, did not live to see the fruition of his labours ; and even Lord Ashley was not privileged to be in the House of Commons when the Ten Hours Bill was finally carried at the instance of Mr. Fielden, His lordship's Free Trade views cost him 278 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 279 his seat for Dorsetshire, but his name is nevertheless imperishably associated with the Act of 1847. A **Good Pit" for the Old Factory King.— And now for a final glance at the " Factory Children's King," Richard Oastler, whose memory is threatened with most unmerited oblivion. The following interest- ing correspondence is copied from the Huddersfield Chronicle of 19th August, 1856. — " To Richard Oastler, King of the Factory Children. — Dear Old Friend, — You are not forgotten. The factory operatives of Huddersfield never cease to remember you, their friend — the * King of the Factory Children.' We know that your labours on our behalf, though profitable to us, have, in a money sense made you poor, and knowing that, we feel persuaded you will not reject the accompanying present of a suit of clothes, top coat and hat — all of the very best manu- facture and workmanship — paid for by hundreds who have little to spare, but who thus wish to express their gratitude and hearty good will. It is a small instal- ment of the great debt they and their children owe to you for your long and devoted services in the great war against oppression and wrong, fought under the banner of the * Ten Hours Bill ' and for the restoration of the *43rd of Elizabeth.' The sacrifices you so nobly made regardless of reproach, calumny and persecution, while battling for the weak against the strong, for truth against error, for principle against expediency, although they have deprived you of many worldly comforts we doubt not, in their results and in their now pleasing remembrance, fail not to yield you more real comfort, more solid satisfaction than money can buy. We know you feel that you have not lived in vain. Of that fact we are the evidences. We rejoice to tell you, because we know it will gladden your heart, one of the results of the factory legislation in this part of Yorkshire is, as you always said it would be, the best of good feeling generally between masters and workmen — the few exceptions being among those who, in spite of God and man, are resolved to have their own way. We are 28o THE ANNALS OF TOIL. happy also to inform you that many who formerly op- posed, now cordially approve the Bill. One pleasing incident connected with our present to you is, we in- tended to purchase the top coat cloth from John Brooke and Sons of Armitage Bridge ; and when our Secretary, John Leech, called upon Mr. Brooke and informed him what was on foot, Mr. Brooke said, *' What length do you require ?' And on being told, he went into the warehouse and brought the required length of a super Oxford broad, observing, * There now, tell the ** Old King " that it is a present from John Brooke and Sons, of Armitage Bridge, who wish him health to wear it.' When Mr. Brooke was told that the operatives had subscribed the money to pay for it, he said, * I am glad you have not forgotten your old friend ; if you have any money to spare, send it to him. I daresay he will find good use for it. We know that the above little incident will not be taken amiss. We most cordially beg your acceptance of our small token of respect, with wishes for your health and strength to wear it, knowing you will not like it the worse, because it is given to you by the factory workers. To ensure a * good fit ' we have had the suit made by your old tailor, John Scott. When you write to us we shall be glad to hear how you get on in your old age, and we assure you your opinion and advice on any subject will be read with delight. — Yours faithfully (for the Committee of Operatives), John Leech, Secretary." The "Old King's" Old Age.— The *'01d King's" reply is a model of benignant serenity. It is dated, Guildford, Surrey, February 26th, 1856. ** Fancy," he says, ** an old man satisfied with the share he has taken in the turmoil of life, with pleasing re- collections of the past, and hopeful expectations for the future, in the enjoyment of moderate health, always in good spirits, his mind being as elastic as in youth, retired to a neat, clean, comfortable cottage, standing in a very pretty walled-in garden half way up a hill as high as Fixby, overlooking an old THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 28I: castle in ruins, and a fine old agricultural county town, from which his cottage is separated by gardens and a bowling-green, the square lines of buildings being beautifully broken by ivy and the rich foliage of forest and fruit trees. That town is never darkened by a cloud of smoke. The old man often sits in his rustic chair, at his cottage door, gazing on the fine old ruin, and the lovely view of fields and lanes, and woods, and heaths, and farmhouses, and cottages, spreading far beyond the towns. The passing of the railway trains reminds him of the busy trafficking of the world ; but he prefers the sounds and scenes by which his prospect is enlivened. He is thankful that the music of his charming songsters is near, and that the whirl and whistle of the trains are at a distance. He spends much of his time in the garden, delighting to watch the progress of Nature, and having a double relish for flowers, fruit and vegetables grown in his own garden. ** The old man, in winter, as in summer, rises early — delighted with rambling in the fields and lanes, and woods, and chiefly rejoicing in his before-breakfast ramble, the air being then, as he says, * m-ost refresh- ing,' most invigorating, and the early song of the lark welcoming the great orb of day being more soul- stirring than his after-notes. The sweet melodies ot the cheer- ful songsters of the woods, fields and gardens, are, in his ear, the sweetest concerts. Nor does he fail to relish the rural music that most charms the shepherd's boy. The tinkling of the sheep bells, the bleating of the lambs and sheep, the lowing of cattle, the neighing of horses, with many other sounds of cheerfulness, serve to banish gloom and foster joy. . . . He never seeks for new acquaintances ; he cherishes old friend- ship, having a host of tried and faithful friends, who, with himself bore the burden and heat of the day of struggle. Many such, and not unfrequently their children who have learned to love him, honour and refresh him with their visits. It is not easy to measure his delight on such greetings. He knows not that he has one enemy. His correspondence is as varied as it u 282 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. is extensive. Young and old, rich and poor, noble and plebeian are among his correspondents. He has many books, but the Holy Bible may now be said to con- stitute his library. On his intercourse with God I may not dwell. He is full of faith and hope, in every day's blessing realizing the truthfulness of Almighty God, and sometimes obtaining a glimpse of that glorious purchased inheritance into which many of his friends and fellow labourers have entered. Relying upon the mercy of God in Christ Jesus, he waits his turn in patience. When he looks backward, at every step he traces the hand and the goodness of God ; if forward, his reliance is still upon that hand. '* In the eye of the mere merchant trader the old man may be counted poor, but having long since placed his ' capital ' in the ' bank ' that never fails, he is rich. In faith, he cast his bread upon the waters, and now, after many days, he finds it. His God provides. The means of his sustenance come from the hands of generous clergymen, nobles, members of Parliament, landowners, farmers, lawyers, bankers, merchants, factory masters, and (as your gift bears witness) the little fingers of grateful factory children. Say, then, my kind old friends, is not the old man rich ? He has discovered the true secret of happiness, and thus, from year to year, he lives in contentedness and peace, sometimes receiving from those that know him best the consoling assurance : * You have not lived in vain ; of that fact we are the evidences.' ** I say, my friends, fancy an old man like that, and you will be able to answer your question as to * How I get on in my old age ? ' " Fare ye well. Receive this letter as it is written — in love. God bless you all. — I remain, my old and faithful friend, yours in truth and love, Richard Oasti.er.*' «* The Times " on Martyrdon !— " The noblest of all martyrdoms is that of an old age impoverished by the generous sacrifices of youth, and dependent on the gratitude or ingratitude of a world for whose good it THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 283 has relinquished its all." I always did have high regard for Balaam the son of Beor, who, being ** brought to curse, blessed entirely " ! Such was the verdict of the Times of March i6th, 1847, on Richard Oastler ; and that verdict also is mine. By losing his life he found it. Requiescat in pace. CHAPTER XI. CHARTISTS AND CHARTISM.— No. I. Cromwell : What, then, is the root of all our grievances ? Pym : The aristocracy. Give us their true history, and you will unriddle the secret of every national embarrassment. /^ There is one thing which above all, the people should gret rid of, namely, their reverence for even the worthless portion of the aris- tocracy. It is a false and worthless idolatry ; a bowing down to Baal. I reverence and respect the laws when they are the embodi- ment of just priiciples; but I cannot countenance the reverence paid by the people to those who oppress, grind them down, and scourge them, I hope the day will arrive when they will throw off the burdens with which they are oppressed by the aristocracy, and stand forth the bravest, the freest, and the most virtuous people on the face of the earth, — John Bright at Covent Garden, 1S44. j^" The Money Power and the "Classes." — Having in last section brought factory legislation down to the Ten Hours Act of 1847 — the Magna Charta of Industrialism — it v/ill now be well to note the steps simultaneously taken to secure the political enfran- chisement of the ** masses." So-called ** modern civili- sation " has produced a mighty change in the relative position of the social strata. Towards the close of the eighteenth century the growing power of capital began to make itself felt in the Councils of Europe and America, as a new and incalculable social force. The shock of the French Revolution everywhere threatened the aristocracy of birth with speedy extermination. In their consternation ** our old nobility " sought to prop up the tottering fabric of their supremacy by an alliance with this new Money Power. With its aid the Bourbons were " restored" and privilege was rehabilitated at home and abroad, But terrible was the cost. A debt of 284 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 285 nearly ;^9oo,ooo,ooo was incurred, and the middle-class creditor still remained outside the pale of the Constitu- tion. This exclusion could not long survive the close of the Napoleonic wars. The bourgeoisie invoked the aid of the workers, and by their joint efforts the Middle Class Reform Bill of 1832 was passed. The aristocracy learned, when too late for themselves, the true nature of the ob- ligations they had come under to the money-mongers. The Money Power and the " Masses." — " Aid us," the latter had craftily said to the workers, ** in gaining the Reform Bill, and, as soon as we are enfranchised, we will make use of our power by assisting you to the attainment of your rights." The ** masses " were all the more easily imposed upon that a confused notion then prevailed that the interests of employers and employed were identical. The Reformed Parliament soon showed itself in its true colours. It began with a stringent Coercion Act for Ireland, followed by an atrocious Poor Law Act, the object of which was to brmg the needy to live on a coarser kind of food. Parochial administration was abolished, and the humane, if not too politic, 43rd of Queen Elizabeth practically repealed. But there was a small knot of men in the Reformed Parliament whose leanings were, more or less, distinctly democratic. Among these may be mentioned John Arthur Roebuck, John Temple Leader, Sir William Molesworth, Colonel Thompson, Thomas Wakley, Sharman Crawford, Joseph Hume, Dr. Bowring, and Daniel O'Connell. - In the first year of the Queen's reign, Mr. Wakley, seconded by Sir William Moles- worth, moved for the extension of the franchise, the ballot and shorter Parliaments. On a division the reformers were found to number twenty-two all told ! The " Six Points " of the " Charter."— A little pre- vious to this event was formed the Working Men's Association, Its leading object was the political en- franchisement of the toilers. A committee consisting in part of members of this body, and in part of mem- bers of Parliament wis appointed to formulate the Li 286 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. demand of the "masses." The net result of their labours was the famous *' six points " of the People's ) Charter. These were: — ^ I. Universal Manhood Suffrage. ^ 2. Annual Parliaments. ^ 3. Vote by Ballot. 4. No Property Qualification (for Candidates). 5. Payment of Members. 6. Equal Voting Districts. Two of these ** points" viz. 3 and 4 have been secured ; the others can hardly even yet be said to be " within a measurable distance " of enactment. In truth there is good reason to believe that the very Parliamentarians who aided in the concoction of the People's Charter, were insincere in their profession of zeal for its adoption by the Legislature. At any rate Gammage, in his History of the Chartist Movement (1854) — and he is a thoroughly competent authority — was clearly of that opinion. Bad Faith of "Hon." Members.— '* At the public meeting held to inaugurate the new movement, several of the Radical members supported the resolutions. It is possible they never imagined that any con- siderable amount of public opinion would be rallied in their favour, for, exactly as that opinion grew in strength their Radical sentiments declined. A slight glance at the past and present position of these men ^m^-y not be uninstructive. 0'Connell.was the man who handed the Charter to the Secretary of the Asso- ciation, explaining as he did so, * There Lovett is your Charter , agitate for it, and never be content with any- thing less.' ** It was not long after that time that the same man did all in his power to discredit the movement, and he continued virulent in his opposition to the day of his death. ** Dr. Bowring has since accepted a snug place under Government, previous to which he had been remark- ably silent as to his former principles. The once Radical Mr. Ward accepted the Governorship of the THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 287 Ionian Islands, where he became a monster of cruelty, second only to the ever to be execrated Haynau ^nmself. Sir William Molesworth has become a member of the present Coalition (Aberdeen) Government, and what of democracy he still retains is of the smoothest kind. His rose-water speeches now contrast strangely with that energetic language which once drew forth cries of "Order!" in the House of Commons. John Arthur Roebuck has for some years been in search of a place, and (seems although still in Parliament) to have almost retired from public life under the weight of his vexation and disappointment. John Temple Leader speedily sank into a political nonentity and quitted the country for a more congenial clime. Wakely has retired from public life. Sharman Crawford (the most consistent of the whole) was ousted at the last General Election. Colonel Thompson became as eccentric as Lord Brougham, as he advanced in years, and was seldom to be relied on ; and Joseph Hume is so democratic as to indulge in tirades against the Press for too strongly denouncing the proceedings of the Continental despots. Such are the People's Champions of former days. Surely in taking a glance at the above, there should be sufficient to teach them that, in pursuing the path of political and social elevation, they should have no reliance but on themselves." The Socialist Element in Chartism. — The bour- geois supporters of the People's Charter were probably not so much alarmed at the astonishing way in which it " caught on," as at the strong under-current of Socialism that began to flow all over the country. The Chartists audaciously proposed to do something with the franchise as soon as they got it, and that something good Individualists of the School of Hume and Roebuck, Bright and Cobden, could by no means tolerate. Let us see what it was. At a National Chartist Convention held in London in 1848, it was resolved : — " 1. The National Debt.— This debt, having been incurr-ed by the Government for class purposes, cannot 88 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. be considered as legally contracted by the People. It is, moreover, absurd that future generations should be mortgaged to eternity for the follies or misfortunes of their ancestors, and the debt be thus paid several times over. ** The National Debt ought, therefore, to be liquidated by the money, now annually paid as Interest, applied as repayment of the Capital, until such repayment is completed." 2. Land. — " This convention believes that the Land is the inalienable inheritance of all mankind ; and that, therefore, its present monopoly is repugnant to the laws of God and Nature. The nationalisation of the land is the only true basis of national prosperity. " With the view of arriving at this ultimatum, it is resolved that the following measures be successively urged upon the public : — " I. The establishment of a Board of Agriculture. " 2. The restoration of Poor, Common, Church, and Crown lands to the People. ** Such lands to be divided in suitable proportions. All persons located upon them to be tenants of the State, paying a proportionate rent charge for their holdings. ** 3. Compensation to outgoing tenants for improve- ments, " Tenants not to be tied down to any old covenants or rotation of crops. *' The repeal of the Game Laws. *' All rents to be commuted into corn-rents. ** 4. The State to be empowered to purchase land for the purpose of locating thereon the population as tenants, individually, or in association, paying a rent charge to the State. The funds for that purpose to arise from the rent charge payable on the Common, Church, and lands above mentioned, and such other sources as may heretofore be determined. " 5. Government purchasing land as above not to be permitted to sell again, but to hold such lands as national property for ever, letting them to tenants THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 28g in such quantities, and under such conditions, as may secure freedom to the tenant and safety to the State. ** 6. The State to have priority of purchase at fair current prices. " 7. To provide for the final and complete Nation- alisation of the Land, the State, to resume possession of the soil as rapidly as the existing interests can be extinguished by process of law, by death, by surrender, or by any means accordant with justice and generous treatment of all classes." It is not a little saddening to reflect that the ** masses " fifty years ago, though then outside the pale of the Constitution, were, on the whole, better instructed in politics and economics than their succes- sors to-day. To all appearance, the Parliament, which the workers are now (1892) about to return, will be the most pluto-cratic on record. The contest will cost over two million sterling, and if five men, who by any reasonable stretch of imagination can be held in- telligently to represent Labour, find seats, I shall be agreeably surprised. What a ** Glorious Constitu- tion" we live under, to be sure ! Britons never, never, never, Shall be slaves ! CHARTISTS AND CHARTISM.— No. IL All men having the same origin are of equal antiquity ; nature has made no difference in their formation. Strip the nobles naked and you are as well as they ; dress them in your rags, and you in their robes, and you will doubtless be the nobles. Poverty and riches only discriminate betwixt you. — Machiavelli. If men should divest them (Kings) of their clothes, and withdraw from them their retinue and their power, then might thou see that they be very like some of their thegns that serve them, except that they be worse. — Alfred the Great. When we consider a Peasant and a King, a magistrate and a private individual, a rich man and a poor one, there appears a vast disparity, though they differ no more, as a man may say, than in their breeches. — Montaigne. Through tattered clothes small vices do appear ; Robes and furred gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold. And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks; Arm it in rags, a pigmy's straw can pierce it. — Shakespeare. The highest earthly felicity that people can ask, or God can give^ is an equal and well-ordered Commonwealth. — Harrington, Martyrdom of James Bronterre O'Brien. — The decline and extinction almost of Chartism have never been adequately explained ; nor do I pretend to have fathomed the mystery. But some of the causes of its decadence are manifest enough. In the first place, there was grievous internal dissen- sion in the ranks of the Reformers themselves. There were " Physical Force " Chartists, and ** Moral Sua- sion" Chartists — a ground of cleavage intelligible enough — and that the brutal severities exercised by the Government rendered inevitable, But that was not the worst. The painful rivalries 290 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 29 1 and egotism of some of the most prominent leaders of the movement disgusted the honest rank and file, and slowly sapped the sources of a popular enthusiasm which at one time promised to carry all before it. The vanity of Feargus O'Connor, it is deplorable to relate, finally landed him in a lunatic asylum, and deprived Chartism of one of its main pillars. His case, to be sure, was an extreme one ; but it may be cited as, in some measure, typical of a very prevalent infirmit)' among popular leaders then and, alas, now. The ablest man in the movement by far, and the best, was James Bronterre O'Brien, whose memory William Maccall has embalmed in the following nobly truthful lines : — A man who lived for truth, and truth alone — Brave as the bravest— generous as brave; A man whose heart was rent by every moan That bursts from every trodden, tortured slave ; A man prepared to fight, prepared to die, To lighten, banish, human misery. The mighty scorned him, vilified, oppressed ; The bitter cup of poverty and pain Forced him to drink. He was misfortune's guest Through weary, weary years ; his anguished brain Shed tears of pity — wrath — for mankind's woe; For his own sorrow tears could never flow. He loved the people with a brother's love ; He hated tyrants with a tyrant's hate. He turned from Kings below to God above — The King of Kings who smites the wicked great, The shame, the scourge, the terror of their race, Those demons in earth's holy dwelling-place. Thou noble soul ! Around thee gathered those Who, poor and trampled patriots, were like thee. Thou art not dead ! Thy martyred spirit glows In us, a band devoted to the free. We best can celebrate thy natal day By virtues, valours such as marked thy way. Had there been but a dozen Bronterre O'Briens in the Chartist movement, how different might the upshot have been ! Martyrdom of William Lovett. — But the incredible barbarites practised on Chartist prisoners by the ZgZ THE ANNALS OF TOIL. authorities cowed even brave men, and, during the critical years 1839 and 1840, the "masses" were left almost leaderless. Four hundred and forty three political captives were made, including most of the members of the Chartist Convention. Even before conviction, their punishment began. William Lovett, one of the most disinterested men that ever lived, and John Collins were thrown into the County Gaol of Warwick, whence they forwarded a petition to the Lords and Commons from which the following are extracts : — *' That when your petitioners were removed to the County Gaol of Warwick, they were stripped stark naked in the presence of the turnkeys, and measured in that condition, and examined all over to discover any particular marks on their bodies, an indignity by them so severely felt that they find them- selves compelled to notice it emphatically to your Right Honourable House. " That your petitioners were then taken into a room, in which there were not less than eight prisoners recently brought into the gaol, and with these men, some of whom were in a filthy state, were compelled again to strip themselves naked, bathe in the same cistern of water as the men did, and dry themselves as well as they could on the same towel. " That a common felon was ordered to crop the hair of your petitioner, William Lovett, and to this indignity your petitioner was also compelled to submit. " That your petitioners were then put into a ward where there were twenty-two prisoners, one of whom was infected with the itch. " That your petitioners were limited to the common gaol allowance, and no one was allowed to supply them with any addition thereto. " That the allowance consisted of a small loaf, which your petitioners suppose might weigh i^lb., one pint of oatmeal gruel for breakfast, which was given at nine in the morning; for dinner at twelve o'clock about two ounces of cheese, excepting Sunday and Wednesday, when they were served with a pint of what was called THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 293 beef soup, in which there was no other appearance of meat than some sUmy, stringy particles, which, hanging about the wooden-spoon, so offended your petitioners' stomachs that they were compelled to forego eating it ; and at 6 p.m. one more pint of oatmeal gruel ; while from 12 o'clock on Sunday until 9 a.m. on Monday your petitioners were not served with any food. '* That your petitioners were debarred from the free use of pen, ink, and paper, and that no letter addressed to them was permitted to reach them until it had been examined, and every part of the paper which was not written upon carefully torn off," etc., etc. Lord Brougham, to his credit be it said, read Lovett's petition in extenso to the House of Lords, when the following incident occurred : A derisive laugh greeted the hair-cropping passage. Brougham in great wrath retorted : — '* I am extremely mortified to per- ceive that such a statement as this should produce in any part of this House tokens of merriment. I deem it to be the most disgraceful conduct I have ever known in any assembly. I really am ashamed to belong to a place where any man should hear of such in- dignities being committed upon the persons of their fellow- creatures, and consider it a fit subject for a mirth." Fellow creatures untried ! Needless to say, Lovett's treatment after trial and conviction was still more rigorous. He was almost starved to death. Martyrdom of Ernest Jones. — Mr. Frederick Leary, in his valuable little biography of Ernest Jones (Reeves, Fleet-street), which I cordially commend to all students of the Chartist movement, writes thus of the heroic Reformer's prison life : — "The sentence against Mr. Jones was two years' soHtary confinement, and two sureties of ;^ioo each, and to be bound in his own recognizances for ;^200, to keep the peace for three years. ** The harshness with which the sentence was enforced became the subject of universal reprobation, and gave a94 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. the impression to people's minds that there was no intention that he should ever survive his imprisonment. Indeed, so severe was the treatment, that his two fellow prisoners did succumb, and died in prison, in September, 1849, of cholera, brought on by low diet, and confinement. " Mr. Jones was kept in solitary confinement on the silent system enforced with the utmost rigour ; for nine- teen months he was neither allowed pen, ink, nor paper, but confined in a small cell, 13 feet wide by 6, in utter solitude, varied only by a solitary walk in a small high walled prison yard. "Again, and again, Mr. Jones was imprisoned in a dark cell, and fed on bread and water, in consequence of his refusal to pick oakum. Even the Bible was taken from him. On one occasion while the cholera was raging in London, 417 having died in one day, this punishment was enforced, even though he was suffering from dysentery at the time, and he was confined to a dark cell, from which a man dying from cholera had just before been removed. Well might public opinion gain ground that the Whig Oligarchy, finding they could not break his spirit, were resolved on his destruction. But their efforts were in vain. Exemplary as was his conduct in all other respects, they never suc- ceeded in making him perform the degrading labour task. " Ernest Jones was so broken in health in the second year of his imprisonment, that he could no longer stand upright — he was found lying on the floor of his cell, and then only taken to the prison hospital. He was then told that if he would petition for his release, and promise to abjure politics for the future, the remainder of his sentence would be remitted ; but he refused his liberty on these conditions, said the work he had once begun he would never turn from, and was accordingly reconsigned to his cell. " As a further illustration of the gratuitous cruelty and petty torture practised towards him, he asked during the period when the cholera was at its height, permission to hear whether his wife (who was in most THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 295 delicate health) and his little children were still alive — and the permission was refused ! " The devices by which he obtained writing materials are amusing. Pens he got by finding occasionally a feather from a rook's wing, that had dropped in the prison yard. This quill he cut secretly with a razor when brought to him twice a week to shave ; an ink bottle he contrived to make from a piece of soap he got from the washing shed, and this he filled with ink from the ink bottle when he was allowed to write a quarterly letter ; paper was supplied from these quarterly sheets, leaves from the Bible, or any other scrap which he could manage by any means to get hold of." The Silent Cell. — In August, 1849, on the sixth day of incarceration in a solitary cell, on bread and water, and without books, this gifted prisoner for the Charter composed the following pathetic lines, which are not wholly unworthy even of Byron's soul-harrowing ** Prisoner of Chillon." They told me 'twas a fearful thing To pine in prison lone ; The brain became a shrivelled scroll, The heart a living stone. Nor solitude, nor silent cell The teeming mind can tame ; No tribute needs the granite-will No food the planet flame. Denied the fruits that others' thought, To write my own denied, Sweet Sisters, Hope and Memory, brought Bright volumes to my side. And oft we trace with airy pen, Full many a word of worth ; For time will pass, and Freedom then Shall flash them on the earth. They told me that my veins would flag, My ardour would decay ; And heavily their fetters drag My blood's young strength away. 296 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. Like conquerors bounding to the goal. Where cold white marble gleams, Magnificent red rivers roll — Roll ! all you thousand streams ! Oft on passion's stormy gales, When sleep I seek in vain, Fleets of fancy up them sail, And anchor in my brain. But never a wish for base retreat, Or thought of recreant part, While yet a single pulse shall beat Proud marches in my heart. They'll find me still unchanged and strong, When breaks their puny thrall ; With hate — for not one living soul — And pity for them all. CHARTISTS AND CHARTISM —No, III. Absurd prejudices have prevented human reason, and even stifled that instinct which teaches animals to resist oppression and tyranny. MuUitudes of the human race really believe themselves to be the property of a small number of men who oppress them. — Abbe Raynal. No father can transmit to his son the right of being useUss to his fellow -creatures. In the state of Society, where every man must be necessarily maintained at the expense of the community, he certainly owes the State so much labour as will pay for his sub- sistence, and this without exception of rank or persons. Rich or poor, strong or weak, every idle citizen is a knave. — Rousseau. No man ought to look upon the advantages of life, such as riches, honour, power, and the like as his property, but merely as a trust which God has deposited with him, to be employed for the use of his brethen. — Dean Swift. The people show themselves as they are, and they are not ami- able ; the great know the necessity of disguising themselves ; were they to exhibit themselves as they are, they would excite horror, — Rousseau. In wisdom, steadiness, and judgment, the people have greatly the advantage of princes. — Machiavelli. Manchesterism y. Chartism. — In last section 1 dealt with two potent causes of Chartist disintegration and eventual dissolution, viz., internal dissension and external persecution. It now remains to take note of a still more efficacious solvent ; to wit, the Middle Class Anti-Corn Law movement. It was Richard Cobden, John Bright and the Man- chester School of bagmen politicians that gave the coup de grace to the Charter. These cunning Profit- mongers clearly discerned that the Charter logically 297 298 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. involved the extinction of their own capitalistic mono- polies, and they therefore raised a mighty hue and cry against the only monopoly in which they were not themselves interested — that of the landlords in pro- tected corn. To draw the " masses" aside from their great object, they'pointed to the Corn Laws as the one fountain from which the entire flood of social misery flowed. They admitted that the provisions of the Charter were good in themselves, only, they said, the time for enacting them was inopportune. In the House the Chartists were few, while the Corn Law Repealers were many. In a millennium of cheap grain, Charters would be obtainable by the bushel. The bait however was not taken quite so greedily as the bourgeois anglers would have liked ; but in the end it captured many whose energies had been exhausted by the protracted struggle for the Charter. In vain the more astute Chartists drew attention to the suspicious fact that the manufactures and traders had never thought of repealing the Corn Laws till their own supremacy in the Legislature was threatened with overthrow. In vain it was contended that the effort required to repeal the Corn Laws would suffice to pass the Charter and with that, ensure the revocation of all unjust enactments. The Manchester bagmen could not (because they would not) be made to see that the major comprehended the minor. They continued cun- ningly to draw the Free Trade herring across the path of the Reformers. Bronterre O'Brien's Analysis of Manchesterism. — But there were, and are, stronger arguments agamst the Anti-Corn Law Leaguers than even these. They were stated with great force at the time by James Bronterre O'Brien, and, despite T. B. Potter, *' Honest John," and the Cobden Club, they have never been refuted. O'Brien, who was a most accomplished economist, had certainly no love for the landlords. He justly regarded them as the hereditary foes of the toilers, but he viewed with still greater alarm the steady THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 299 growth of the ** New Slavery " inherent in the capital- istic system of production and distribution under which the ** masses " groan. The Manchester men admitted that Free Trader would tend to cheapen all commodities. Then, argued O'Brien, the effect of this must be to enable the usurer, ; the tax-eater, the parson, and, indeed, all manner of \ idle persons and useless workers, with fixed incomes^ to i command, with the same amount of money, an increase of commodities in proportion as these are cheapened. To reduce the price of commodities, say by one half, is clearly equivalent to doubling a fixed income. Now, as this new wealth of the ** classes " must come from somewhere, and that somewhere is indisputably labour^ it follows that the producers must be robbed to the extent to which the non-producers benefit. O'Brien, therefore, contended that, in order toptevent the workers from being fleeced by any measure of Free Trade, all manner of public officials, from Madame Guelph downwards, should have their salaries docked, and that the relation of debtor to creditor (whether public or private) should be equitably readjusted at the same time. Needless to say, the Free Traders, in the day of their triumph, remorselessly robbed mortgagor and debtor on the principle : " Unto him that hath shall be given, and from him that hath not shall be taken away even that he hath." Free Trade, as it was carried, merely helped to make the poor relatively poorer and the rich richer. As of old, it might be said of the Cobdens and Brights : ** The prophets prophesy falsely ; the priests bear rule by their means ; and my people love to have it so. The Anti-Corn Law League swallowed up the People's Charter. Nor were our bagmen reformers content with this injury. They must needs add insult to it. In due course their organs had the effrontery to circulate a fiction, still believed in by many, that the Charter, or nearly all of it, had been passed by Parliament, and that it is now actually in force ! In point of fact we have 300 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. as yet virtually obtained but one of the famous " Six Points "—viz., the Ballot. The " Property Qualifi- cation " for members of Parliament, it is true, has been abolished, but, so long as an election contest costs Lazarus from £s^^ to ;^Ij5oo> and he is expected, if returned, to live on nothing a year, the removal of this impediment to his legislative aspirations can hardly be supposed to elicit extravagant thanks. Oneness of Chartism and Socialism. — Another strange hallucination very generally entertained, even by professed Socialists, who ought to know better^ is that the Chartist was a purely political move- ment. It was, indeed, more political than the present forward movement, because the " masses " then were almost wholly outside the Constituticn. But at bottom Chartism and the Socialism of to-day are identical — an assertion which the closing words of Bronterre O'Brien's great work, ^^ Human Slavery: How It Came Into the World, and How It Shall Be Made to Go Out^'' will help to bear out : — *' It was these articles and his speeches at the Jacobin Club, showing Robespierre's determination, if he got the power, to put property on a proper basis, that deter- mined the landlords and profit-mongers of France tc murder him the moment the state of parties and divi- sions of the people gave them the chance of doing so, with safety to themselves. ** It is idle to attribute the evils of society to any other source but the ascendancy of these two accursed classes ; for no other component parts of society have any interest in oppressing mankind or in debasing humanity. Examine the other constituents of society, and you will find them all to be naturally friends and benefactors of their fellow-creatures, and their callings to be essential to the public welfare. " All truly Christian ministers give full value for what they get ; so do physicians and surgeons ; so do engineers, architects, builders, draughtsmen, designers, artists of every kind, sculptors, miniature and portrait painters, musicians, compooers, mechanics and artisans THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 3OI of every description, whether engaged on works of use- fulness or ornament, professors and teachers of science and belles lettves^ more especially the higher class of scientific men, to whom we owe inventions and dis- coveries, and the higher class of philosophers, poets, historians, and critics, to whom we owe taste, refine- ment, and a thousand sources of quiet enjoyment. " In short, every man that contributes, either by the labour of his brain or of his hands, to the wealth and enjoyments of society is a valuable member of it, and cannot possibly have an interest in keeping his fellow- creatures in ignorance and bondage. In virtue of their callings, they, and all other persons employed in art and education, as in production and distribution, are naturally interested in just and good government, and in seeing equal rights and equal laws exist for all. " But ^ngt so landlords and profit-mongers; their class interests are diametrically opposed to the well- being, independence, and happiness of society, of which they.have not a right even to form an integral part. We cannot do without Christian pastors, physicians, engineers, architects, builders, professors, artists, and able men devoted to tlie sciences, without relapsing into barbarism and savagery. But where is the earthly use of a landlord, as a landlord ; of a profit-monger, as a profit-monger ? All the ingenuity in the world could not pnintj2ut_ainy^ Ipgitimatft use for these classes . '^ What functions do they perform that could not be better performed without them than with them, and at less than a hundredth part of the cost ? What business have they in society at all ? They have no lawful business whatever. They are no more a neces- sary part of the body politic than are wens, tumours,, or ulcers necessary parts of the natural human body. Their presence in Jt i s only _a-_proQf^Qf_.the diseased state of the body-peUtfe-r4usL_as the presence of the others attests an impure state^fjiieJblood or functional disorganisation^ TEeyliarve'nornore legitimate right to obtrude thelhselves on society than a wolf or a tiger has to join nnd make one of a Christmas party. They 30J THE ANNALS GF TOIL. exist only for the impoverishment, corruption, enslave- ment, and destruction of the human race. They are the sole authors of all the calamities known to social existence ; and the history of our race is little else than a harrowing record of their wars, plots, conspiracies, invasions, massacres, famines, conflagrations, and atrocities of every sort, to blot the image of God out of man, in order to turn him into a beast of burden or a beast of prey for their own use. It is only by just laws on Property that the human race can be delivered from these two hellish classes ; and all reform is a farce which points not to that paramount object." CHARTISTS AND CHARTISM— No. IV The holder of a Monopoly is a sinner and offender. The taker of Interest and the giver of it, and the writer of its papers and the witnesses of it, are all equal in crime. — Mohammed : Al Koran. If there be any whose riches and birth exempt them from all employment, there will be divisions and unhappiness in the hive. Their idleness is destructive to the general welfare. — Helvetius. The poorest being that crawls on earth, contending to save itself from injustice and oppression, is an object respectable in the eyes of God and man. — Burke. All arbitrary power is an usurpation against which a people may at all times revolt. The laws that are sacred are such as are com- forraable to the public interest. Every ordinance contrary to it is not a law, but a legal abuse. — Helvetius. There is no more inward value in the greatest Emperor than in the meanest of his subjects. His body is composed of the same substance, the same parts and with the same or greater infirmities. His education is generally worse, by flattery, idleness, and luxury, and those evil dispositions that early power is apt to give. It is, therefore, against common sense that his private personal interest or pleasure should be put in the balance with the safety of millions, every one of whom is his equal by nature. — Swift : Sermon on ** Martyrdom " of Charles I. In last section I endeavoured to establish the identity of Chartism and Socialism by reproducing the economic principles laid down by the philosophic Bronterre O'Brien. They will astonish some friends, who seem to regard Das Kapital as the Alpha and Omega of Collectivism. Ernest Jones's Socialism. — To make this important point still clearer, I now propose to condense as well as may be the economic teaching on the platform and in the press of the fiery orator and gifted poet of the 303 304 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. Charter, Ernest Jones. When Jones's attitude to- wards Land and Capital is considered, the persistent effort of the ** Classes " to murder him by prison severities is pretty well accounted for. It was not the Charter that the Free Traders dreaded ; it was the Collectivist uses to which it was proposed to put it, that inspired alarm : — "Two things are necessary for the production of wealth ; Labour and Capital. It is, therefore, argued that capital has paramount claims — since without capital, labour would be useless. Perhaps so; but let us examine what capital is, where it arises, and to whom it belongs ? The earth itself is the fundamental capital — the capital of the human race, which, in return for labour, yields them, as interest, the means of life. Labour is capital; every working-man, the poorest in existence, is a capitalist — the capitalist of labour-power, and claiming as a right a share in the general capital of mankind — the soil, the air, the waters, and the things that in them are. The Man y. the Machine. — " Now what is the kind of capital that claims and exercises despotic pre-eminence at the present day ? — Money ! Whence did that money arise ? From the conjunction of labour with the fundamental capital already alluded to. Was that money raised by the exertions of one man ? Never ! One man, by daring speculation and by the ruin of others may have absorbed to himself the wealth produced by the labour of many, but one man's work never raised a large amount of money. Take even the strongest case of individual creation of capital (so to speak) — the invention of machinery, or some other great discovery of science. The invention of a new machine, if that machine were made and worked only by its originator, would produce but little ; it is the labour-power of others employed in multiplying the machine, and in working it, that gives it power. And again, the machine does not create work for the working-man ; on the contrary, it displaces work; so that, instead of claiming the subjection of THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 305 labour on the score that without it labour could not be brought into activity (that is, that without it the working-man could not have work) it owes an atone- ment to the working-man, for depriving him of that which he would otherwise have had. For be it re- collected that, if the machine were not in existence, the working-man would have had work — a certain amount of human want requires a certain amount of work to satisfy it ; and as in former times, where work is done by hand, since done it must be, the great masses would be certain of employment, by the very constitution of nature itself. " It follows therefore, that the working man has a claim for compensation parallel with the development of machinery — or, that he should receive that compen- sation in the shape of lightened labour, and easier access to commodities ; and it also follows that the moneyed man who becomes possessed of machinery has no superior rights, that his capital invests him with no superior authority ; for, firstly, his capital is created by the labour of others ; secondly, the machinery his capital has furnished is formed by labour, without which it could not have been called into existence {from the raising of the ore from the mine to the last polish of the perfected machine) ; and thirdly, the ex- istence of that machinery was not necessary for the existence of the work. In fine, money-capital did not create labour, but labour created money-capital ; ^machinery did not create work, but work created machinery. " It therefore follows that Labour is, by its own nature, the Sovereign Power — and that it owes no alle- giance, gratitude, or subjection to Capital. The latter ought therefore, to be the servant, whereas it is the master. The whole basis of our social system is therefore wrong — it is completely topsy turvey, . . . Therefore, instead of capital having labour at its pleasure, and discarding it at will — and labour being dependent on such hire for its very existence — it is, on the contrary, labour that should dictate to capital the 306 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. tune and terms of its employment. Instead of the pos- sessor of machine-power hiring men for his machinery^ it is the men who should hire or buy the use of the machinery for themselves ; or, better still, where practicable, themselves make the machinery. Yice of the Wage System. — ** The system of wages is, therefore vicious. But the special vices of the system are driven beyond the pale of exaggera- tion. Not only does the capitalist on the plea of his possession of capital say to the working man^ * You shall work for me instead of yourself,' but he also says * You shall recreate this machinery in my service,' . . . And then he is actually told that had it not been for the capital of the money lord, for the permission to work at that machinery, he would have had to perish of starvation. " But while the working man is thus obliged to make good the wear and tear of the machine of the master, the master never * makes good ' the wear and tear of the working-man. * What ! ' says the master^ * do I not pay you your wages ? What more would you have ? ' Those wages are no more than the oil to the machine, or than the fuel to the boiler to enable it to work. Life is necessary to the human machine, to keep it in work ; therefore, the working man owes no more thanks to the employer for his wages, than the machine does for the fuel with which it is fed, seeing that not more wages are given to the man, under the present system, than fuel to the machine — namely, just enough to keep it working. " Working men raise the cry — * Let us work for ourselves ! Labour should be lords of the earth, and we should be lords of our labour ! ' "The only fair day's wage is the wage you pay yourselves — the only fair day's work is the work that is fve6 ; and for a free man's good. Co-operation the Soul of Labour.—'' What then are the means by which to emancipate labour it- self ? Co-operation is the soul of labour. There is scarcely one branch of toil that can be per- THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 307 formed single handed. . . . No man can produce and manufacture for himself all that he wants. Here is the beauty of labour ; it is a fraternal thing ; it draws man to man, it teaches mutual reliance, it draws irresistably towards co-operation. But what should that co-operation be ? For almost everything we see is effected by co-operation : it should be co-operation of liearts, not merely the co-operation of hands — the co-operation of interests, not merely the co-operation of powers. *' It is, however, evident that if the co-operative system is left to individual efforts, though those in- dividuals act harmoniously together, it will advance far more slowly and meet with counteracting influences which it may be difficult if not impossible to overcome. Co-operation should be a State concern, realised by the power of the State ; and as the funds of co-operative bodies, even if amalgamated, may and would fall far short of satisfying the requirements of the many — as certain portions of the people lack those advantages enjoyed by others, nay ! are placed under serious disadvantage by unavoidable circumstances, the State, as parent of all, should supply the deficiencies of her weaker children, and then place them on an equality, with the remainder — therefore it is requisite .... that a Credit Fund be opened by the State for the purpose of advancing money on certain conditions, to bodies of working men, desirous of associating together for industrial purposes. The Profit-sharing Fraud. — **Many schemes of compromise have been suggested ; they all only tamper with the evil — they all carry the germs of ruin within them. The best and most plausible of them is the suggestion that, after deducting expenses, the Profits of an undertaking should be equally divided between capitalist and workmen. This is unjust in theory, and dangerous in practice. / deny that capital has ANY right over labour that creates it. I deny that it is warranted to dictate any terms, or offer a;z)/ compromise. The block of marble might as well dictate to the 308 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. sculptor who gives it value, beauty, and importance. It is dangerous in practice, for what does this halving of profits mean ? Suppose a capitalist has i,ooo workmen, and that he halves profits with these. He, the one man^ receives as large a profit as the i,ooo men, which means that he is i,ooo times as powerful as any one individual out of the thousand. . . . Therefore, the complete sovereignty of labour over capital, is the only free trade that can give freedom, is the only protection that can protect." " Real wealth is food — not cotton, woollen, silks or cutlery. A nation may be starving in the midst of factories. Nay ! the factories may cause it to starve by drawing too many hands from the production of food." *' The monopoly of the soil threw the working man off the land into the factory ; the monopoly of machinery threw him out of the factory into the street. " There he stands, and whither shall he go ? On the one side, the land, but there the landed monopolist has written : — ' Man-traps and spring-guns ! ' On the other side the factory ; but from that he has just been turned : behind him a ruined life — before him the bastile, the gaol, and the grave ! " ** The capitalist will tell us he is free — nobody forces him to work at the wages offered ; if he don't like it he can leave it ; he is free to take the master's terms or not just as he pleases. Oh, yes, he is very free ! There he stands in the street, and he is very free indeed ! Oh, yes, he is perfectly free to beg. But if he does so the policeman comes and locks him up, because he begs as charity from man that which his God had chartered as his birth-right at the creation ! Oh, yes ! he is very free ! He is free to starve ! But if he tries to snatch an, hour's rest at the doorstep of the capitalist, or beneath the hedge-row of the landlord, the policeman comes again, and throws him into prison as a vagrant for having no house, while it is the robbery of his earnings by the two thieves between whom he is crucified that has prevented his ability to keep one. THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 309 Sovereign Remedies. — ** Meanwhile, the Manchester School tells us that it is not right to interefere between labour and capital — that the labour market is and ought to be subject to the same laws as every other market. ... I answer that if the labour market ought to be subject to every other market, at all events it is not. If we have no right to interefere between labour and capital, the capitaHst has no right to interfere between labour and the means of work. . . . By their monopoly of land and machinery, they deny man his right of free access to the means of work, and thus deny him the right of working for him- self, whereby they force working men to compete with working men for employment — or make 1,000 men run after one master ; if we can somewhat reverse the case, and make wages-labour so scarce that two masters shall have to run after one man, we have solved the social problem of the future. . . . How shall we set to work ? " We must take away half the wages-slaves out of the manufacturing and mining districts, and the wages of those that remain behind will at least double in amount. ** But what shall we do with the half that we take away ? ** We have seen that the evil was caused by driving the people from the land into the factory — the remedy must be just to walk them back to where they come from. . . . Thus wages would double, poor rates and taxation would decrease, and the production of real wealth (food) would be indefinitely multiplied ; while the fact of half the working population being a prosper- ous self-supporting peasantry, the other half a highly- paid wages class, more trade would flow, and manu- facture itself receive a mighty impulse. *' We have further seen, that as the monopoly of the soil threw the working man off the land into the factory, FO the monopoly of machinery threw man out of the factory into the street. Therefore, as the monopoly of machinery by a few created the evil, the possession of ^10 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. machinery by the many will produce the good Therefore, by means of co-operation (which it require- political power to facilitate ) machinery must be placed in possession of the working classes, . . , Thus the enemy's artillery can be turned against himself, and the law of supply and demand be made to subdue capital instead of crushing labour." CHARTISTS AND CHARTISM —No. V. When men fall under despotism they are bound to make efforts to shake it off; and those efforts are, at that period, the only pro- perty the unfortunate people have left. The height of misery is not to be able to free themselves from it, and to suffer without daring to complain. Where is the man barbarous and stupid enough to give the name of peace to the silence and forced tran- quility of slavery ? It is indeed peace, but it is the peace of the tomb. — Helvetius. The rights of men, that is to say the natural rights of mankind, are sacred things ; and, if any public measure is proved mischiev- ously to affect them, the objection ought to be fatal to that measure, even if no charter at all could be set up against it. — Burke. The ultimate end of all government is the good of the people. Now the greatest good of a people is their Liberty. Liberty is to the collective body what health is to every individual body. With- out health no pleasure can be tasted by man ; without liberty no happiness can be enjoyed by society. — Bolingbrooke. Strange it is that bloods, Alike of colour, weight and heat, pour'd out together, Would quite confound distinction, yet stand off In differences so mighty. — Shakespeare. It has been shown in previous sections that the Chartist movement, though ostensibly purely political, was, in reality, socialistic. Indeed, it may well bedoubted if there ever has been a great political upheaval without somewhat of a social origin. It is the existence of great social wrongs that teaches the masses the importance of political rights. The Working Mens Association — such was the unassuming title of the body that gave birth to the Charter — clearly apprehended this fact. On its cards of membership were inscribed these striking ^ords : ** The man who evades his share of useful 311 312 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. LABOUR DIMINISHES THE PUBLIC STOCK OF WEALTH, AND THROWS HIS OWN BURDEN UPON HIS NEIGHBOUR." The Chartist Press. — The Working Men's Associa- tion — originally an exclusively metropolitan organisa- tion — as soon as the Charter in all its details had been formulated, transmitted it to every Radical Association in the country. The assent which it obtained in the provinces was all but universal, and no sooner was the iniquitous Four-penny Stamp Act on newspapers re- pealed than a Democratic Press sprang into existence. Hetherington's Twopenny Dispatch became the London Dispatch. It preached ** Moral Force " Chartism pure and simple. Its editor was a Mr. Beaumont. In Leeds was started The Northern Star, owned by Feargus O'Connor, and edited by the Rev. William Hill. It was less didactic than the Dispatch, but much more successful because, like the Lahoiir Leader and Clarion of our own day, it sought to furnish its readers with a more or less complete record of the labour-movement. Apart from the popularity of its proprietor, its main stock in trade was its reports of Chartist meetings. It was the organ of the ** Phy- sical Force " Party. In Newcastle-on-Tyne appeared the Northern Liber- ator, It was conducted with conspicuous ability, but its circulation was mostly confined to Northumberland and Durham. The democracy of Scotland was voiced by John Fraser in the Tnte Scotsman, which, like the Northern Star, preached undiluted ** blood and iron." In Birmingham, Douglas converted the moderate Journal into an out-and-out democratic print, and it did much to ** educate " the Midlands. Then came Bronterre O'Brien's Operative, O'Brien was out of sight the ablest man in the movement, and his writings are still a living force. The Charter, edited by William Carpenter, and The Champion conducted by sons of Cobbett, both helped to- swell the surging democratic wave. Chartist ConYention of 1839. — As for orators THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 3I3 and demonstrations, their name was Legion. Never, perhaps, did any movement let loose such a flood of eloquence. Vincent, Hardy, Cooper, Stephens, O'Brien, O'Connor, Jones, and a host of others spoke with tireless fervour in advocacy of the Charter. The land was traversed from end to end, and converts innumerable were made. Meanwhile, the " Classes " were not idle. For a time, indeed, they seemed paralysed ; but knowing that their very existence was at stake, they presently plucked up courage and commenced hostilities. They began by proclaiming torch-light meetings as illegal, and followed up this proceeding by the arrest of the Rev. J. R. Stephens, one of the most audacious of the Chartist orators. For his defence the workers promptly subscribed / 2,000. More than that, they raised a fund to defray the cost of a Chartist Convention, which assembled in he British Coffee House, Cockspur Street, London, on the 4th February, 1839. Bailie Craig, an Ayrshire delegate presided, and William Lovett acted as Secretary. From the first, almost, discord prevailed, the bone of contention being physical versus moral force. Even- tually certain resolutions to be submitted to simul- taneous provincial gatherings were agreed to, and on thirteenth March, the Convention adjourned to Bir- mingham. The chief of these resolutions were in favour of a run on the banks for gold, abstinence from all ex- cisable articles, exclusive dealing, and universal cessa- tion from labour. Many monster gatherings ensued in all the great centres of industry, but the uninstructed multitude, naturally enough, was unable to grasp the full import of the drastic policy recommended by the Convention.. Nevertheless the majority of the Chartists was reported to be favourable to the proposed action. The '' Sacred Month " and What Came of It.— On ist July, the Convention re-assembled, and on the motion of Dr. Taylor it was unanimously determined w 3X4 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. to call upon the people to give effect to the project, and commence a ** sacred month," or general strike, pro- vided the Charter were not enacted by a given day. The Government at once took action. A body of police — a sort of Pinkerton brigade — were sent down from London to Birmingham to assault one of the meetings of Chartists habitually held in the Bull Ring. This they did with extreme ferocity, under the direction of the Mayor« Even women and children were mercilessly mauled, and Dr. Taylor and ten others were arrested. In prison the cour- ageous Doctor was treated with the utmost harsh- ness. His hair was cropped, and he was subjected to all the indignities of the common felon, for no legal offence whatever. He had done his utmost to re- strain the crowd from attempting to repel force by force. ** Were you aware," asked the Recorder of another notable prisoner, William Lovett, *'that certain mem- bers of the police force were wounded dangerously by weapons ? " Mr. Lovett worthily replied : *' I heard that several of them were wounded, and at the same time thought that the people were justified in repelling such despotic and blood-thirsty power by any and every means at their disposal, because I believe that the institution of a police force is an infringement on the constitution and liberties possessed by our ancestors ; for if the people submit to one injustice after another, which self-constituted authorities impose upon them, they may be eventually ground to the dust, without the means of any resistance." Not content with police bludgeons the authorities next called in the military, and martial law was proclaimed. Meanwhile, the friends of the Charter in Parliament bestirred themselves in its favour, but to little purpose. On 14th June, Mr. Attwood presented to the House of Commons a petition for redress of grievances signed by 1,280,000 workers, and it was debated whether or not the complaints should be considered. By a majority of 237 to 48 the ** collective wisdom" of the nation resolved THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 315 that there was no occasion to entertain the prayer of the 1,280,000 petitioners ! Divided Councils. — The Convention re-assembled at Bolt Court, Fleet Street, London, on July loth, when it was determined, on the motion of Mr. Lowery, that ** the House of Commons, having re- fused to ^o into Committee on the prayer of the National Petition, it is in vain to expect redress from that House. It is therefore the opinion of the National Convention that the people should work no longer after the 12th of August next, unless the power of voting for Members of Parliament to protect their labour is guaranteed to them " A little later, however, Bronterre O'Brien succeeded in materially modifying this drastic resolve by getting the Convention to declare that ** We cannot take upon ourselves the responsibility of dictating the time and circumstances of such strike, believing that we are incompetent to do so," etc., etc. It is unnecessary to discuss at present the feasibility of a general strike in the circumstances in which the Convention found itself. Its ranks had been greatly thinned by absence, desertion and the arbitrary arrest of many of its leading members. Consequently, its authority was probably sufficient only to induce a partial strike, which was bound to be disastrous. But as to the efficacy of a general strike for even a week, under favourable conditions, by all manner of useful toilers, there can be no manner of doubt. The *' Classes " would be brought to their knees as if by magic. The patricians of Rome were never so thoroughly humbled as when the plebeians seceded to Mons Sacer. But this remedy is of the heroic order, and the workers of this country, with all their virtues — and they are many — are not heroic. They have, alas 1 for so many generations been vilipended by the *' Classes" that the iron seems to have entered into their very souls, and they esteem themselves as their ** betters " esteem them. But while there is life there is hope ; and hath not 3i6 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. the great poet of the toilers, WiUiam Morris, whom we all loved and honoured so, admonished us ? — Come, then, let us cast off fooling, and put by ease and rest ; For the Cause alone is worthy till the good days bring the best I Ah, come ! Cast off all fooling, for this at least we know That the dawn and the day are coming, and forth the banners go» CHARTISTS AND CHARTISM.— NO. VI. Robbery is only possible on condition that there are some who honestly labour. Increase the relative number of those who live upon theft, and you decrease, in a corresponding ratio, the number of those who live by their honest exertions and whose joint efforts alone make thieving practicable. This is precisely the case with interest (usury) ; yet while the machinery of law is employed to suppress the one, it encourages the other. — A. W. Rayment, It is a great pity that the old Grecian system of erecting stone tablets on each estate showing the indebtedness (mortgages) is no longer in use, The greatest part of our Civilized Countries would then present the appearance of immense churchyards on the tomb- stones of which could be read, '* Here lies, in peaceful death-rest, what once was a Free Community of independent peasant pro- prietors. The Coffin has been manufactured in the workshops of Capitalism. . . It is everywhere the same wherever the " Free Trade in Land," the ideal of the English Liberals is reign- ing. — Michael Flufscheim. The real cause of Interest is Monopoly, and in the last resort, the greatest of all Monopolies and the father of them all is privaU la ndownership. — Michael Flurscheim. In the days of Henry VII., a labourer (agricultural), gained /154 per annum in our money ; to-day, he only earns ^30. — Thorold Rogers. Yindication of " Law and Order." — The abandon- ment of the Sacred Month by the Chartist Convention, instead of molHfying the authorities seemed to intensify the rigour of persecution. At Newcastle, without any previous notice, the Grand Jury found True Bills against Bronterre O'Brien, William Thomason, John Mason, James Ayre and Thomas Dwyer, and they were accordingly arrested. At Stockport, at the dead of night, the police burst 317 3l8 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. into the houses of James Mitchell, Charles Davies, John Wright, James Briton, Isaac Armitage, Cornelius Armitage, Isaac Armitage, junior, David Roberts and Timothy Higgins, and arrested them with the utmost violence. At the Montgomeryshire Assizes, forty Chartists v^^ere tried and sentenced to various periods of transportation and imprisonment. At the Warwick Assizes, Jeremiah Howell, Francis Robert, John Jones, and Thomas Aston were sentenced to death, a penalty which the Government was after- wards induced with much difficulty to commute into transportation for life. There also, Lovett and Collins were each sent to prison for twelve months. Lovett at the trial challenged two of the jurors who had been previously heard to say that all Chartists ought to be hanged. The bench overruled the objection ! At Liverpool five True Bills were found against Feargus O'Connor, and he was committed for trial at Manchester. Among the more distinguished convicts at the time, were the Rev. Joseph Rayner Stephens and Dr. Mac Douall. They were sentenced respectively to eighteen and twelve months imprisonment. Dr. MacDouall spoke for four hours in self defence^ with unsurpassed boldness, eloquence, and convincing Scottish logic. This very fact the Attorney General turned to the Doctor's disadvantage. It was, he said, an incontrovertible proof of the dan- ger of allowing men of such talent to be at large ! To prejudice the jury still further against MacDouall, if that were possible, the Grand Jury, during his trial, brought in a second true bill for conspiracy. Insurrection of Frost, Williams, and Jones.— Everywhere, in truth, the *Maw" was converted by the ** classes" into an instrument of terrorism. In these circumstances what wonder that the writhing ** masses*' should make some effort to redress their wrongs by force of arms ? Secret arming and drilling commenced in most of the great Chartist centres ; but in South THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 319 Wales alone was there anything like a serious attempt at insurrection. There popular discontent was fanned into fury by the savage treatment to which Henry Vincent and other Chartist prisoners were subjected by the authorities of Monmouth. Among other resolutions taken, it was determined to rescue the eloquent Vincent and his fellow sufferers from durance. The leader of the movement was John Frost, who had been first Reform Mayor of Newport. Frost had creditably presided over the Chartist Convention, heldin London in 1838, and had, in consequence, been removed from the Commission of the Peace by Lord John Russell. Between the ex-J.P. and the ** scoundrelly little lord " a published correspondence had ensued, in which " wee Johnny " had by no means the best of it. But Frost's virtues, though unquestionable, were of the civic and domestic, rather than of the warlike order. Not deficient in personal courage, he seems yet to have almost entirely lacked the stern purpose of the born military chief. He was, moreover, genuinely unfortunate in the enterprise he undertook. The rising had been planned at a delegate meeting up in the hills by Merthyr Tydvil, and a resolution come to to surprise the military at Newport, at two o'clock on the morning of the 4th No- vember, 1839. Three columns, each ten thousand strong, were to converge on Newport from different starting points. When everything was in a reasonable state of pre- paration, and the moment for action drew nigh, a most violent storm of wind and rain set in. It raged without intermission for three days and nights, and rendered the mountain country almost impassable. In consequence Frost's contingent alone, the nearest in location, ever reached Newport, and even that did not arrive till close on 9 a.m. A surprise was out of the question. The soldiers, a company of the 45th Regiment, barri- caded the Westgate Hotel, a strong stone building, and began to fire on the Chartists from the windows with deadly effect. Frost's men had amongst them some; 320 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. four hundred flint locks, but these being drenched with rain were of small avail. Speedily ten of the Chartists were killed, and over fifty wounded. Still they did not flinch, but, headed by *' Jack the Fifer," burst open the door, only to encounter a deadly fusillade in the hall. They recoiled, and the luckless insurrection of Frost, Williams and Jones was at an end. As if to place the copestone of fatality on the whole unfortunate business, it afterwards transpired that the soldiers had fired their last round when the insurgents beat a retreat from the interior of the hotel. A Heroic Chartist Lad. — One little episode of the fight deserves to be specially recorded. It is thus set forth by Gammage in his History of the Chartist Movement : — One of those who fell in the attack on the Westgate Hotel, was a youth whose enthusiasm and courage must command admiration even from the veriest foe. He bore the name of Shell. That his whole soul was in the movement, and that he breathed the purest aspira- tion for liberty will be found from the following brief but touching letter to his parents : — ** Pontypool, Sunday Night, Nov. 4th, 1839. Dear Parents, — I hope this will find you well, as I am myself at this present. I shall this night be engaged in a glorious struggle for freedom, and should it please God to spare my life, I shall see you soon ; but if not, grieve not for me, I shall have fallen in a noble cause. Farewell ! Yours Truly, George Shell.'* This youth had but just attained the age of eighteen, and while endless volumes are written in praise of the bravoes of despotism, the sublime and courageous de- votion of this young apostle of liberty, who feared not to die for the object of his worship, is surely worthy of a place in history. Yea, verily ! Trial of Frost, Williams and Jones. — John Frost, Zephaniah Williams and William Jones, the respective THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 321 leaders of the three divisions of Welsh insurgents, along with Mr. Frost's son, Henry, — a dangerous desperado of the mature age of fourteen, who had figured as a combatant in the assault on the Westgate Hotel — were speedily seized and the ** machinery of law " and order set in motion. A special commission was constituted to try the leading malefactors for their lives. The Judges were Chief Justice Sir Nicholas Tyndall, Mr. Baron Parks, and Sir John Williams. Sir John Campbell, Attorney-General, Mr. Sergeant Talfourd, Mr. Sergeant Ludlow, Mr. Whiteside and Mr. Talbot were Counsel for the Crown. The prisoners were defended by Sir Frederick Pollock, Mr. Fitzroy Kelly, and Mr. Thomas. At their trial the captives appeared handcuffed and chained together. The prosecution was conducted in a spirit of incredible vindictiveness by the Crown Counsel and eventually Frost, Williams, Jones, and six others were condemned to death. In passing sentence, the Chief Justice sanctimoniusly ascribed the failure of the insurrection to the inter- position of Divine Providence, and exhorted the three leaders, to whom alone no hope of life was extended, to prepare their souls for the great change that awaited them. As for their bodies, they were to be hanged by the neck, then beheaded, quartered and generally disposed of as Her Majesty should think fit. Queen Victoria was then an inexperienced hoyden of about twenty ! The doomed men eventually escaped the death penalty, more on account of a legal informality than by reason of the earnest efforts made on their behalf by the Chartists. Sir Frederick Pollock successfully con- tended that the prisoners had not been furnished, as the law required with copies of their indictment ten days before hearing. This weighty objection was for the time overruled by the Special Commission but it was eventually referred by them for decision to the Judges of the Court of Exchequer. With a fine sense of impartiality, these latter pandits $Z2 .THE ANNALS OF TOIL. of the bench, by a majority of their number (9 to 6), found Sir Frederick's objection valid, but by the same majority^ they held that it had been taken at the wrong time. Here was a pretty cleft stick into which the wise ad- ministrators of ** law and order " had got themselves. Whatever was to be done ? Hang the men in spite of the illegality for which the Crown was primarily respon- sible ? Hardly. It was resolved instead, by way of compromise, to transport them for life. Against this almost equally cruel doom the Chartists strove in vain, Mr. Frost's family presented a most feeling memorial to Lord Normanby, whose function it was to present it. He coldly intimated that he could not, consistently with his public duty, advise Royalty to comply with its prayer ! In the House of Commons on March loth, 1840, Mr. Leader courageously brought forward a motion in the Reformed (?) House of Commons for an address to the Queen, urging her to grant Frost, Williams, and Jones a free pardon. Seven honourable members supported the motion, the tellers included ! Frost, Williams, and Jones were accordingly banished the realm which they had sought to redeem from the clutches of the brutal oligarchy whose later noteworthy achievement in the same line was the imprisonment of Cuninghame Graham and John Burns, after ** Bloody Sunday" in Trafalgar Square — an outrage for which the people have never yet been able to extort satisfaction. CHARTISTS AND CHARTISM.— No. VII. Inequality is the source of all revolutions, for no compensatioa can make up for inequality. — Aristotle. The earth belongs in usufruct to the living. The dead have no rights over those who now exist. — Thomas Jefferson. The law does not create right : right must dictate the law. — Lave LE YE. Obey the law ? That is not so clear, for the law is often naught else but the will of those who impose it. The name of the law does not impose despotism, and all men have the right to resist oppressive laws. — St. Just. The greatest of all injustice is that which goes under the name of law ; and of all sorts of tyranny the forcing of the letter of the law against equity is the most insupportable. — L'Estrange, The whole system of right to power, property and everything else in society, must be regulated by the same decisive question- What is it that the good of the community requires ? — Dr. Priestly. Famine is in thy cheeks, Need and oppression stareth in thine eyes, Upon thy back hangs ragged misery. The world is not thy friend, nor the world's law ; The world affords no law to make thee rich. Then be not poor, but break it. — Shakespear. Sequel to the Welsh Rising. — The suppression of the Welsh insurrection and the transportation of the leaders, Frost, Williams and Jones, were promptly followed up by a multitude of arrests and trials in other parts of the country. At the Trades Hall, Bethnal Green, London, the police, at the commencement of a Chartist meeting, 323 324 THE ANNALS OF TO]L. violently seized Neesom, Spurr, Cherry, Livings, Evans, Byrne, Clark, Reynard, Hobb, Wilkins, Wil- liams (Joseph) and Williams (David). They were committed fo trial at the Old Bailey, Neesom, the Chairman, being held bound in the sum of ;^i,ooo. The police had cunningly contrived to make the meet- ing illegal by sending armed accomplices to attend it. These, of course, they were careful not to arrest. At Sheffield, Holberry, Booker (WilHam), Booker (Thomas), Clayton, Bentley, Marshall, Penthorpe, Bennison, and Wells were arrested on the charge of conspiracy and the administration of illegal oaths. The chief witnesses against them were police spies of the agent provocateur species. At Bradford, eight prominent Chartists were seized and committed for trial at York. Of the fate of the Sheffield and Bradford prisoners, the following sentences may be taken as samples : — Holberry, four years' imprisonment ; Thomas Booker, three years ; William Booker, son of Thomas, two years ; Duffy, three years ; Wells, one year ; Marshall, Parthenope, and Bennison, two years each ; Martin, one year ; Brooke and Peddie, three years each ; Drake, eighteen months ; Holdsworth, three years ; Walker, Naylor, Rhyding, and Rishworth, two years each ; Hutton and Smithies, eighteen months each ; and Hoey, Crabtree, and Ashton (of Barnsley), two years each. In addition to these unmerciful terms of imprison- ment, the unhappy victims of ** law and order " were in every case bound over to keep the peace, after libera- tion, in recognizances and sureties to considerable amounts. At the Liverpool Assizes, the Rev. W. V. Jackson, William Butterworth, R. J. Richardson, John Kaye, Christopher Doyle, WilHam Barker, Frederick David- son, Samuel Scott, Morris Ball, Murdin, Willoughby, Luck, Smith, and James Bronterre O'Brien were all imprisoned for various terms, and bound over to keep the peace. THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 325 Imprisonment of Bronterre O'Brien, and Feargus O'Connor, — O'Brien was imprisoned for eighteen months and bound over himself in ;^300 and two sureties in ;^i50 each. He defended himself with masterly ability, and would probably have been acquitted but for a technical omission to call rebuttinp^ evidence at the proper time. He was not even personally responsible for the over- sight ; nevertheless, the Judge would not allow him to repair it by granting arrest of judgment. O'Brien, thereupon, requested his Lordship to banish him for life, as he had no wish to stay a day longer in a country so hopelessly given over in legislature and judicature to injustice and despotism. Needless to say his lordship disregarded this modest appeal. At this time also (i ith May, 1840), Feargus O'Connor, who had been convicted of seditious libel in the Northern Star, at the Yorkshire Assizes, was brought up for sentence. He was committed to York Castle for eighteen months. As jailers, the Whigs, as is their wont, were a shade worse than the Tories. O'Connor was treated as a common felon. O'Brien was allowed no books that a man of his scholarly tastes could be supposed to read with any degree of satisfaction. Vincent, originally a compositor, was set to tailoring. Lovett was fed on loathsome food, and almost starved to death. The health of Peddie, Potts, Carrier and many others was permanently undermined. Further Legal Terrorism. — The Rev. Mr. Jackson's sentence was one of eighteen months' imprisonment, being, moreover, bound over to keep the ** peace" for three years in the sum of :^500 and two sureties of ;^i 50 each. The Judge held that a minister of religion ought not to use ** strong language." Such also was the opinion of Herod and the '* rulers of the Jews," with respect to Mr. Jackson's Divine Master. The former He had spoken of as *' that fox," the latter he had compared to ** whited sepulchres." On a second conviction, Jackson was sentenced to 326 THE ANNALS OF TOIL, another term of six months, with recognizances and sureties to the amonnt of ;^70o. At the Chester Assizes, WilHam Benbow, Isaac iohnson (Stockport), James Duke (Ashton), and John -rivesey (Manchester), were sentenced, the first-named to sixteen months' imprisonment (he had been in durance for eight months before trial), and the others to one year each with the customary recognizances and sureties. At Devizes, Roberts, Potts, and Carrier, were sen- tenced to two years' imprisonment each, Carrier with hard labour. To the common guilt of the trio Carrier had added the crime of being a workman ! At the Monmouth Assizes Vincent, and Edwards were put upon their trial for a second time. They were charged with conspiring with John Frost to sub- vert the constituted authorities. They were sentenced respectively to twelve and fourteen months' imprison- ment. Serjeant Talfourd prosecuted and Henry Vincent defended himself with such convincing arguments that the learned Serjeant afterwards told the House of Commons that he deeply regretted the professional part he had had to play. He even went so far as to enter his protest against the general treatment to which the Chartist prisoners were subjected as outrageously severe and scandalously unjust. At the same Assizes, Byrne, Owen, White, and Wilson were likewise convicted and incarcerated for various terms. At Taunton, Young, Bolwell, and Bartlett were found guilty of sedition. They were somewhat leniently dealt with being sentenced respectively to three, six and nine months' confinement. At the Durham Assizes, two youths, Binns, and Williams defended themselves with conspicuous ability. The jury found them guilty, but recommended them to mercy on account of their youth. Williams in- trepidly repudiated the jury's propitiation, declaring that he would admit no plea in mitigation of judgment, except the utility of his public conduct. He and THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 327 Binns were sentenced each to six months' imprison- ment. And so the ** Classes" went on their way rejoicing. They had now most of their leading antagonists under lock and key, and they were not to be moved by their sufferings. It was their object to unman, and by unmanning to stamp out, the Chartist movement, and towards the Autumn of 1840, it really looked as if they had succeeded. The Chartist journals began to disappear one after the other. The Operative was starved to death. The True Scotsman, the Charter , and the London Dispatch experienced a similar fate. The Southern Star, deprived of its editor, O'Brien, soon succumbed. The Champion, and Northern Liberator were incorporated with the Birmingham Journal, which reverted to Whiggery or Moderate Liberalism. Scottish Chartists Undismayed. —In Scotland al- most alone, at this season of disaster, were there any reassuring signs of Chartist vitality. There, Moir, Lowery and Duncan, succoured by Julian Harney from the South, traversed the country far and wide proclaiming the saving truths of the People's Charter. They travelled on foot, and even the fastnesses of the Highlands presented no barrier which their irrepressible energies could not surmount. The death of the True Scotsman witnessed the birth of the Scottish Patriot, and the Scottish Chartist Circular. But I must reserve for next section the release of the Chartist leaders and the general revival of the agitation. If I appear to be treating the story of the Charter in somewhat disproportionate detail, it is for two sufficient reasons : Firstly, the present generation of workers is more ignorant, if that were possible, of the strenuous politi- cal and social revolt in which their fathers were ab- sorbed than of any great event in the history of the country since the Norman Conquest, or before it. Secondly, we are now entering, or have already entered, on a period of struggle between which and the 328 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. days of the Charter there are many and striking parallels. There is, assuredly, a far stronger family resemblance between the Cuninghame Grahams, Keir Hardies, Barnses, Hyndmans, Manns, Tilletts, Quelches, Thornes, McCarthys, Dr. Moirs, Shaw Maxwells, and the men of the Social Democratic Federation, the Fabian Society, the New Unionism, and the Independent Labour Party generally, and the heroes of the Peoples' Charter, than was ever to be re- cognized in the odious '*old gang" of make-believe Broadhursts, Howells, Rowlandses and other Liberal "labour fakers" ever ** on the make." Indeed, as regards the entire Collectivist Party to- day, it may be said of the Story of the Charter : he te fabula narratur. And, alas, alas, may not a similar slow death be in store for both? ** Man proposes, God disposes." CHARTISTS AND CHARTISM.— NO. VIII. It is a delusion to suppose that because a Government is repre- sentative it must, therefore, be free. — John Randolph. I am convinced that those societies (as the Indians), which live without Government, enjoy in their general mass an infinitely greater degree of happiness than those that live under European Governments. Among the former, public opinion is in the place of law, and restrains morals as powerfully as laws ever did anywhere. Among the latter, under pretence of Government, they have divided their nations into two classes — wolves and sheep. I do not exagger- ate. This is a true picture of Europe. — Thomas Jefferson. Mankind are divided into two great classes — the shearers and the shorn. You should always side with the former against the latter. — Talleyrand, The Princes of the Gentiles bear dominion over them, and their great ones exercise authority upon them, but among you it shall not be so. He that would be greatest among you, let him be the least. Let him be the servant of all. — Jesus Christ. Among the first of the Chartists to emerge from prison were William Lovett, and John Collins (24th July, 1840). They were received in many places with immense rejoicings, and Chartism again began to look up. In August, Dr. McDouallwas liberated from Chester Castle, and at once resumed propagandist work with vigour. His friend and fellow- Chartist, Dr. Taylor, it is sad to record, was already dead, worn out by incess- ant agitation and blighted hopes. "Tory Chartism." — But a fresh cause of disunion, more fatal even than the physical v. moral force bone of dissension, speedily began to neutrahze the reviving movement. The summer of 1841 brought with it ^a X 329 330 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. General Election, and the ticklish question whether the Chartists ought to support the Whig or Tory candidates. A pandemonium precisely similar to that of which we have of late had so many wretched experiences broke out all over the country. Feargus O'Connor, from his prison, strongly urged a pro-Tory policy. Bronterre O'Brien from his cell as strenuously advocated ** even keel " tactics. The treacherous conduct of the Whigs naturally enough rankled in the bosoms of the Chart- ists, and O'Connor's advice was generally taken. It proved disastrous. The Whigs coined the phrase *' Tory Chartist," and overwhelmed the movement with opprobrium. *• Let us speak plain. There is more in names Than most men dream of ; and a lie may keep Its throne a whole age longer if it skulk Behind the shield of some fair (or foul) seeming name." The Whigs, it is true, were defeated, but the Chart- ists earned nothing but discredit, if not positive disgrace. Had they supported Whig and Tory candidates in- differently, according to their pledges, and rigorously abstained from intervention where (as is now the case) there was nothing to choose between them, they would have made their influence, slender as it then was at the polls, felt and acknowledged, and the Independent Labour Party would not, peradventure, have been in the comparatively embryonic state in which we behold it to-day. In the end of the summer of 1841, O'Connor and •O'Brien were released from durance, and that event, for a time, gave a great impetus to the Chartist move- ment. About this period, also, the celebrated Thomas Cooper, author of the '* Purgatory of Suicides," who died but the other day at a great age, threw himself into the agitation with all the ardour of youth and the vigour of an intellect of rare natural and acquired resource. Chartist National ConYention (184«2). — In April 1842, a fresh National Convention, assembled in London, and THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 33I it was determined to present a second National Petition to Parliament in favour of the Charter. The signa- tures to this document numbered, it was stated, nearly 3,000,000. It was presented by Mr. Buncombe, who gave notice of motion that the petitioners should be heard in its support at the bar of the House by their Counsel or agents. Only fifty-six hon. members would assent to meet the representatives of the suffering poor face to face, and so cowardly or callous was the conduct of the others, that Mr. Buncombe declared that if the people got up another petition he would not, by presenting it, be a party to their degradation. The action of the Convention was thus almost entirely fruitless, and it dispersed to resume operations in the provinces. These were very desultory and turbulent, and the arrest and re-arrest of the leaders again became the order of the day. Br. McBouall, after many hairbreadth escapes, had to take refuge in France, where he remained in exile for two years, Ellis was transported for twenty years ; Linney was sentenced to two years' imprisonment ; Arthur O'Neill, a member of the Peace Society, tc twelve months' ; George White to eight months', and William Jones to six. Jones was actually convicted for the offence of having successfully assisted in restoring ** order" at Leicester. He defended himself with a skill which drove Baron Gurney furious. ** I have always advocated peace and order," said Jones, " but it is true I have denounced the Government as tyrannicaL" ** Then," like anothei Judge Jeffreys, Gurney interrupted. ** You have done exceedingly wrong ; we know nothing of you, sir." — Jones : " That was my conviction, my Jord." — Gurney: ** You may hold your convictions as you please, sir ; but you have no right to hold out to the people that the Government is tyrannical. That's a crime. You need not give yourself a bad character — we know nothing of you, sir," etc. The " Monster Indictment " &c.— At the Lancaster 332 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. Assizes, in 1843, Feargus O'Connor and fifty-eig^ht others were all comprehended in what was called the ** Monster Indictment." Most of them were found guilty, but the whole proceedings ended in a fiasco in consequence of an incurable informality in the indictment. The Government knew that the writ of error sued for by the prisoners' counsel could not be met. At the Stafford Assizes, Thomas Cooper was less fortunate. He defended himself with a pertinacity that threw the Court into transports of rage, and the entire business of the Sessions into confusion. His trial lasted for ten days, and when he was finally brought up for judgment before the Court of Queen's Bench he insisted on speaking for eight hours in mitigation of sentence, which, as he had anticipated, was one of two years' imprisonment. In 1845 Cooper was liberated, and presently fell out with O'Connor, as O'Brien had previously been con- strained to do. At a Chartist Conference held at Leeds, in August, 1846, Cooper as good as arraigned O'Connor and his inner circle of friends on a charge of malversa- tion of funds, and on the motion of Ernest Jones (!) was expelled for contumacy. Jones was then a Chartist of three months' standing, and the amenities that passed between the two men of genius on the occasion were not pleasant. Cooper declined to leave the hall, and some of the delegates talked of ejecting him by force. ** Why," exclaimed Cooper, ** does not that great thundering coward (pointing to O'Connor), who has so often talked to me of physical force in private, come and put me out himself? " He was ultimately got rid of by a ruse, and O'Connor's authority became, if possible, firmer and more general than ever. A General Election now took place, and, to every one's astonishment, O'Connor beat the Whig Minister, Sir John Cam Hobhouse, at Nottingham, by 1,257 votes to 893. At the same election the justly-renowned Robert Owen contrived to poll a single vote ! The Annus Mirabilis of ReYoIution (1848).— The THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 33^ Annus Mivabilis of Revolution, 1848, had now come, and all democratic Europe began to palpitate with hope. The French Republic was enthusiastically acclaimed at many great meetings. One of these, held in Trafalgar Square, had been proclaimed by the Government ; but the people nevertheless assembled, and, in the cowardly absence of Charles Cochrane, who had called it, voted G. W. M. Reynolds, brother of my late esteemed friend, Edward Reynolds, the vener- able Editor of Reynolds' Newspaper — into the chair. There was no police interference, and a vast crowd followed the audacious journalist up the Strand to his residence in Wellington Street, where he harangued them from the balcony of his house amid ringing cheers for the people of Paris and the People's Charter. On 4th of April, 1849, the long anticipated new Chartist Convention assembled for business in the John Street Institution, London. The provinces had been worked up to the highest pitch of enthusiasm, and expectation stood on tip-toe. There was another monster petition got ready to the callous House of Commons, and everything looked bright for Chartism at the very moment when the great movement was on the very brink of collapse. A meeting on Kennington Common (now Kennington Park), and a procession thence to the House of Commons to present the Petition were resolved on. The Government promptly proclaimed the procession as illegal, and warned all and sundry not to attend it. By a majority of 295 to 40 a *' Crown and Government Security " Bill was rushed through the House of Commons at the dictation of Sir George Grey. Two " Saviours of Society." — The memorable loth of April arrived. In vain the Chartists had protested in the proper quarter that their intentions were of the most peaceable order. Troops of all arms were hurried into London from Windsor, Hounslow, Chichester, Chatham, Winchester, and Dover. The marines and sailors of the Royal Navy were kept under arms at all the Government ports. The post-office clerks and 334 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. officials were supplied with two thousand stand of arms. In the City 70,000 " specials," with the ** Man of December," the late infamous Louis Napoleon, among them, were sworn in ; and every public building put in a state of defence. Cannon were planted at every coigne of vantage to blow the unarmed multi- tude^ to pieces, the Duke of Wellington presiding over the entire military in the vole of ** Saviour of Society." . Pretty saviours, he and Louis Napoleon Bonaparte ! CHARTISTS AND CHARTISM.— -No. IX. When I was a lad in charge of my uncle, the priest of Dunipace^ one thing he taught me has ever lived in my memory : Dico tihi venim : Lihertas optima rerum. Nunquam, servtli snb nexu, vivito fili. (Verily I say unto thee : Of all things freedom is the most precious. Never do thou, my son, consent to live under any ser- vile bond). — Sir William Wallace. Ye may heed it not, ye haughty ones, Whose hearts like rocks are cold. But the day M^ill come when the fiat of God In thunder shall be told ; For the voice of the Great I AM hath said That the land shall not be sold. In the Twentieth Century War will be dead, Royalty will be dead, but Man will live. For all there will be but one Country — that Country the whole Earth ; for all there will be but one Hope — the whole Heaven. All hail, then, to the noble Twentieth Cen- tury, which shall own our Children, and which our Children shall inherit. — Victor Hugo. When it is evening ye say it will be fair weather, for the sky is red. And in the morning it will be foul weather to-day, for the sky is red and lowering. O, ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky, but can ye not discern the signs of the times ? — Jesus Christ. At Kennington-Common. — The Government pre- parations for the memorable loth of April, 1849, were ludicrous in their magnitude. Six thousand police and eight thousand '* specials " were massed on Kennington-common. The approaches to West- minster-bridge, on the Surrey side, were strongly barricaded to prevent any procession from accompany- ing the National Petition to the House. Artillery was in readiness to mow the people down. 335 336 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. At nine o'clock the Convention met, Reynolds presid- ing. Bronterre O'Brien had resigned, and general distraction prevailed. Feargus O'Connor announced that arrangements had been made to shoot down the Chartist leaders from certain windows, and begged the delegates ** in the name of courage, in the name of justice, in the name of God, not to hold the meeting, and thus throw- their great cause into the hands of pickpockets and scoundrels, and give the Government an opportunity of attacking them." Nevertheless, at ten o'clock the delegates started from the Convention-room for Kennington-common. A car drawn by four horses conveying the National Petition led the way. A second car drawn by six horses contained the leading delegates, conspicuous among them being O'Connor, Julian Harney, Jones, Doyle, McGrath and Wheeler. The multitude fell in eight abreast, traversing Holborn, Farringdon- street, and New Bridge-street to Blackfriars-bridge. At length the Common was reached, where the numbers assem- bled were variously estimated at from 15,000 to 170,000 ! Commissioner of Police Mayne was in the old Horns Tavern, and he at once sent for O'Connor, who was told that the meeting, but not the procession, to the House would be allowed, and that he (O'Connor) would be held personally liable for the blood that might be shed. Thus cautioned, O'Connor returned to the Common, and in a speech of more than ordinary ex- travagance, counselled prudence. He was followed by Ernest Jones, who spoke in the same strain. The National Petition was got into three cabs, and accom- panied by the delegates was conveyed to the House of Commons. It was said to bear 5,700,000 signatures. The multitude slowly melted away, and the dreaded loth of April had come and gone without mishap. The ** Classes " had signally triumphed. Their ** specials,*' it was alleged, had outnumbered the Chartists. Next day when the Convention had reassembled O'Connor maintained that the concourse on Kennington Common numbered from 400,000 to 500,000. THE ANNALS OF TOIL. ^37 In the House of Commons the National Petition, which O'Connor said contained 5,700,000 signatures, was examined by a Committee, which reported that they amounted only to 1,975,496. Mr. Cripps, one of the Committee of Inspection, commented severely on O'Connor's conduct with respect to the Petition. O Connor retorted with great heat, and left the House with the obvious intention of challenging his antagonist. Ernest Jones delivered the cartel, but on the motion of Lord John Russell, O'Connor was taken into custody, and after mutual explanations a hostile meeting was prevented. And thus ignominiously culminated the great Chart- ist Movement. It, of course, did not die all at once ; but the aftermath was hopeless, and not without much suffering to individuals. The National Chartist Assembly. — The Conven- tion determined to convoke a National Assembly, which met accordingly on ist May. It was fairly representative, and not lacking in talent ; but, alas ! oblivious — like so many other popular convocations — of the warning of the Nazarene : ** Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand," the delegates generally had no settled policy. O'Connor was not of the Assembly, and denounced it in his Star, intimating at the same time to Julian Harney, and Ernest Jones that their services as con- tributors would be dispensed with if they acted as delegates. Harney elected to retain his post. Jones resigned his, and took a leading part in the Assembly. A memorial to the Queen was resolved upon ; but the Queen, or her advisers, peremptorily declined to give audience. In the provinces, as at headquarters, disunion every- where prevailed, and the Government seized the opportunity to renew the policy of espionage and arrest. Scores of good men and true were sentenced to imprisonment or transportation on the testimony of the basest wretches conceivable. One villian named 338 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. Powell admitted in cross-examination : ** I encouraged and stimulated these men in order to inform against them, I gave the men some bullets. I gave balls to Gurney, I gave him half-a-pound of powder. I alsa cast some bullets and gave them to him.'* Mr. R. Fennell, a witness for the defence of some fifteen Chartists, against whom this mercenary wretch was swearing, being asked his reason by the Attorney- General for saying that he would not beHeve Powell on his oath, replied : ** Is it likely that I should believe a man, when I have heard him swear, times without number, that he would swear anything if he were paid for it. Had heard him read the Scriptures, and when he came to the name of Christ or the disciples, tear the part out and say of either, * Let us burn that . The disciples were the biggest scoundrels I ever heard of.' When he came to the name of Judas, he heard him once say, * He was a capital fellow. He got well paid. I would have done it for half.' " On such testimony, nevertheless. Baron Piatt sentenced Dow- ling, Caffay, Fay, and Lacy to transportation for life. The Charter in Parliament. — On 3rd July, O'Connor at last contrived to submit to the House of Commons his long-delayed motion in favour of the Charter. Fifteen members, the tellers |included, voted for it^ and it may be well that their names should be put on record. They were W. J. Fox, J. Green, L.. Heyworth, Joseph Hume, C. Lushington, Lord Neugent, J. O'Connell, C. Pearson, W. Schofield, H. W. Tancred, Colonel Thompson, George Thomp- son, Sir J. Walmsley, Feargus O'Connor, and Sharman Crawford. In July next year (1850) O'Connor again brought forward his motion for the Charter, but was counted out. Meanwhile, Conventions, as usual, appeared and dis- appeared, resolved and dissolved, and accomplished nothing. A bitter feud between O'Connor, and Jones had now broken out, and generally ** Roman was to Roman more hateful than a foe." All the organs of the democracy, and they were then numerous enough,. THE ANNALS OF TOIL, 339 railed at each other weekly, and nearly every Chartist leader of note was charged with bad faith and general depravity. They wrangled over O'Connor's Land Company Scheme, over the reception of Kossuth, over Napoleon's Coup d'Etat, over everything, small, great, and indifferent. In 1852 the Northern Star, O'Connor's paper, now much decayed in popularity, changed hands, and began to advise abandonment of the Charter as im- practicable. It became impossible to keep the Chartist Executive together in consequence of resignations. To lessen expense the faithful few gave up the office in which they had hitherto met, and by 1853 Chartism had practically ceased to be a factor in British politics. Some of its leading exponents fell away from the faith, some emigrated, others occupied themselves with educational work, or became absorbed in bourgeois pur- suits and interests. Its lights in the Press went out one after the other, and from 1854 ^^ 1880 there was no national labour movement in the country. " And yet it Moves." — But since 1880 the slow process of resurrection has visibly been going on, and in the Democratic Club (defunct), the Land Restoration Leagues of England, and of Scotland, the Social Democratic Federation, the Fabian Society, and, broadly speaking, the Independent Labour Party, with all its auxiliary Christian Socialists, and Communistic Anarchists, there are ele- ments of intellect, unselfishness, and organizing power that, if properly directed, should yet be able to work miracles. But the dry rot of petty jealousies and divided coun- sels, which in the main destroyed Chartism, are, alas, not unknown in the ranks of our New Democracy, and, if I might venture, as a sort of *' old parlia- mentary hand," to tender a word of admonition, it would be somewhat after the manner of the Highland chief who, addressing his freebooter clansmen, or **caterans," said : "If ye do not hang together, be sure you will hang separately." The most ancient maxim of tyrants is — Divide etimpera. 340 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. APOLOGUE, Ah, me, what goodness lies buried in every human soul, waiting for the enchanter's wand! We were each of us wizards once. We were born such and for a few brief years we went about turning hearts of stone into hearts of flesh. How did we lose the happy art ? How did we sink so low as to need its ministrations for ourselves ? Can we not regain the subtle power ? At least let us open our souls to its influence and perchance it may revive a kindred force within us. What function is there nobler than the calling forth of what is best in others ? What career grander than that which devotes us to such a mission ? What triumph more sublime than the opening flowers which greet each ray of the rising sun ? — Ernest H. Crosby. BELLAMY LIBRARY. -m. 33. THE ANNAL5 OF TOIL: BEING LABOUB-HISTOBY OUTLINES, ROMAN AND BRITISH, IN FOUR PARTS. PART IV. J. MORRISON DAVIDSON. ( Of the Middle Tample ) Barkister-at-Law. Author of •' Politics for th« People " " The Old Order and the Nrw." ••The New Book or Kinos," "Tme Book of Lords," "The Book or Erim,** " Home Rule for Scotland," *• Villagers' Magna Charta," " Gospel of the Poor," " Let there be Light ! " &c. London : WILLIAM REEVES, 185, FLEET ST.. E.C Printed by William Reevbs, 185, Fleet Street, London, E.G. PETRO KROPOTKIN, NATU PRINCIPI SLAVONICO, UBIQUE GENTIUM NATURALITER PRINCIPI, HUNC LIBELLUM DEDICAVIT AMICUS, J.M.D., SCOTUS. FOREWORDS. All that ever came before Me are thieves and robbers. -Jesus Christ. My voice, though not the loudest, hath been heard Whenever Freedom raised her voice of pain, And the faint effort of the humble scribe Hath raised up thousands from their lethargy To speak in words of thunder. What reward Was mine or theirs ? It matters not, for I Am but a leaf cast on the whirUng tide, Without a hope or wish except to die. Aytoun : Blind old Milton. It may be glorious to write Thoughts that shall glad the two or three High souls, like those far stars that come in sight Once in a century. But better far it is to pen One simple word which now and then Shall waken their free natures in the weak And friendless sons of men ; To write some earnest verse or line, Which seeking not the praise of art, Shall make a clearer faith and manhood shine. In the untutored heart. He who does this in verse or prose May be forgotten in his day, But surely shall be crowned at last with those Who live and speak for aye. Russell Lowell on a Burns " Incident." THE ANNALS OF TOIL, BOOK IV. CHAPTER XII. TRADE UNIONISM.— No. I. This that they call the Organisation of Labour is the Universal Vital Problem of the World. It is the problem of the whole future for all who will in future pretend to govern men. — Carlyle. A class is fixed when nine-tenths of those composing it can never get out of it. Why mock working men by putting rare exceptions for a general rule ? — Jesse Jones. Hitherto it is questionable if all the mechanical inventions ye: made have lightened the day's toil of any human being. They have enabled a greater population to live the same life of drudgery and imprisonment, and an increased number of manufacturers and others to make large fortunes. — ^John Stuart Mill. Competition gluts our markets, enables the rich to take advantage of the necessity of the poor, makes each man snatch the bread out of his neighbour's mouth, converts a nation of brethren into a mass of hostile isolated units, and finally involves capitalists and labourers in one common ruin. — Rathbone Greg. If any will not work, neither let him eat. — St. Paul. My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.— Jesus Christ. 345 z 346 THE ANNALS OF TOIL Take heed and beware of covetousness ; for a man's lifejconsisteth not in the abundance of the things he possesseth. It is as easy for a camel to go through the eye of a needle as for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. — Jesus Christ. Trade Unions and Politics. — In France, George Eliot once said, the worker's ideal is a Republic based on Liberty, Equality, Fraternity ; in England the toiler's loftiest aspiration is an addition of 2s. 6d. per week to his wages. The seeming truth of this distinction was well borne out by the language which Mr. John Hodge is reported to have used in addressing the Trades Union Congress at Glasgow, from the Presidential Chair (1893) : — ** Labour was now a potent factor in the political world, and the Unions were being used by " faddists " for the purpose of airing their political crotchets. They must have none of that, (Cheers.) Their Unions must be kept free from political intriguers. They contained men of both the great political parties, and it would be disgraceful if a majority of either political party were to use the prestige of the Unions on behalf of politics. (Cheers.) If they were to have a Labour Party, let it be distinct from the Unions, for so sure as they began to make them political hotbeds, so soon would disinte- gration set in." And yet the President, with unconscious inconsis- tency, went on to discuss such legislative topics as an Eight Hours' Day, Foreign Immigration, Old Age Pen- sions, the Liquor Traffic, Opening of Museums on Sundays, etc. ; and no sooner had he concluded than the Congress bodily fell upon the Parliamentary Com- mittee's Report, tooth and nail. Truth to tell, in spite of Mr. Hodge and the high and dry Unionists of the older 2S. 6d. school, for good or for evil, the Frenchman's ideal is bound more and more to become that of the British toiler, whether organised or unorganised. The New Unionism, which looks to the capture and utilisation of the Governmental Machine as its supreme object, is almost fated to prevail in the long run. The older Unionists, consciously or THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 347 unconsciously, assume that the existing system of wage- slavery is the abiding social order, and that it is their business to apply certain balsams and plasters to it when it becomes more or less unendurable. In this respect they are much like the chattel-slaves of ancient Rome, who when they rose in revolt against their masters, never contended for absolute freedom but only for some paltry amelioration of the miseries of their servitude. Even the Eight Hours Day, when all is said and done, except as a curb on capitalist rapacity, is of very doubtful utility. If it were permitted to a worker to work, not for a sweating capitalist, but for himself, and to earn all he produced, no restraint should be imposed on his industry. It should then be left to him, as a reasonable being, to work many hours or few, or, for the matter of that, none at all, the only proviso being, He who will not ivovk, neither let him eat. The New Unionism, on the other hand, consciously or unconsciously, aims at the complete overthrow and eradication of the existing economic order with all its trumpery legislative and non-legislative plasters and palliatives, which the older Unionism has, in a great measure, mistaken for radical and enduring reforms. In a word, the Tilletts, Manns, Thornes, Currans, Mac- donalds, Hardies, and Burnses are the Neo-Chartists, thelegitimatesuccessorsofPeargus O'Connor, Bronterre O'Brien, Thomas Cooper, Julian Harney, Ernest Jones, William Lovett, G. W. M. Reynolds, and the rest. It is no disparagement to the reformers of to-day to say that they have still much to learn from their illus- trious predecessors ; but their opportunities are greater, and the Democracy has the right to expect from them, with their undaunted prototypes' experience to profit by, corresponding performance. Trade Unions and Craft-Guilds.— In 1824, chiefly owing to the legislative efforts of Joseph Hume, the infamous Anti-Combination Laws were repealed, and, for the first time since the ** spacious days " of the Great 348 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. Eliza, it became possible for Trade Unions to make open proclamation of their existence. Till then the' members of the few Unions that existed had indeed sorry times. They were remorselessly imprisoned, and " Society " frowned on them as goal- birds and felons, even when their combinations had objects hardly distinguishable from those of an ordinary Friendly Society. The Bookbinders' Society of London, for example, one of the oldest Unions, celebrated its centenary only in 1884. In its infancy it underwent the most grievous persecutions, and had sometimes even to bury its records in the ground to avoid detection. Attempts, I am aware, have been made to trace the origin of the Trade Unions a very long way back — to connect them in fact with the mediaeval Craft-Guilds. But that I am satisfied is an entire mistake. The Unions presuppose the antagonism of Labour and Capital, of Employed and Employer ; whereas the Craft- Guilds, as originally constituted, assumed complete identity of interests. The Guilds existed even before the Conquest, and were distinguished by many features, which, if they could but have been retained, would have been of inestimable value in the solution of the economic problems which menace the very foundations of modern society. Nay, had they been retained in their integrity, said problems could never possibly have arisen. The Guilds were at first quite as democratic in their organisation as are the Unions. All journeymen had an equal voice in the choice of the Guild Managers. The artisan was successively apprentice, journeyman, master, just as a member of the Bar may be student, barrister, judge. They gradually acquired property, charters, and guild-halls, wherever craftsmen congre- gated. A craft-brother would bequeath house and lands to found a school or hospital, it might be, leaving the surplus income, if any, to the dircretion of the Guild. These funds and numerous benefactions for the lending of money without usury to the poorer brethren, for apprenticing poor boys and girls, for bestowing marriage- THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 349 portions, and for pensioning widows and aged craftsmen, the Guild Managers carefully husbanded and allocated. But, alas, in time the pernicious influence of wealth began to make itself felt. The Guilds came to be governed by Courts of Assistants composed of the more prosperous Masters, and " Co-optation," as in the Inns of Court to-day, superseded Election. Prohibitory apprenticeship fees were exacted ; so much so that in 1530 Parliament had to cut them down from 40s. (;^i6) to 2S. 6d. in order to prevent skilled labour from becoming an intolerable monopoly. Nevertheless the wealth-controlled Courts of Assis- tants continued their machinations. Journeymen re- mained journeymen all their lives. They ceased to be the " Associates '* of the Masters and became their drudges. The Guild-brethren were brethren no more. They divided into employers and employed — the rudiments of the antagonised ** Classes " and '* Masses " of to-day. Finally a genuine calamity gave the coup de grace to the splendid old Guild organisation of skilled labour. In 1546 it was discovered by Henry Bluebeard *' De- fender of the Faith *' and the other ** Reformers " of the National Religion, that many of the bequests of Guild members provided for masses and other spiritual functions. Enough ! The Guild estates, those of the City of London alone excepted, like the immense property of the monasteries, were confiscated at a blow on the score of ** superstitious uses." Craft-Guild London. — London was strong enough to weather the gale of the " Reformation," and even to this day, in her " wardmotes," ^«;^w^/ elections, ** liveries,*' and civic feasts, the ** City" preserves the blurred outlines of a far more ancient and human democracy than anything that now goes by that name. Unlike the cold mechanical democracy of the County Council, that of old Medieval London was personally hearty and " social " in a marked degree. •• City of ancient memories ! Thy spires Rise o'er the dust of worthy sons ; thy walls, 350 THE ANNAL OF TOIL. Within their narrow compass hold as much Of Freedom as the whole world beside." In the Fourteenth Century this was substantially true, as will be discovered by anyone who peruses Sir Walter Besant and James Rice's Sir Richard Whittington not to trouble with works of more exhaustive and ex- hausting antiquarian research. London then occupied much the same space as does the ** City " proper now. Its great wall, two miles and two hundred yards long, with its moat two hundred feet broad, extended from the Tower on the east to the Fleet River on the west. Originally there were but four gates — Aldgate, Aldersgate, Ludgate and Bridgegate — but in time others were added for the convenience of the citizens, of which the chief, along the river side were Blackfriars, Greenhithe, Dowgate and Billingsgate. It abounded in churches filled with the effigies and splendid tombs of founders and benefactors. Nor was there any lack of hospitals and other asylums for the unfortunate. The streets and lanes, it is true, were narrow and crowded, but as seen from outside the walls, old London was picturesque with endless spires and turrets. The trades were mostly localised, the drapers in Lombard -street and Cornhill ; the ironmongers in Iron- mongers-lane and Old Jewry ; the vintners in the Vintry ; the hosiers in Hosiers'-lane ; paternoster-makers and makers of beads for prayer in Paternoster-row ; and so on. The City ^* Wards " were almost, if not quite, the same as now. Our Modern Trade Unions might, with great advan- tage, study the grand principle of combination as worked out by their predecessors, the Medieval Craft- Guilds of London. At first these were mostly unauthorised, if not illegal; but gradually each *' mystery" obtained letters patent from the King, and became a ** Company," and it was not long before the ** Companies " acquired, what they have ever since held, a monopoly of municipal bffices and dignities. Eventually the trade fraternities, which originally involved a full term of apprenticeship, adopted distinctive dresses; hence the ** Livery Com- THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 35I panics." The "Courts " of the Companies were held four times a year. How the Craft-Brethren Dined. — But the day of (lays was the Company's *' Samt's Day." Then every praftsman, great or small, kept high holiday in a brand- new livery. First the brethren marched in procession to church and then, mass over, they wended their way to the Company's capacious Hall, where banquet, loving cup, and music awaited them. Here is a fourteenth century bill of fare, quoted in Sir Richard Whittington, It would not suit the Vegetarian's palate for there is but one vegetable spoken of. First Course. — Brawn, with mustard ; cabbages in pottage ; swan standard ; cony, roasted ; great custards. Second Course. — Venison, in broth, with white motbrews (pounded pork and poultry, •• treated with blanched almonds, milk and flour of rice) ; cony standard ; partridges, with cocks roasted ; leche lombard (uncertain) ; doucettes, with little parneux (small confections with rich bread). Third Course.— Pears in syrup ; great birds with little ones together; fritters ; payn-puff (bread stuffed with e.g., marrow, yolk of egg, dates, &c.), with a cold bake-meat. And, doubtless, the ** loving-cup " was replenished more frequently than would have met with the approval of the United Kingdom Alliance ; but, all the same, good fellowship was the order of the day, and the humblest apprentice might aspire in time to take the head of the board as Warden of his Company. Craft-Guild *'Law and Order." — As a consequence of the fraternal feelings inspired by such social intercourse, it is noteworthy that judicial punishments in the City were of the mildest description. For example, John Ross entered into a conspiracy to defraud James de Pekham of ;^i,ooo by means of a false bond — sentence, one hour in the pillory, with false bond hanging from neck of the forger. This was a.d. 1377. In 1777 the culprit would have been hanged without fail ; nearly a hundred years later he would have been transported for life ; and, in the present year of Grace, Justice Day would have given him such a spell of hard labour as 352 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. would have left him for the rest of his natural life a physical and moral wreck. Indeed, nearly every variety of offence was visited with an hour or two in the pillory ; e.g.^ making unsound barrels — the pillory, with burning of barrels before the prisoners; for stealing a baselard at a funeral — the pillory ; for selling tansy seed for worm seed, rosin for franckincense — the pillory ; for stealing a leg of mutton — the pillory ; for forging title deeds — the pillory, and so on ad infinitum » Yet it can hardly be doubted that the City authorities were wise in "this monotonous recourse to "• pillory.'* They found it a far better deterrent for rogues than the Marshalea or Newgate. It brought with it infamy \n the eyes of every member of the Company whose privi- leges the culprit was proud to share. For a second offence he was generally banished from the City for life, and so left to all the dread rigour of the Extra- mural Penal Code as administered by the " gentlemen of England." For three centuries almost, from the suppression of the Craft-Guilds in Tudor times to within a measurable distance of our own, the Legislature of the ** Classes," as has been seen, had little else for the toiling masses but fetters, branding irons and the gallows. Quarter Sessions fixed their wages, and generally below the margin of subsistence. They were latterly trotted into the workhouse bastiles and trotted out again like cattle, according as their labour was or was not needed by their worse than Egyptian task-masters — ** the gen- tlemen of England." A man might not leave his parish to seek employment, and as late as 1822, two workmen who came to London with that object were brought before the magistrates and sternly admonished that in future all such offenders would be sent to prison. In 1824, as has been said the Anti-Combination Laws were repealed and Trade Unions sprang up on every hand, though as yet having no legal status, they had no security for their funds. The A.S.E. as the Typical Trade Union. — In an au- THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 353 thoritative pamphlet on ** Trade Unions as a Means of Improving The Conditions of Labour ^'^ Mr. John Burnett, of the Labour Department of the Board of Trade — than whom there is no higher authority — succinctly traces the development of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, of which he was then (1886) Secretary, as typical of all the others in relation to organization, etc. In 1823 the first Sectional Society was established at Bradford. Other towns gradually followed suit, each distinct branch of the trade having its own Union. The millwrights, the smiths, the fitters, the turners, the pattern makers, respectively fought for their own hands, like so many Halls o' The Wynd. This continued to be the situation down to 1851, when it was borne in upon the Sections that if combination was good for the individual members of the Sections, it must be good for the Sections inter se. Accordiagly the Sections were amalgamated, but as I cannot for a moment pretend to understand the mechanism and working of a great Trade Union so intimately as Mr. Burnett, I prefer that, in a matter of such importance to the unorganised workers and the general public, he should tell his own tale :— Organisation oe A.S.E. — "The method of organisation which prevailed among the smaller bodies was applied expansively to the greater body, and as it is, generally speaking, common to all the large Unions, it may be here briefly described. First, the individual workmen were grouped into branches in their several localities. Every member and every branch were governed by the same code of rules, made the same payments, and were entitled to the same benefits. The funds of the whole of the branches were equalised each year throughout the society at the average value per member, and those branches with less than that value per head in their possession had the difference made up to them by the branches with more. Branches running through the whole of their funds before the end of the year would have their necessities supplied by other branches. All the funds of the organisation were therefore available for the purposes of its rules at any special place. A central executive sat as a court of appeal, to see uniformity carried out in the working of the rules, and to direct the general financial and other workings of the society. Each branch had its 354 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. committee to arrange matters of branch interest only. In every locality where there were more branches than one, a district com- mittee was formed, consisting of representatives from each branch. To these district committees was committed the important work of watching over the general interests of the trade. They had power to regulate the rates of wages, hours of work, and general conditions of labour. They took the lead in demanding improve- ment of the terms of labour and in resisting any encroachment by individual or associated employers. '* Where there was but one branch, the branch committee acted as district commitee. All the proceedings of these committees had to be reported to the executive council, and were subject to the approval of that body. On this basis most of the national Unions are formed, and there can be no doubt that this mode of local and centralised organisation is admirably adapted for the purpose in view. The whole system of government is representative. All ofiQcers are appointed by election, and, with committee-men, may be removed if they fail to give satisfaction to their constituents. " Before any man can join the organisation he must produce proof that he is of good ability as a workman, of steady habits, fair moral character, and in tolerable health. As a matter of course some candidates evade these conditions, and are occasionally de- fective in some of these particulars. Every pains, however, is taken to select only eligible men. In all Unions paying sick, unem- ployed, and superannuated benefits, it will at once be seen that these are very necessary precautions. In some societies of this kind the benefits in want of employment, sickness, and old age range as high as los. per week, with an accident benefit of ;f lOo in cases of total disablement. Ability as a workman must be testified to by fellow workmen of the candidate who are already in the society, and false recommend- ations are heavily punished. In addition to this the candidate must already be in receipt of the ordinary rate of wages paid in his shop or district. The generally prevailing notion about Trade Unions is that they enforce a uniform rate of wages for all, and thus reduce all ability to the same dead level of remuneration. All that we do is to fix for each district a minimum rate of wages below which our members must not work. This rate alters from time to time as trade may rise or fall. It also varies in different localities, and represents the value of the average workman. Above this figure employers can go as high as they please. It is impossible reasonably to take exception to this minimum rate, for it is really the rate fixed by the employer himself. If a man is not in the society, and is therefore without help from without to force up his money, he is fairly in the hands of the employer who pays him what he thinks is right. If he is in receipt of the society's minimum rate which is necessary for admission, his value is really assessed by the employer, and his capacity THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 355 as a workman is thus vouched for by the party best able to judge. From this it will also be seen that the Unions really practise a rough system of selection so that membership of a Union is really to a very large extent a certificate of competency as a workman. Besides, the rules of a Union require that a man shall conduct him- self properly while at work, and if he is thrown out of employment by reason of misbehaviour, he is disentitled to the benefit. So much for Trade Union organisation. In next Section I shall examine the principles and pretensions of Unionism as set fort by Mr. Burnett. TRADE UNIONISM.— No. II. The question whether the share of wealth falling to the *• masses" has increased or not is perfectly immaterial, so long as its increase does not extend far enough to raise their consuming power to the height of production. I cannot help recommending to such economists the tale about the mule, which was not satisfied with its food, and which its owner wanted to tranquilise with the consolation that its ancestor used to be happy with a feed of thistles. •• Alas, that is true," the mule replied, " but, you know, my ancestor was an ass." — Michael Flurscheim. Statisticians may get up any array of figures to prove that a man ought to be filled when he is hungry ; but people have a tendency to trust the teachings of their stomachs rather than the finest set of figures in the world. — Ibid. It appears to me that it is a demonstrable fact that when those who are very rich suddenly become more numerous, and still richer, without any increased power of wealth-production independent of labour, then as a necessary result, those who are poor become poorer. — Alfred Russel Wallace. The wounds I might have healsd ! The human sorrow and smart ! And yet it was never in my soul To play so ill a part ! But evil is wrought by want of Thought As well as want of Heart. Trade Union (A.SE.) Fallacies Condensed and Con- fated. — In last Section I set out, in his own words, Mr. John Burnett's brief, but comprehensive account of the powerful Amalgamated Society of Engineers as typical of Trade Unions generally. In this I propose to ex- amine certain ** essential propositions," nine in number, which he claims to have established regarding those bodies in the pamphlet (** Claims of Lahonv Lectures^ No. II. ) from which I quoted and quote : 356 THE ANNALS OF TOIL; 357 1. The condition of the Working Classes can never he materiallv improved, except by the action of that portion of the community itself working in a united and disciplined manner. Had Mr Burnett added the words " on sound economic lines," this proposition would have been unexception- able. As a matter of experience you may have both union and discipline, and yet fail egregiously if the aim is misdirected or the object unattainable. 2. The condition of the workers never was improved until th$ tra of Trade Unions, and all their improvement, whether in wages or better conditions of working, has ^one on step by step with the extension and adoption of Trade Union principles. Here we have the expression of a very partial truth, which would not be a truth at all if the workers had complete control of the legislative and administrative machinery of the country ; or, to put it otherwise, were in full possession of all land and capital. For example, in the fifteenth century, when the agricultural labourer had land at a mere quit-rent, and the artizan's tools were about all the capital he needed, even the unskilled worker's wages averaged £i^s P^^ annum in our currency. To-day it is not over £'^0, if so much, or less than one-fifth the standard of the times of Henry VH. Then, also, Thorold Rogers tells us, the Eight Hours Day was never exceeded, and public holidays were many. And all that without the aid of any Trade Union ! 3. During the early part of the present century, which may he taken as a fair illustration of what the state of the working classes would be without organisation, the wealth of the country enormously increased, but its possession was shared by a very small section of the community, while the poverty of the masses was intense. This is, on the whole, as good an illustration as could well be had of the fallacy post hoc ergo propter hoc. The back-draught of the long Continental Wars was then in full force, and the extensive introduction of machinery had for a time dislocated labour to an unheard of extent. 358 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. In Parliament, the Capitalists instead of "fixing wages" as heretofore in Quarter Sessions, decreed ** freedom of contract," which brought in its fatal train the abominable female and child slavery described in Book II. But as has been there shown the remedial Factory Acts owed much more to Lord Shaftesbury, Richard Oastler, Michael Saddler, and such like Tories than to any Trade Union or other influence. 4. Employers are seldom known to raise wages or shorten hours of their own accord, and combination among the workmen was found to be the onlv means whereby pressure could bi brought to bear upon them to effect either object. True ; and as I wish to see the entire genus employer extirpated, with all possible dispatch, it is not my business to say one word in his favour. But let me ask, is the " aristocracy of labour," as voiced by such men as Mr. Burnett, always void of offence in regard to what I may call by contrast the ** democracy of labour " ? In the Report of the Industrial Conference (1885) under the heading, " Skilled and Unskilled Labour in the Ship- building Trade," Mr. J, Lynch, stated as follows : — '* What I have to say on this subject applies directly to the ship-platers and their assistants, commonly known as * helpers.' . . . They are nominally fellow- workmen, but they are actually taskmaster and serf. Those who are acquainted with shipyard work will know that these terms, applied to plater and helper are not misplaced. ** In the recent busy period the helpers time-wage on the Wear was 4s. per day, and the platers' time-wage was 6s. per day. The price for shell-plates, requiring six men to work them, was at that time not less, but in some cases more than los. per plate. Taking that as the standard price, however, and basing my calcula- tions upon the work done in a fairly well-regulated and well-appointed yard, 1 find that the receipts of helpers and platers on this work were scandalously disproportionate. Three platers working in company completed eighteen plates per day, the gross result in money payable for the work beig ;^io. Out of this THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 359 they paid 3s. to a boy, the remainder being left for division between themselves and the helpers, of whom there were twelve — two squads of six men each. To pay each of the helpers his day's wage according to the current rate, £2^ were absorbed, leaving £^ 17s. for the three platers. It will thus be seen that for the day's work each helper received 5s., while each plater re- ceived £i 19s." Selfishness, alas, is of no class, but there is, to my mind, no ** man's inhumanity to man " so intolerable as that of worker to worker. 5. Since the establishment of Trade Unions , we have seen a move equal distribution of the wealth of the country, and a greater participation by the workers in the fruit of their labour. This I flatly deny. Certain workers, doubtless, enjoy a larger participation in the fruit of other workers' labour than formerly ; but not a cent of the increase has come out of the pockets of the employers as a class. Rela^ tively to the enormous wealth of the country to-day, the average wage of the entire body of the workers, skilled and unskilled, was never lower. In Britain wealth increases at the rate of ;^2oo, 000,000, per annum, or 2 per cent ; whereas population grows at the rate of only I per cent., and yet misery is visible on every / hand. ^ " Hans," said a German schoolmaster, to an urchin, ** how many glasses of beer would be left if you, your mother, and your father, took one glass each out of five?" ** None," answered Hans. " You do not know your arithmetic," said the pedagogue with severity. ** That may be," retorted Hans, "but I know my father." Theory did not go down with that boy. Experience had taught him that the old man never left a drop of lager on the table if he could help it. Complacent Trade Unionists who believe that they have produced a **more equal distribution of wealth," have a good deal to learn from Hans. 6. By their [the Unions') means, such alterations have been effected in the law of the land, as have placed labour on an equality with Capital in the eye of the law ; also the enactment 360 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. of laws for the protection of the health and life of the workman in the workshop, and for semring him compensation for accident if such laws are neglected. In so far as the action of the Unions has been political, it has almost, without exception been beneficial ; but it is not true that they have as yet '* placed Labour on an equality with Capital in the eye of the Law." The law, for example, decrees that every workman shall be tried by a middle-class jury, and not by his peers. Hence the facility with which convictions are invariably procured against ** agitators" of every description. 7. To the action of Trade Unions are also due the adoption of Arbitration, Conciliation, and Sliding Scales as a means of settling disputes by reason instead of force. These expedients for enabling the capitalists to rob in moderation are in some respects preferable to the "strike" ; in others they are worse. They are not pro- ductive of the same wide-spread misery ; but they tend to perpetuate the regime of exploitation by cloaking its irredeemable injustice, and allaying that '* divine dis- content," which should efface it either by Legislative Enactment or Voluntary Co-operation. 8. The shortening of the hours of labour has given to the working man increased opportunities for mental development and recreation, the fruits of which though already evident in a higher standard of technical knowledge, and a longer average duratio n of life, can only be fairly seen after the lapse of a generation or two. With this I heartily agree, but only as as a palliative. As I said, in last Section, on this head, if it were permitted to a worker to work, not for a grasping capi- talist but for himself, and to earn all he produced, minus the efficient upkeep of the instruments of production, no restraint ought to be laid on his industry. It should then be left to him as a reasonable being to toil many hours or few, or for matter of that for none at all, the only proviso being the apostolic injunction — if any will not work, neither let him eat, 9. By the disbursement of their funds for friendly purposes they have reduced and prevented pauperism, and rendered their THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 361 members the most peaceful and contented portion of the toiling population. This ninth and last proposition is the most mistaken and mischievious of all. What business have the Trade Unions to contribute as they do, vast sums in aid of the Poor Rate ? In thirty-five years the Amalgamated Society of Engineers alone expended in »* Unemployed Benefit," ;^i,o88,8ii ! Who brought the Unemployed into existence ? The Capitalists whose blind greed periodically '* gluts the market," and brings want and misery into a million homes. Why save their pockets by such irrational thrift 1 Above all, why relieve landlords of their ancient statutory obligation to find either suitable work or suitable aliment for the unemployed ? Why? Why? Why? Mr. Burnett says: ^^No stronger harriers to Social Revolution exist than those which have been erected by the Unions,'" Peradventure that is the answer; that the antidote to the bane of ** divine discontent " ! Great Engineer Strike-Lockout (1897-'98).— 9f ** strikes " Mr. Burnett prudently says nothing in a direct or tangible form — (this analysis of his nine callow fallacies, be it noted, was penned years before the "smashing" of the A.S.E. by the Federated Employers) — and it is difficult to balance the gains and losses in so far as the toilers are concerned. In Great Britain 79,3 per cent, of the 1,956,193 strikers, during the years 1889- 1893 inclusive, were wholly or partially victorious. In 1894, 5^ P^^ cent, were similarly successful, and in 1895, 7^ per cent. In is France over 60 per cent, of the strikers since 1891 have been wholly or partially successful in respect of the direct object of their struggles. In the United States, out of 1,711,484 strikers in the years 1881 — 1887, 47.9 were, in the main, successful, and, out of 2,002,922 from 1888 to 1894, 4^-7 ** scored." At Homestead, Pullman, and Hazleton, it is true, the men were nominally worsted and worsted badly ; but the cost to the employers in money and public odium 362 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. has since been very great. It was clearly, all the same, from militant American Capitalism that Colonel Dyer and the Federated Engineer Employers took their cue in the memorable A.S.E. Strike-Lock-out of iSgy-'gS. But when the best has been said for the A.S.E., and its magnificent organisation, that can be said, the whole business cannot be regarded as other- wise than deplorable. From the first, all parties — employed, employers, and the great long-suffering public — stood to lose, and lost they have most heavily. The large reserves of the A.S.E. , amounting to more than ;f 300,000, have been hopelessly dissipated, to say nothing of the munificent generosity of outside contribution. The Masters also must have sustained enormous loss, both in '* profits " and on " plant," and priceless ** orders *' we are assured, have left our shores, mayhap, never to return. The Daily News has thus figured out the proximate '* losses" of all concerned in the ruinous campaign and, though startling, they are probably under-rated : — Loss TO THE Men. Wages: 70,000 men at 30s. for thirty-one weeks... ;f 3, 255,000 Dispute pay (per Allied Trades) : 40,000 men at 12s. 6d. for thirty- one weeks £775*000 Provided by means of — Accumulated funds ^ 285, 000 Levies and cur-'-ent contri- butions 300,000 Loans 30.033 Public subscriptions 170,000 ^785,000 Kindred Skilled Unions ... 100 000 Unskilled Unions 50000 925)000 Private Savings 500,000 ;f 4,680,000 Loss TO Employers. Of Trade 5,696,000 Total loss ;^io,376,ooo THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 363 What the Strikos of 1898 cost. — Moreover, strikes, seem to increase, at least in magnitude: — Jan. — Oct. Disputes. 'Vorkmen Affected. 1897 839 201,638 1896 904 175.526 From statistics furnished by the Labour Department, it is calculated that 10,000,000 days wasted in 1897, would on an average have yielded 4s. gd per day, or ;^2, 375,000 in all. Add to this loss some ;^75o,ooo, depleted from Trade Union reserves and over ;^3,ooo,ooo sterling will have vanished. Nor do these figures represent more than a fraction of the mischief. The Daily Telegraph {fas est ei ah hoste doceri) is responsible for the following calculations and I have satisfied myself that they are not exaggerated : According to the Labour Department, 570,000 workpeople re- ceived advances or sustained decreases of wages in the first ten months of the year, and the result, on balance, was an estimated increase of is. per head in their weekly earnings. This would re- present a gain of nearly /i,500,ooo,Jf the improvement lasted a wholej year. But the Labour Department's figures include all changes of wages, and in the month of October those affecting only 1,600 workpeople were brought about by strikes, and those involving as many as 11,500 were the result of peaceful negotiation. In September, changes affecting 2,400 workpeople were preceded by strikes, and changes involving 33,800 by sliding-scale agreements and negotiation. It is difficult to make a calculation upon such materials, but it may safely be assumed that not more than 10 per cent, of the ;f 1,500,000 representing increased wages was obtained by strikes. Can ;f 150,000 be deemed anything like a reasonable return for the expenditure of ;f 3,000,000 ? Looking at the matter broadly, estimating the loss on invested capital, the loss of profit, the loss of trade, present and prospective, the loss of wages, and the loss to the carrying, trading and other interests of the country, the most competent authorities do not hesi- tateto declare that the strikes and lockouts of 1897 will leave us worse off, as a nation, to the extent of not less than ;^i5,ooo,ooo sterling. And what is worst and most heartbreaking of all is that, so far as I can see, we are now farther off the goal of a true solution of the Labour Problem than ever. There is obviously but one way, albeit there are two methods, by which that goal of goals can be reached. It 364 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. must either be reached by Voluntary Co-operation or by Compulsory {i.e.. State) Co-operation ; or, peradven- ture, by a judicious combination of both. And every ** strike," every ** lockout*' — successful or unsuccessful — hopelessly robs us of the precious /^/7^ ou see the ninety-and-nine toiling and scraping together a heap of superfluities for one (and this one, too, often- times the feeb'est and worst of the set, a child, a woman, a madman or a fool), getting nothing for themselves, all the while, but a little of the coarsest of the provision which their own industry produces ; looking quietly on, while they see the fruits of all their labour speit or spoiled ; and if one of their number take or touch a particle of the hoard, the others joining against him, and hanging him for theft.— Dr. Paley. ** Origins " of Co-operation. — When the former two Sections first appeared several correspondents whose opinion I valued highly expressed something like as- tonishment that I should have had so little to say in commendation of Trade Unions. My justification was very simple. It is this : Trade Unionism is good in so far as it makes for true Voluntary, or true National Co-operation, and no farther. In so far as it directly of indirectly tends to perpetuate the existing Competitive System^ it is a stumbling 'block and rock of o fence. Nor is it otherwise with the hybrid ** Rochdale " Co- operative Movement, at which I shall now glance. Its praises are in all the Churches — a phenomenon which of itself ought to arouse suspicion in the toilers. Co- 365 366 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. operation and Trade Unionism are, in a great measure, contemporaneous movements, though the former had earlier casual developments. Their aims difFei widely. Co-operation stands for Self-employment : Trade Union^ ism for Improved Conditions of the wage-slavery system by means of Collective Bargaining with the Capitalists; The oldest Co-operative Society in existence is at Govan, in Scotland. It was founded in 1777. The next oldest is in Hull, and was established in 1795 ^^^ the purpose of grinding corn. Down to 1846 the membership of such societies in- volved much personal risk. The liability of each co-operator was unlimited. So also was his power, according to the singuli in solidum doctrine, to steal the whole of the Society's funds with impunity. The law, however, underwent many modifications, and in i86a the principle of limited liability was definitely accorded by the Legislature. A similar concession had been made to the ** Classes " in 1855. Though more than thirty Societies existed before 1844, ^^® Co-operative movement proper is usually held to date from the institution of the Rochdale Pioneers in that year. At first progress was but slow. In 1861 the member- ship of the Societies all told was only 48,184 with a capital of ;^333>2go and an annual trade of /i, 512, 117. By 1884 the concession of limited liability had worked wonders in Co-operative Distribution, The membership had been multiplied by sixteen, the annual trade by twenty, and the capital by thirty. In Co-operative Pro- duction the figures for that year were Capital ;^772,244 ; Reserve funds £igfi6g ; Land, Buildings, and Fixtures ;^389,38i ; Annual Sales, ;^i, 764,560 ; Annual net Profit ;^74)i92. Rules of Co-operatiYe Societies CRetail).— Let Mr. Benjamin Jones, an excellent authority, summarise the rules of the Societies, retail and wholesale. Anybody may become a member. An entrance fee of is. constitutes membership. Members may pay up their shares at the rate of threepence per THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 367 week ; and they can invariably do this easily with a portion of their profits. Every member has one vote, regardless of the amount of his investment. The share list is always open, so that shares are always at par, and never at a premium. Most of the share capital is withdrawable ; one or two shares of £1 each being the utmost transferable capital a member is required to hold. Capital is paid interest at not mora than 5 per cent, per annum. Every member is eligible for office. The members hold quarterly, and in many instances monthly meetings. The Committees control the employees. Goods are sold at the same prices as by neighbouring respectable shopkeepers. After providing for the wear and tear of fixed stock, making educational grants, etc., and paying interest on capital, the net profits are divided among the members in proportion to their purchases. The employees in many instances share in the profits in propor- tion to their wages. Employes generally get better pay and better treatment than in private employ. The weekly half-holiday has always been very general. The Wholesale Societies' Rules. — Coming to the Wholesale Societies, the organisation is as follows : — The shares are all transferable, and bear interest at 5 per cent, per annum. Only Co-operative Societies are admitted as members, or are allowed to make purchases. Every shareholding Society has to] take up shares in proportion to its size. A very small initial payment constitutes membership ; and this is credited to the member's share account, When the Society wishes to cease its membership, the shares are transferred at par, through the agency of the Wholesale, without trouble or expense. Societies have a share in the management in proportion to their size, whether in voting for officers or in sending delegates to the business meetings. Societies have equal privileges in all matters. Goods are sold at prices that compete successfully with private wholesale firms. After providing for interest on capital, wear and tear of fixed stock and reserve funds, the net profits are divided among the Societies in proportion to the amount of their purchases. When their shares are not fully paid up, this dividend is credited to their share account. In all other cases it can be withdrawn. 368 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. Quarterly meetings are held, to which the Societies send delegates. The Committees control all the employees. The above rules speak for themselves. Let US5 therefore, now consider the more general economic aspects of Voluntary Co-operation as distinguished from National Co-operation or State Socialism. George Jacob Holyoake on Rochdale Co-operation, — Years ago, in a memorable Presidential Address to the Co-operative Congress at Carlisle, the venerable dozen of Rochdaleia, George Jacob Holyoake (may he long be spared !) used these words, which I criticised at the time and now reproduce with the commentary, which I cannot materially improve : — ** They (the co-operators) now own land," said Mr. Holyoake, exultingly. ** They own streets of dwellings, and almost townships. They own vast and stately warehouses in Manchester, in London, in Newcastle- on-Tyne, and in Glasgow. They own a bank, whose transactions amount to ;^i 6,000,000 a-year. They possess more than 1,400 stores which do a business of over ;^30,ooo,ooo a-year. They own a share capital of ;^9,50o,ooo, and are now making for their 900,000 members more than ;^3, 000,000 of profit annually. The mighty power of co-operation has enabled the working class in the last twenty-five years (1861-1886) to do a business of ;^36i,ooo,ooo, giving them a profit of nearly ;^29,5oo,ooo. Their splendid Wholesale Society has been buying stations in the chief markets of Europe and America. Their ships are on the sea. They aided in establishing a Mississippi Trading Company. They have invested ;^8o,ooo in the Manchester Canal. They issue a newspaper, minor journals, and records, and a ^\holesale annual volume of no mean bulk and quality." * So much for the success of voluntary co-operation, in enterprises of consumption. As for voluntary co-opera- tion in enterprises of production^ it is admittedly in its * For latest Co-op. Statistics see Appendix A. THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 369 comparative infancy and can hardly be said to possess a record; nay, such as it can claim is but little to its credit. Let us now consider the true significance of the words ** working class," *' profits," ** own," as used by Mr. Holyoake in the above extract from his Address. He obviously confounds the working class with a numer- ically insignificant fraction of the same. That fraction (the co-operators) does undoubtedly gain by co-opera- tion ; but its gain is something not unlike the loss of the non-co-operating workers. It is a prudent thing for the individual workman to become a co operator ; but if the whole order of labour were to have recourse to co-opera- tion, such is " the iron law of wages," that the masses would be no better off than before. So long as Capital stands to Labour as it does at present, the average wage of the workers can never rise higher than to enable them barely to exist and reproduce their species. Were voluntary co-operation in consumption to become general, a by no means inconsiderable body of petty traders and shopkeepers would necessarily be driven into the wage- earning class, and the competition for the pittance of labour to be picked up in the market would be fiercer than ever. '* Such voluntary co-operation," says Mr. Laurence Gronlund sagaciously, ** may be very excellent for the individual just as long as it is a sporadic pheno-^ menon, and no longer." Speaking of Voluntary Co-operation, Sir Wilfrid Law- son at the same Congress said, ** Mistakes had been made but they must expect to go blundering on until they got into the right groove." True; but what sign is there of any wish to get into the right groove ? The instances of successful co-operation in production by workmen are very few, and morally disappointing. Their tendency is not to raise the working class, but to raise a certain number of prudent, I shall not say selfish, workmen out of their class, and so to constitute a sort of Labour Caste. Such co-operators employ and exploit other workmen even more mercilessly than the capitalist em- ployers, and in struggles between labour and capital 370 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. their sympathies are nearly always enlisted on the side of the capitalist. Something may be said on behalf of voluntary co-operation in consumption, but for sporadic co-operation in production, nothing at all. Indeed, by creating a Labour Caste, the door of emancipation would be practically shut in the face of the masses, and their condition be rendered more hopeless than ever. By his frequent and appreciative use of the words **own" and '* profits," Mr. Hol3'oake leaves us in no doubt as to the kind of social millennium to which he looks forward. They are capitalist terms, redolent of robbery and swindling, and in the strictly capitalist sense he uses them. Profit in its ultimate analysis is inequitable exchange, and it is just as objectionable in a group of co-operators as in an individual. It is impossible for any man, or body of men, to make a profit in the commercial sense without entailing on some man or body of men a corresponding loss. Has Mr. Holyoake forgotten the wisdom of Montaigne ? — II n'existe aulcun pwiifit qu'an dommage d' aultvuy ; or the yet more pregnant saying of Jesus, the son of Sirach ? — Fraud sticketh between buying and selling as mortar between stones. The PallMall Gazette on the True Co-operation Trail. — Ah ! and said Mr. Holyoake, " they (the Co-operators) own land." And the land he properly put at the head of their numerous ownings. In a word, they are land- lords, with all that landlordism implies. The Pall Mall Gazette^ which has of late been struggling manfully to get abreast of the best economic thought of the day, knows a trick worth two of that. In a notable article it said : ** What we ought to do is to convey the fee simple and the absolute ownership from the landlords to the Com- munal Authority, which represents the whole of the householders on the land. The existing tenants would pay what is now rent as land tax to the Local Authority, and the difference between the rent and the interest on the capital borrowed for expropriating the landlords would supply a fund, out of which the Local Commune could establish its co-operative creamery, its model farm, its THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 37I distributive centre, and its co-operative mill. The margin would be small at first, but in fifty years the whole rental (of Ireland) would be available for the elevation of the people, the land would belong to the whole people, and the political and economical difficulties. of the situation be solved with a success not even con- ceivable under any other system." Here, then (on the authority of an organ " written by gentlemen for gentlemen "), we have genuine State Co-operation or Socialism as distinguished from Mr. Holyoake's counterfeit profitmongering Socialism. It is more than forty years since Ernest Jones forsaw the dangers to the Commonwealth involved in Voluntary Co-operation of the Rochdale type. His words on the subject are weighty, and I heartily endorse everyone of them. They go to the root of the matter : — Ernest Jones on Co-operation, True and False, — ** The co-operative system, as at present practised, carries within it the germs of dissolution, would inflict a renewed evil on the masses of the people, and is essen- tially destructive of the real principles of co-operation. Instead of abrogating profitmongering, it increases it. Instead of counteracting competition, it re-establishes it. Instead of preventing centralisation, it renews it — merely transferring the role from one set of actors to another. "All co-operation should be founded not on isolated efforts, absorbing, if successful, vast riches to themselves, but on a national union which should distribute the national wealth. 10 make these associations secure and beneficial, you must make it their interest to assist each other, instead of competing with each other — you must give them unity of action and identity of interest. " To effect this, every local association should be the branch of a national one, and all profits beyond a certain amount should be paid into a national fund, for the pur- pose of opening fresh branches, and enabling the poorest to obtain land, establish stores, and otherwise apply their labour power not only to their own advantage, but to that of the general body. 372 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. " This is the vital point : are the profits to accumulate in the hands of isolated clubs, or are they to be devoted to the elevation of the entire people ? Is wealth to gather around local centres, or is it to be diffused by a distributive agency? " This alternative embraces the fortune of the future. From the one flows profitmongering, competition, mono- poly, and ruin ; from the othei emanate the regeneration of society. '* The whole system of profitmongering, leading to competition and monopoly, is attempted over again, under the soothing name of co-operation itself. . . . The co-operator buys in the cheapest market and sells as dear as he can. . . . The poor customer pays him the * profit ' — and that he divides at the end of the year between himself and his brother co-operators. Then they boast that they have made thousands net in one year, . . . Every farthing of these net profits, after the working charges are paid (a portion of the working charges being a fair remuneration for the work performed) is an imposition and a cheat upon society." CO-OPERATION : TRUE AND FALSE.— NO. XI. WHAT DOES IT MATTER? It matters little where I was born. Or if my parents were rich or poor, "Whether they shrank at the cold world's scorn, Or walked in the pride of wealth secure. But whether I live an honest man, And hold my integrity firm in my clutch, I tell you, brother, plain as I am. It matters much. It matters little how long I stay In a world of sorrow, sin, and care ; Whether in youth I am called away, Or live till my bones and pate are bare. But whether I do the best I can, To soften the weight of adversity's touch On the faded cheek of my fellow man, It matters much. It matters little where be my grave, Or on the land or on the sea, By purling brook or 'neath stormy wave. It matters little or nought to me. But whether the angel of death comes down. And marks my brow with his loving touch, As one that shall wear the victor's crown, It matters much. Mercenary Foundations of (Rochdale) Co-operation. Some unknown friend residing in Missouri, U.S.A., has of late been so kind as to mail me certain numbers of a little monthly entitled Labour Exchange. Labour Exchange is devoted to Co-operation — Voluntary Co- operation — but not of the Rochdale type. Indeed the English Co-operative Movement is criticised with unwonted candour, not to say acerbity, and even were 373 374 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. Michael Flurscheim's two great desiderated improve- ments: viz. — (i). The Labour Certificate {vice Money) System, (2). The Capitalisation of Dividends for Co-opera- tive Extension purposes — engrafted on Rochdaleism, it is contended, it would still fail to be of any real benefit to the " Masses." It is of the *' Classes " and theirs it must remain. Let us see wherein this new Missouri Labour Ex- change Movement — it is about five years old — differs from that initiated at Rochdale in 1844. In that year fourteen Lancashire weavers met to consider the cause of the poverty that afflicted them. They found it, as they believed, in the high prices they paid for articles of consumption, and these high prices they attributed to the fact that said articles were always purchased at retail, and generally on credit. They accordingly resolved to "pool" their money {£1 cash) and purchase a stock of commodities wholesale. To avoid paying shop-rent, etc., one of the Co-operators took charge of the goods, and once a week distribution was duly made. Such was the germ of a system that to-day (1895) has an enrolled membership of about 1,250,000 persons whom it saves something like ;^5, 000,000 stg., per annum. Goods are placed on the counter at a cost of not over 7J per cent, (between producer and consumer) whereas, it is maintained, it costs over 30 per cent for similar articles to reach the retail merchant, who adds from 30 per cent, upwards.* At the time of the threatened Baring financial col- lapse, the English Co-operators were in a position to notify the Bank of England that they might be drawn upon, in the emergency, to the extent of ;^i,ooo,ooo stg. as a " Cash Loan.'' Their Annual Report showed that the toughest problem they had to solve was how to dis- pose of their surplus funds ! But it is not all gold that glitters — There is quite * For latest Co-op. Statistics, See Appendix A. THE ANNALS OF TOIL, 375 another side to this vaunted Rochedaleian prosperity. No sooner had the Society got fairly on the way than both contributions of money and purchases became unequal, and plans had to be devised for the " equitable '* (?) division of the ** profits." A portion of the Surplus was assigned to pay Usury on the Money invested, leaving the balance (if any) to be divided among the Associates, not in proportion as each had laboured or produced, but according as each had consumed or pur- chased. He who did the least but ate or drank the most — to him, as in the world of Individualism — was the amplest reward. This the " Classes " were prompt to discern, and hence comes it to pass that those who are loudest in condemnation of genuine Socialism are often equally loud in laudation of Rochdale Co-operation. Why ? Because it aims : (i) To deal in Cash, (2) To reduce to a minimum the price of the Products of Labour. (3) To pay Interest on Money. (4) To reward Consumers instead of Producers. What wonder that all manner of men of ^* inde- pendent means " and ** assured incomes " should prefer to deal with ** the stores " rather than with the ordinary shopkeeper ? They would be fools if they did otherwise. But are the workers, as a class, bettered by this singu- lar form of so-called Co-operation? By no means. The decided tendency of the system is to separate the moneyed from the moneyless man and to make the emancipatory path of the latter the veriest via dolorosa. It is a false ideal and the more it is cherished the more difficult will it be to arouse a genuine class consciousness among the moneyless toilers, without which Progress must ever continue to walk haltingly on palsied feet. How '' Others See " our Rochdaleism. — Let us now see to what the American Labour Exchange men or Co-operators specially object. Theirs is pretty much the very reverse of the Rochdale plan of Social Salva- tion. While Rochdale enters the economic field via 376 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. Distribution or Commercialism, they hope to enter it by the gate of Production. Contentions of English Co-operators. 1. That the doors of the Rochdale are open to alh 2. That it brings Producers and Consumers together. 3. That it has one million and a quarter of Members. 4. That it saves to its Members ;f5, 000,000 annually. 5. That it sets aside two and one-half per cent, of its net Profits for Education. 6. That there is no distress among its Members. 7. That it has Money to lend and is discussing what to do with it. 8. That it would put Labour Checks in use and make them popular. Contentions of the Neo-American Co-operators. 1. That the doors of the Rochdale are open only to Money and not to Labour. 2. That it does not bring Producers and Consumers together nor put them in direct relation ; for in that case Money would no longer be needed and the Cash System would fail. The Rochdale plan buys from the Producers and sells to the Consumers, as all middle men do. 3. That if the System was based on sound principles and a re&l benefit to the working classes, it would have all the workers of England and other countries, too, in it. 4. If it has One Million and a Quarter of Members and it saves to them over ;f 5, 000,000 annually, it is equal to about £^ each, and ifitsupplies them with the best quality of goods at the lowest prices it must buy those goods cheap — and who suffers ? But where does the Rochdale get these savings from ? Either from the Producers or the Consumers ? There is nowhere else to get them from. 5 To set aside two and one-half per cent, for education and pay from five to ten per cent, interest on Money is an unfair system of industrial equity. It proves that in the sight of the Rochdaleian Money is all and man is only fit to extract Dividends from. 6. Of course there is no distress among the Rochdaleians, but it is not because of the £/\. per year — 7s. per month — which the Society saves for them. It is because they belong to the moneyed class, salaried officials, etc. 7. If the Society has money to loan, then the Rochdaleians are not a productive enterprise, are purely a speculative concern ; they are a money-making, a speculative undertaking, and under the present monetary system they are as injurious to the welfare of the •* Masses " as any other Monopolistic Concern. 8. That it could put Labour Cheques in circulation and make them popular, we know ; but we know, also, that it will never do it as long as its object is to realise Interest on Money and Profits out of those they deal with. THE ANNALS OF TOIL* 377 There is one point, however, at which those modern institutions, the Rochdale and the Labour Exchange, will meet according to the truisms that " extremes touch each other" ; that " too far west is east." If successful both will abolish poverty. But with the differ- ence that the Rochdale will do it by turning out the poor to starve, and the Labour Exchange by flooding them with plenty ; or to ex- press it more properly, the Rochdale will exterminate the poor, and the Labour Exchange will extinguish poverty. We look upon the Rochdale plan as an antiquated system utterly incapable of benefiting the human race. There is no reform or Co-opsration in it. It is the Competitive System by the Combina- tion of a whole Class against other Classes, and Progress in the Pro- duction and Distribution of wealth must be based on better principles to be for the general good. — Labour Exchange, Sept. 1895. Such then is old orthodox English Co-operation as seen from the Neo-American standpoint. That stand- point it is by no means easy briefly to define ; but it is going straight to the core of the matter to say that Interest on Money and Profit on Labour are both religiously eschewed ; while salvation is primarily found in the Co-operative Bank or Non-Usury Store for the distribu- tion of Capital and Services, dealing in such Media of Exchange as ** Certificates of Deposit," ** Labour Cheques," etc. The real foe to be overcome is ** Legal Tender" Money. It is the Lendlord not the Land- lord that is the true economic anguis in herba. The **New Money" and Legal Tender.— In respect of the supply of Labour the State permits — nay encourages — unlimited Competition, so as to reduce Wages to the starvation limit, or below it ; but when it comes to be a question of Money-supply exactly the opposite course is pursued. Every precaution is taken by legislative enactment to restrict competition in Capital to the utmost, so as to keep the interest of money, house- rent, ground-rent, and the price of commodities, at the highest endurable level. Mutual Banks, it has been statistically shown, can do business with their customers at the rate of f of i per cent (the bare cost of running them), and for the New Money issued by them the following, among other ad* vantages, besides its cheapness, are claimed : BB 378 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 1. All ** Certificate " transactions will be in cash (Paper Money). 2. ** Certificates of Credit " will be uniform because, under the supervision of a General Clearing House. 3. They cannot depreciate in Exchange Value. 4. They can never be ** scarce " or liable to be ** cornered." *• Financial crises" will therefore be at an end. 5. Monopoly, Usury, and Poverty will alike be up- rooted, and from the State will be wrested its dealiest instrument of oppression — control of the Medium of Ex- change, Streaks of Dawn. — This, it will be seen is substan- tially the Co-operative Paper Money Scheme which my excellent friend, Michael Fllirscheim has for some time, with such evident sense of conviction, been urging for adoption by our own Wholesale Societies, and it is gratifying to find that, in some few instances, at least, his recommendations, (/^^^ Missouri), have actually been anticipated. For years the Thetford and Sittingbourne Societies have, with the greatest benefit to all concerned, paid their dividends, not in " legal tender " but in cheques for goods, and now we learn that the Lincoln Equitable Co-operative and Industrial Society has got on the right rail. "Nothing" says a writer in Brotherhood^ "that I heard in connection with this flourishing and progressive Society interested me more than the fact that there is actually in successful operation within it, an Exchange System very like what Mr. Fliirscheim is now advocat- ing. The Society has branches in several parts of the county, and country members — mainly small yeoman- farmers and allotment-holders — bring to these branches butter, eggs, poultry, potatoes and other farm produce, for which they are paid, not in cash (State Money), but credits entitling them to take out an equivalent in any other goods for sale in the store. A barter business amounting to about ;^6,30o is thus done every year without any money or bank cheques passing between buyers and sellers." THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 379. Develop this simple system of credit, secured not merely on land, houses, gold, silver, platinum, lead, etc., but on " services " also, on the largest industrial scale, and over the widest areas, and it is not too much to say that at last the true ideal of Socialism — the Maximum of Co-operation with the minimum of Compulsion — will be attained, and the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth be within a ** measurable distance" of economic realisation. In his remarkable volume. The Text Book of Labour Exchange : Trials and Triumphs of Labour^ Mr. G. B. de Bernardi (Independence, Mo., U.S.A.) thus lucidly illustrates the working out of Neo-American Co-opera- tion or Labour Exchange, by imagined ** Experiences of Members," as related by themselves : The Mechanic's Tale. — ** I had belonged to almost every Labour organisation besides my own Union, and we had discussed the problem, I thought, from every point of view, and had " resolved " everything imagin- able. I had taken an active part in four strikes, one of which proved successful, and the others disastrous. But successful or disastrous, I saw that we workers were always losers, and that, in every strike we were alienating from us public opinion, especially of farmers and merchants, in consequence of the losses these classes were subjected to by the stoppage of business. " Hearing of the Labour Exchange, and feeling a special interest in the feature that it professed to furnish employment, our Union appropriated ten dollars to de- fray the expenses of a lecturer. The lecturer came. He wasted no time in depicting the deplorable condition of labour, nor the cruelty of employers, nor the wrongs perpetrated by the old political parties, but straightway explained the objects of the Labour 'Exchange and the ways of attaining these objects. We felt convinced that the Exchange was the thing we had been looking for, and by a large majority vote we decided to organise a Branch in our city. At every meeting we made a collection, and each voluntary contributor received a Certificate of Deposit. The money was deposited in a Savings Bank and served as a basis for the vahdity of j80 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. the Certificates. These Certificates circulated among us and soon amounted to a considerable sum. In less than eighteen months we had on deposit ten thousand dollars, and, of course, the same amount of Certificates, in the hands of members, which performed a much larger volume of business, not only among ourselves, but with outsiders also. ** We now decided to withdraw our deposit from the bank, purchase a lot in the central part of the City and put up a building on it. We paid for the lot and a por- tion of the materials in money, and paid our workmen in Labour Cheques. This proved a triple benefit to us. It employed our men, gave us a house to hold our meetings in, and store accommodation. Our meetings were always open 'and our numbers kept increasing. " What came out of that small beginning, you all see. The Association owns, in the city alone, over half a million dollars worth of property. It is running a number of industries, and none of us members need fear to incur the displeasure of any employer and lose our bread." The Brickburner's Tale. — **Ten of us, working at a brickyard, expected soon to be discharged, and had no idea where to find another job. Times were hard and bricks not in demand. One morning three farmers rode up to the yard and wished us to join the Labour Ex- change. We laughed at the idea. * What good would the Labour Exchange do us? We have nothing to exchange, and besides, we do not expect to be here long,' we said. * Where are you going ? ' asked one of the farmers. ' To tramp,' we replied. * Is there not plenty of work here ? ' he asked, * No,' we answered, * not after this week.' * What is the matter ? Is the town finished ? ' he queried. * Finished or not finished no one wants bricks,' we retorted. * Look here, friends,' said the farmer, * there is no necessity for stopping brick-burning here. The town is hardly commenced, and there will be a heavy demand for bricks shortly, if not now. Join the Exchange, and we will see whether we cannot arrange so that you may remain at work. If THE ANNALS OF TOIL* 381 members of our Association, you could take bricks in payment for wages. The Exchange would take the bricks from you and give you its Cheques.' We laughed heartily thinking the granger somewhat cracked. * What good could your Cheques do us ? ' we asked. * The Cheques will prove that you hold that much property in the Association,' answered the farmer. * Is that not better than going into idleness?' he added. It sounded reasonable. He then explained the workings of the Labour Exchange. We became convinced, and went with the farmers to see the proprietor of the yard, to whom they also explained the method ofbusiness of the Association. The proprietor agreed to continue us at work, if we would accept bricks, at wholesale prices, in payment. At the same time the farmers contracted to lurnish wood to burn the bricks and received bricks ia payment also. **The same bricks are now doing duty in the finest four-story business building in the centre of the town, and were put there by bricklayers who, without the Labour Exchange, would have wasted their time io tramping. We and the bricklayers have been amply paid for our work, and still hold in that building the interest that Capitalists would hold, if money had been used instead of Cheques. We are indeed grateful to the Labour Exchange and wish it was known to every working man in the country." The Parmer's Tale. — *'One day I was fixing the fence around my barn lot, when two gentlemen rode up, and after the usual salutations about the weather, fine country, etc., one of them asked why I did not build a barn to shelter my stock and forage. * Lack of means,* I replied. * You mean lack of money,' he retorted ; • for I see you have plenty of means on your farm.* * Yes, I mean lack of money,' I answered. * Would it not pay you to borrow the money ? Is not your loss in forage, the condition of your stock, loss of time in feeding, etc,, heavier than the interest on a loan ? ' he asked. * I do not intend to place a mortgage on my farm, unless com- pelled to by sickness,' I replied. * I have seen too 382 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. many farmers driven from their homes by mortgages.' « What would you have to pay for money-hire ? ' con- tinued the man. ' Eight per cent.,' I answered. * That is very heavy,' he said. * The average increase of wealth, according to decennial inventories, is only three and one-third per cent., and whoever pays more than that is doomed to ruin. 'Look here, friend,' he then explained, * we are mechanics and members of the Labour Exchange. We heard that you needed work in our line and came to see whether we could persuade you to become a member of that Association also, and have your barn built through the same. The Associa- tion will lend you its Cheques at one per cent. It wilj give you five or more years to return the Cheques, and the choice to pay either in money, or in products at market value.' * How is that?' I inquired. He ex- plained to me in full the workings of the Labour Exchange. I felt convinced that I could well afford to pay one per cent., rather than suffer the losses conse- quent on keeping my forage and feeding my stock out of doors. So I joined the Association, borrowed fifteen hundred dollars in Cheques, and had my barn built (and a good one it was, for the Exchange guarantees its "work). Subsequently, whenever I had a load of produce to spare from my ordinary expenses, I took it to the Exchange store. In a few years my debt was paid. " I feel convinced, friends, that, if such Association (had come into existence years ago, thousands of farms, carried away by mortgages, would now be the homes of the happy families who improved them, and that thou- sands of mechanics, who were forced to leave their families in destitution and search the country for work, fwould have been building barns on these farms and supporting their families in abundance out of the pro- .ducts which were wasted in interest on money-lenders. Thank God, a way has been found out of that detestable 'Money-system. My prayer is that the Labour Ex- change may extend not only over our country but over the whole world." THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 383 The Merchant's Tale.—'' It did not take me long to- see the merits of the Labour Exchange. Among my customers were many wage-workers and poor farmers, who were far from being good payers. Not that they were dishonest ; but work was uncertain and wages low, and when work stopped, farmers could not sell and I suffered from all sides. Such were my constant troubles. To refuse credit, knowing that their families were actually suffering, was more than my feelings would permit ; to credit them was dangerous ; and to charge my good customers higher prices in order to cover the losses, I felt to be unjust. Besides, extra prices drive customers away. This predicament w^as general among all business men and speculators, taking advantage of the situation, had formed a sort of Detec- tive Agency, or what they called a Guaranty Company, for the purpose of black-listing the poor and protecting the merchants against Deadbeats, on payment of a fee. But black-listing the poor brought no relief to them nor to me, and while it offered some security, it did not in- crease my business nor the profits. Nothing but con- stant employment and good wages could solve the pro- blem, and bring relief round. ** One day a mechanic came to my store, presented a ten dollar Labour Cheque, and desired to purchase goods with it. He explained that he had been at work for the Labour Exchange Association, and held that much interest in the assets of the same. I investigated the basis and methods of business of the said Associa- tion and became convinced that it had come to fill a long-felt want in the country. *' Not only did I accept the ten dollar Cheque from my old customer and friend, but informed the Secretary of the Association in the town, also, that I stood ready to honour its Cheques, at par, to full extent of my finan- cial ability. Certainly I preferred a document founded upon actual wealth in the keeping of responsible parties, to insolvent names on my books. " Since that day, owing to the employment of labour by the Exchange, my business, and that of every 384 THB ANNALS OF TOIL. merchant in town, has increased wonderfully, and our losses by bad debts have been reduced to less than og^- tenth of what th^y used to be. ^^ God sp^d the Labour Exchange ! " Others, I doubt not, if not we, The issue of our toils shall see; YouDg children gather as their own The harvests that the dead have sown, The dead forgotten and unknown. NEC-SOCIALIST " CRIGINS."— No. I. The Republican Movement. What want these outlaws conquerors should have But History's purchased page to call them great ? A wider space, an ornamented grave ? Their hopes were not less warm, their souls were full as brave. Byron, If there be never so many fair branches of libertv planted on the root of a private and selfish interest, they will no: long prosper, but must, within a little time, wither and degenerate into the nature of that whereinto they are planted ; and hence indeed sprang the evil of that Government which rose in, and with the Norman Conquest, And as at first the Conqueror did by violence and force deny that freedom to the people which was their natural right and privilege, so he and his successors all along lay as bars and impediments to the true national interests and public good> in the very national councils and assemblies themselves, which were constituted in such a manner as most served for upholding of the private interest of their families. — Sir Harry Vane. History is the essence of innumerable biographies. In a certain sense all men are historians. — Carlyle. I have read somewhere or other, in Dionysius of Halicarnassus, I think, that History is Philosophy teaching by examples. — Henry Sf. John. The case of historical writers is hard, for if they will tell the truth they offend man ; if they write what is false, they offend God. — Matthew Paris. Most true ! " The case of historical writers is hard," and I do not at all envy the ** case '* of the historian of the future, who shall undertake to set forth in ordered se- quence the <* Origins" of the Neo-Socialist Movement of to-day. History, as Buckle correctly held, is a ** record 385 386 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. of tendencies, not of events." Hence the extreme diffi- culty of writing so much as a " History of Our Own Time." The Socialist movement of to-day — there can hardly yet be said to be a United Socialist Party — is a goodly river, made up of many confluent rills, flowing from divers sources. Pioneers of the British Republic— As late as 1871, when the hopeful but evanescent Republican agitation stirred up the somnolent energies of British Radicals to something like the enthusiasm and sacrifice of by-gone Chartist days, the Socialist ** stream of tendency," except as a radical protest against Social inequality, ran wholly underground. According to " Dod," there is but one avowed Repub- lican m the British Parliament to-day, Mr. Michael Davitt. All the more honour to the gallant Irishman who, amid such a crowd of Royalist flunkeys, has the courage and honesty to write himself down what he is and what he always has been ! The Republican movement of the early Seventies drew its inspiration primarily from the downfall of the Second Empire and the establishment of the Republic in France. In 1873 there were at least fifty robust " Republican Clubs " in England and Scotland, I myself being Corresponding Secretary of the Edin- burgh Brotherhood. One of the strongest of them, perhaps the strongest, was that of Birmingham, then **the Mecca of Liberal- ism," and its mouthpiece, on most important occasions, was Joseph Chamberlain (!) not the *' Right Hon., Joseph " of these days of decadence, but far more truly honourable than he has ever been since. Joseph was then at his best, the ardent foe of all manner of prin- cipalities and powers, and it is well, as Steerforth de- sired to be remembered, to think of men at their best. Then we had Charles Dilke and Auberon Herbert, George Ogder and Charles Bradlaugh — all names to con- jure with. Bradlaugh, it is true, handicapped the move- ment somewhat by identifyihg it in the public mind with THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 38^ ** Atheism" ; but, as a set off against that unfortunate association, there was the matchless vigour of the man and his overwhelming vehemence of oratory which beat down all opposition. But Sir Charles Wentworth Dilke was the hero of the hour, though he has since, I regret to say, sought to be- little the truly courageous part he at that time played. Ah, had he but gone on as he began ! Diamond Jubilee or none, it is not too much to say that we should have had in Parliament to-day a Republican Opposition a hundred and fifty strong, and the assur- ance that Victoria Guelph should have no successor on the British throne. In his Short History of Our Own Times, Mr, Justin McCarthy describes the unprecedented scene which occurred in the House of Commons when Sir Charles, in March 1872, brought on his memorable motion for inquiry into the income and expenditure of the Crown. It is worth quoting, for it shows to per- fection what a pack of innate scoundrels our ** hons." and ** right hons." really are whenever they feel that privilege and make-believe are seriously assailed : — Royalist Blackguardism in Parliament,— Sir Charles knew that every one in that House, save three or four, was bitterly opposed to him. It is a hard trial to the nerves to face such an audience. But neither then nor after did he show the slightest sign of quailing. His speech was well got up as to facts, well arranged, and evidently well committed to memory, but it was not eloquent. The warmth of Mr. Gladstone's reply was almost startling by sheer force of contrast. No one expected that Mr. Gladstone would be so passionately merciless as he proved himself to be. His vehemence, forcing the House into hot temper again, was one cause at least of the extraordinary tumult that arose when Sir Charles Dilke' s friend and ally, Mr. Auberon Herbert, rose to speak, and declared himself also a Republican. This was the signal for as extraordinary a scene as the House of Commons has ever exhibited. The tumult became so great that if it had taken place at any public meeting it would have been called a riot, and would have required the interference of the police. Some hundreds of strong, excited, furious men were shouting and yelling with the object of interrupting the speech and drowning the voice of one man. The Speaker of the House of Commons is usually an omnipotent authority. But on this occasion the Speaker was literally powerless. There was no authority which could overawe ' the House. Men of education and position — University m^n, 388 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. younger sons of peers, great landowners, officers in crack regiments,-, the very elite, many of them, of the English aristocracy— became for the moment a merely furious mob. They roared, hissed, gesticu-' lated ; the shrill " cock-crow," unheard in the House of Commons, for a generation, snrieked once more in the ears of the bewildered officials. Nor was the rage of the ** classes" confined to Parlia- ment. Sir Charles went round the towns of the North of England lecturing on the monstrous cost of Royalty and his progress was marked by more or less serious riots wherever he went. Life was sacrificed in more than one of these tumults. At Bolton, while Sir Charles was addressing a large audience admitted by ticket, the place of meeting was assailed by a furious mob of Royalists, who succeeded in murdering one peaceable Radical, William Scofield, an artizan, and wounding several others. The magistrates and the Police both scandalously failed in their duty on the occasion and never was there any sufficient explanation of their conduct vouchsafed. At Reading, George Odger was within an ace of sharing the fate of Scofield. The leading organ of ** the party of order," the Standard, threatened Chelsea's Representative with personal violence. ** The attachment of Englishmen for the Royal Family," it said, ** may take an unpleasantly practical form if Sir Charles Dilke should ever insult a party of gentlemen by repeating in their presence calumnies such as he was permitted to utter with impunity before the * roughs ' of Newcastle." Dilke's Proclamation of the British Republic. — And here it may be worth while to put on record the worst that Sir Charles did say in the famous address alluded to by the Standard, The meeting was held in November 1871, Mr. Joseph Cowen, the tried and trusty friend of Mazzini and Garibaldi in the Chair. This was the head and front of the offending : " There is a widespread belief that a Republic here is only a question of education and time. It is said that one day a Commonwealth will be our form of Government. Now, history and experience show that you cannot have a Republic unless you possess, at the sanie time, the THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 389 Republican virtues. But you answer, have we not public spirit ? Have we not the practice of self-govern- ment ? Well if you can show me a fair chance that a Republic here will be free from the political corruption that hangs about a Monarchy, I say, for my part — and I believe that the middle classes in general will say — Let it come ! " For a brief space after this virtual proclamation of the Republic the prudent middle class visibly wavered ; and everywhere the elite of the workers, the thinking artisans who are the very backbone of the nation, enthusiastically responded to the call to battle. Beatification of the Prince of Wales by Pulpit and Press. — At this juncture, however, most opportunely for the Monarchy, the Prince of Wales fell ill of typhoid fever, and the numerous organs of Aristocracy and Plutocracy in the Press at once saw that the game was in their hands. They pictured the Prince's suffering as the most exquisite ever endured by mortal man. The Crucifixion itself was as nothing by com- parison. If it had been a sheep or an ox that was so tormented the hardest heart must have been melted to pity. It was made to appear as if Dilke was person- ally responsible for the whole calamity. He was repre- sented as a monster of disloyalty who had chosen to insult the Queen personally — he had never, in point of fact, uttered one disparaging word against the woman — while her eldest son lay struggling with death. That son, all the doctors declared, was fated to die there and then ; but he recovered, nevertheless (as I all along felt certain he would), and then came the blasphemous thanksgiving at St. Paul's and the Church's opportunity. The ** clergy of all denominations" agreed that the erst- while naughty and discredited Albert Edward, of " Mordaunt " and other notorieties, was a model of every Christian virtue. He was sanctified and beatified ! There was never such reputable Prince known in this or any other country ! Most unjustly also was the calamity of the Paris Commune turned to account for the purpose of dis- 390 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. crediting the Republican movement. Middle-class Republicans were shocked, or pretended to be, and made no effort to discover the true causes of the lament- able bloodshed incurred in that terrible tragedy. But neither the fall of the Commune, nor the illness and recovery of H.R.H. would have been able to stifle the Republican movement, had men like Dilke, Fawcett, Chamberlain, Bradlaugh and others stood as manfully to their guns, as did inflexible George Odger, and P. A. Taylor, M.P., for Leicester, an unique '* survival " of the best traditions of the Commonwealth of Vane and Milton. One and all, alas, either tacitly, or ex- pressly (with Sir Charles), abjured " the scatter-brained principles of their youth," and sought the more solid pudding of prospective office. That woeful ** harden- ing of the heart that brings irreverence for the dreams of youth " destroyed them all — and destroyed " the cause " ? Nay, ** the cause " lives and will survive a thousand such '* Lost Leaders." The true Republic, the ideal Co-operative Commonwealth, the Kingdom of God on Earth, takes no detriment even from ** Diamond Jubilees ; " for, after all, the ultimate lesson taught by Universal History is that the Ideal is the Real, And what is more, even in this hour (June, 1897) ^^ ^^^^ vulgar triumph of Royalty and the Classes, I venture to affirm that if the question of Republic v. Monarchy were fairly put to the Referendum — a reasonable time being allowed for educational discussion and reflection — the Monarchy would be voted down by an overwhelming majority. The British people are indeed supine and apathetic, but they are not at bottom the abject syco- phants and flunkeys which Jubi-liars would have us believe. Give them a chance and you will see. If Royalty survived one Referendum it would certainly not outlive two, even with the support of such eminent converts and jubilators as Sydney Webb and Bernard Shaw. Woe unto you hypocrites ! The Republican movement slowly subsided, and to it THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 39I succeeded two others, " in the Seventies," of which I had some personal cognizance. Both were very largely political in their objects, with a veiled background of vague Collectivism, imported chiefly by advocates of John Stuart Mill's ** unearned increment of land" doctrine. Chief of the then "agitators," perhaps, was Admiral Maxse, to whom, in a great measure, was due the convocation at the Freemasons' Tavern, of the most representative gathering of Reformers that had ^ assembled in London for many a day. The programme was thorough, so far as it went, and Dr. W. A. Hunter, my dear old friend and schoolmate, and I (then fresh to London), who watched the proceedings with great interest, were sanguine that the painful era of political and social torpor was about to close. But, alas, the question of Female Suffrage was raised, and on that point of the New Charter our gallant Admiral was hopelessly unsound. Dissension set in in its worst form, and our pro- mising emancipatory movement was strangled almost at its birth. The Lambeth Radical Association. — The next Reform movement, or organization, though local in its character, was very notable, especially in its pev- sonneU It was known as the Lambeth Radical Asso- ciation, and had for its ostensible object, the ejection of Aldermen Sir James Clarke Laurence and Sir William McArthur from the representation ot the then vast undivided constituency. Two-thirds, at least of the members were working Radical journalists resident in South London. The moving spirit and secretary was Sam Bennett of the Scotsman (now of Brooklyn, U.S.A.), a barrister of the Middle Temple ; and the first president was A. J. Wilson, so widely famed as economist, author, and City Editor of the Standard, The second President was Stewart Ross (Saladin) Editor of the Agnostic Jonvnal — a brilliant litterateur, no less at home in nervous prose than in stirring " Lays of Romance and Chivalry." 39^ THE ANNALS OF TOIL. T. P. O'Connor, M.P., Mr. Robins, Manager of the Press Association, and myself took lower rank as Vice-Presidents ; but inasmuch as every member of the Association considered himself pre-eminently qualified to be Prime Minister of the Empire, no kind of dis- tinction counted for much. The Chairman was fre- quently ruled out of order and we were all agreed in nothing but general disagreement with each other. Nevertheless, much good fellowship prevailed, and many knotty social and political questions were dusted out with much ability by men who have since well served the cause of Democracy with voice and pen. The General Election of 1880 practically dissolved the Lambeth Radical Association,but the disjecta membra, or at least the advanced guard of it, did not fail to make several effectual, if informal, rallies as soon as the Gladstone Administration began to apply to Ireland the ** resources of civilization," and to show generally that it was Liberal only in name. A handful of us, inspired by Sam Bennett — a man of rare self sacrifice and chimerical optimism — organised the first great meeting in Hyde-park against the Liberal . coercion of Ireland. All manner of M.P.'s and Trade Union leaders not merely declined to aid so unpopular a cause, but laughed at our temerity in attempting so great an undertaking. We had neither money, credit, nor speakers ; but yet somehow we pulled through, and to some purpose. The late Joseph Biggar, M.P., learning from me, at the knowing suggestion of T. W. Russel, M.P., (then Teetotal Lobbyist), that we were at our wit's end for funds, unhesitatingly wrote out a cheque for a hun- dred pounds, and for speakers we fell back mostly on the bibulous but thoroughly ejffective resources of Cogers' Hall. The meeting, contrary to all the prophets of evil, was a marked success, and the foundation stone of the alliance between the British and the Irish Democracy was laid. It was my own privilege, on the occasion, as chairman on one of the six platforms, to introduce to an THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 395 enthusiastic crowd, Justin M'Carthy, father and son. The latter, if I mistake not, then made his maiden pubHc speech. The Radical. — About this time, too, was started the Radical. Its columns were thrown open to all manner of wild men and women, and nothing was too heretical in religion, politics, or economics for insertion. It shared the premature mortality of so many similar enterprises, but not before it had sown much good seed of which the Democracy is still reaping the benefit. To the Radical^ my life-long friend, William Webster, of Aberdeen, (now, alas, no more) **the discoverer of Henry George," contributed a series of invaluable articles expository of '* Progress and Poverty." The Land Gospel, in consequence, " caught on " with an astonishing hold, and from Land Nationalization to Capital Nationalization or Socialism proper, the pas- sage, if not easy for many, has been inevitable. The object-lesson of Irish landlordism pointed the more' general moral of Georgeian land ethics with irresistible force. The Radical^ after a gallant struggle, gave up the ghost, and with it went Sam Bennett's little patrimony. But the ** cause " is deathless, and Sam and I, and all other Democrats, Republicans and Socialists of the dawn, can at least console ourselves with the inspiring reflection of Whittier : — Happy he whose inward ear Angel comfortings can hear, O'er the rabble's laughter ; And while hatred's faggots burn, Glimpses through the smoke discern Of the good Hereafter. Knowing this that never yet Share of truth was vainly set In the world's wide fallow ; After hands shall sow the seed. After hands from hill and mead Reap the harvest yellow. CO 394 THE ANNALS OF TOILa Thus, with something of the Seer Must the moral pioneer From the future borrow ; Clothe the waste with dreams of graiili And on midnight's sky of rain Paint the golden morrow. NEO-SOCIALIST " ORIGINS."— No. II. The Land Question.— The E.L,R.L. The land shall not be sold in perpetuity ; for the land is Mine. Woe unto them that join house to house, and lay field to field till there be no place, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth, — Old Testament. Returning nothing to the soil they (the landlords of Ireland dur- ing the famine '41-51) consume its whole produce, minus the pota- toes strictly necessary to keep the inhabitants from dying of famine. — ^JoHN Stuart Mill. Property (Irish landlordism) ruled with savage and tyrannical sway. It exercised its rights with a hand of iron and renounced its duties with a front of brass. It was all drain and no return. — Times, Feb. 25th, 1847, Cain was the first man in the world who divided the common property in the earth by enclosures and landmarks. — Josephus. The notion of selling for certain bits of metal the Iliad of Homer how much more the Land of the World-Creator is a ridiculous im- possibility. — Carlyle . The Land Question is the bottom question : Man is a land animal. — Henry George. Predecessors of Henry George. — It would be diffi- cult to over-estimate the influence exerted by Henry George (seemingly against his will) in the direction of the Socialist movement of to-day. Up to his arrival in London, in the fall of 1881, the incipient Democracy had concerned itself almost exclusively and, in a great measure, fruitlessly, with painful efforts to perfect the legislative machine. The Georgeian land-gospel supplied a powerful motive — a convincing why and wherefore. Without the terrible object-lesson of Ireland writhing 395 396 THE ANNALS OF TOIL in the remorseless grasp of landlordism, it is, however, doubtful if George's doctrines would have made much headway in the domain of *^ practical politics " ; but, as it fell out, both the hour and the man had arrived. The two were like hand and glove. Not that there was anything very novel in George's proposals. In the great days of the Commonwealth, Jerrard Winstanley, the penetrating thinker of the " Levellers " or Communistic Party, in his Law of Freedom in a Platfoym, more than anticipated Henry George; while, towards the end of the last century, speculative thinkers of such original power as Thomas Spence, Thomas Paine, and William Ogilvie fully understood the vital importance of the land question, and — Spence and Ogilvie at least — solved it even more drastically than the "Prophet of San Fran- cisco." The lines on which agrarian legislation ought to pro- ceed were laid down with marvellous precision in An Essay on the Right of Property in Land, printed BY J. Walters, Charing Cross, 1872. Its author, William Ogilvie, was Professor of Humanity, ^'.^., Latin, in King's College, Old Aberdeen, where he held a Chair for the long period of fifty-four years. He was a man of many accomplishments, widely travelled, and a century at least before his time. He was, moreover. Laird of Pittensear, near Elgin, and an experienced and most sagacious agriculturist. His Essay deserves most care- ful study and ought to be in the hands of every student of the Land Question and would-be legislator, at the present moment. It contains the draft of a Parliament- ary Bill for a progressive Agrarian Law. The Essay is divided into seventy-five numbered paragraphs, the substance of each paragraph being embodied in the ** contents." Thus : — OgilYie's Analysis of the Land Problem. — (i.) **Each individual derives from the right of general occupancy a right to an equal share of the soil. (2.) This right cannot be precluded by any possession of others. THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 397 (3.) Nor is it tacitly renounced by those who have no opportunity of entering upon it. (4.) The opportunity of claiming this right ought to be reserved for every citizen. (5.) Rude Societies have respected this right ; in the progress of the arts it is overlooked and by conquests generally subverted. (6.) Speculative reasoners have confounded this equal right with that which is founded in labour and ascer- tained by municipal laws. (7.) The right of a landholder to an extensive estate must be founded chiefly in labour. (8.) The progress of cultivation gives an ascendant to the right of labour over that of general occupancy. (9.) But the public good requires that both should be respected and combined together. (10.) Such combination is difficult and has rarely been established for any length of time. (11.) It is the proper object of Agrarian Laws, and effectual means of establishing it may be devised." Paragraphs 12, 13 and 14 are most important, and may be thus abridged : — (12.) " When a piece of land is sold, the price paid by the purchaser may be considered as consisting of three parts, each being the value of a distinct subject, the separate amount of which men skilled in agriculture, and acquainted with the soil of the country, might accurately enough appreciate. These ** parts " are : — {a) The original value of the soil, or that which it might have borne in its natural state, prior to all cultivation. {h) The accessory or improved value of the soil, that, to wit, which it has received from the improvements and cultivation bestowed on it by the last proprietor and those who have preceded him. {c) The contingent or improvable value of the soil ; that further value which it may still receive from future cultivation and improvements, over and above the ex- pense of making such improvements, or, as it may be 398 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. Otherwise expressed, the value of exclusive right to make such improvements. If, in England, 100 acres of arable land are sold for ^'1,500, the contingent value may be reckoned at ;^500, original value at ;^20o, and accessory or improved value at ;^8oo. In this example these three parts of the general value are to one another as 2, 8, and 5. If from 100 acres of uncultivated moorland in Ireland, the proportion of the parts may be as i, o, and 14. (13.) The landholder must be allowed to have a full and absolute right to the original^ the improved^ and the contingent value of such portion of his estate as would fall to his share on an equal partition of the Territory of the State among the citizens. Over the surplus extent of his estate he has a full right to the accessory value. But to the original and contingent value of this surplus extent he has no full right. That must reside in the com- munity at large, and, though seemingly neglected or relinquished, may be claimed at pleasure by the Legislature or by the Magistrate, who is the public trustee. (14.) The original wolne of the soil is treated as a fund belonging to the public, and merely deposited in the hands of great proprietors, to be, by the imposition of land-taxes, gradually applied to the public use, until the whole be exhausted. Equity however, requires that from such land-taxes those small tenements which do not exceed the pro- prietor's natural share of the soil should be exempted. To separate the contingent value from the other two is less difficult and of more importance ; for the detriment which the public suffers by neglecting this separation, and permitting an exclusive right of improving the soil to accumulate in the hands of a small part of the com- munity, is far greater in respect both of the progress of agriculture and the comfortable independence of the lower ranks." I regret that the limitations of space forbid me to put Ogilvie longer in the witness-box. Suffice it, however, to say that his analysis of landlordism is unrivalled in THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 399 acuteness, and that his contentions are even more ger- mane to the issues of 1898 than to those of 1798. Georgeismi in Action. — Again, in the Forties of the present century, Patrick Edward Dove, Editor of the Glasgow Commonwealth, a man of rare attainments, ex- hausted the subject, and from his Theory of Human Pro- gression George has been charged with extensive plagiar- isms. But the accusation (even if it were true, and, I am assured, it is not) does not seem to me to be very damaging to George's reputation. The man who dis- inters forgotten truths at the fit moment for giving them practical application is almost, if not altogether, as great a benefactor of his fellow-men as the original thinkers who were ** before their time." In the evolu- tionary chain of fruitful ideas both are necessary links. I do not think that it even detracts seriously from George's great merit as a populariser of economics that his theory of Interest (Usury) is wholly fallacious and untenable. Interest is but Rent in another form, and the one demonstrably cannot long survive the other. The ** Prophet of San Francisco " is not the first good man in this world who ** has builded more wisely than he knew." Indeed, George's bourgeois notions about the inherent necessity and consequent legitimacy of Usury have actually benefitted the cause of Land Restoration in no small degree. Many capitalists have been induced by George to believe that with the abolition of private landlordism the interest of capital, as well as the wages of labour, will begin to rise. They have, therefore, espoused the cause of Land Restoration, which, in most instances, they assuredly would not have done but for George's seductive usury fallacy. In the Spring of 1883 was formed the ** Land Reform Union," During its brief existence it rendered good service. It had its " Henry George Campaign," and, on October 30th, it held a great St. James's Hall meet- ing, where Michael Davitt symbolised the solidarity of English and Irish Land Restorationists. The English Land Restoration League. — In May, 400 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 1884, the ** Land Reform Union " changed its name to that of the "EngHsh Land Restoratoin League,*' and Mr. Fred Verinder, who has ever since conducted the affairs of the League with consummate energy, prudence, and resource, became secretary. And here, as there must still be some who have not exact information regarding the ** Object," ** Method," ** Constitution," etc., of the League, and still more who are not members of it and may wish to be, I shall give the facts up to date. ENGLISH LAND RESTORATION LEAGUE. Object : The Abolition of Landlordism. Method : The Abolition of all taxes upon labour and the pro- ducts of labour and the earnings of labour ; and the increase of taxation upon land values until the whole annual value of land is taken in taxation for public purposes. Rev. Stewart D. Headlam, B A., M.L.S.B., Hon. Treasurer, — Fredk. Verinder, General Secretary. Offices ; 376 and 377, Strand, London, W.C. CONSTITUTION. (i.) That the Society be called The English Land Restoration League. (2.) That the object of the Society be the Restitution of the Lcind to the People. (3.) That this object be carried out by organising Branches of the League, by the affiliation of Clubs and other Societies, by hold- ing public meetings, by the collection and publication of facts con- nected with the present system of Land Tenure, and by other suit- able methods. (4.) That the Membership of the League be open to all v^^ho approve its object, and pay an Annual Subscription of not less than one shilling. (5.) That the management be vested in a General Committee, Treasurer, and Secretary, to be elected at the Annual Meeting, with the addition of one delegate from each Branch or Affiliated Society ; five to form a quorum. Notice of Nominations for the General Committee must reach the Secretary not later than the first day of May in each year. (6.) That a sum of not less than threepence per quarter per Member, be paid by each local branch into the Central Fund of the League. (7.) That a Business Meeting be held annually in May, at which a Financial Statement and report shall be presented and the Office Bearers and Committee elected. THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 40I (8 ) That no alteration in the Constitution of the League be made except at one of the Annual Meetings, or at a Special Meet- ing convened for the purpose, on the requisition of not less than five Members ; twenty-eight days' notice of any proposed altera- tion having been previously given, in writing to the Secretary. The first conclusive gauge of the progress of the League was the result of the General Election of 1885, when four of its members were returned to Parliament ; viz., William Saunders, J. C. Durant, Handel Cossham, and John Wilson. In the House itself Mr. Cossham moved as an amendment in Supply : That it is expedient that there should be a readjustment of the Land Tax with a view to assessing the said tax on the principle of one fifth present rental value of land. This was a creditable attempt to revive the historic impost of " four shillings in the pound on the full true yearly value of the land." The government managed to shelve the amendment, but its very appearance on the notice paper fluttered the dovecotes of landlordism not a little. Non-Taxation of London Ground Rents. — On the motion of Mr. Saunders the whole question of the Taxation of London Ground Rents was, referred to the Select Committee on Town Holdings. Before that Committee, in July 1887, he submitted a memorable statement which has since been widely quoted in the Press and the accuracy of which has never been challenged : The value of the site of London for rating purposes is ;^4 1 8,000,000. The value of the buildings Is, ;£ 212,000,000. The owners of the ;^4i8,ooo,ooo of " ground values " pay no rates, and the only taxation to which they are subjected is income tax and a nominal land tax. The total of both is less than half a million per annum. The occupiers of houses are charged with rates whicn average 5s. 3d. in the £^ not only upon the annual value of the buildings but also upon the annual value of the land. In addition to the rates, they pay House Duty and Income-tax. Thus : — 402 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. Land worth ;^4i 8,000,000 pays ;^5oo,ooo, in rates and taxes, and Buildings worth ;^2i2,ooo,ooo pay ;^8,ooo,ooo ! Such figures constitute a more appalHng con- demnation of landlordism than tomes of Demosthenic phillipics. " The Red Yans.'' — But the great and distinctive work of the Enghsh Land Restoration League has, after all, not been in the town but in the country. In the town, what with the willing aid of Radical Clubs, sympathetic journalists, and trained speakers, the work was from the first comparatively easy. In the country on the contrary, it was a case of making bricks without straw. But the bricks have been made nevertheless, and good sound bricks they promise to be. The mountain would not come to Mohammed and, therefore, Mohammed has gone to the mountain. The League's rural raiders, who are all picked men, take their lecture-platforms with them, and what is more their bedrooms and kitchens. The earliest systematic attack upon the rural districts was made in 1891, when the first of the now well-known **Red Vans " was sent into Suffolk, where nightly meet- ings were held in the villages from April to September. In the following year, the Executive were enabled, by a special Guarantee Fund of ;^i,ooo a year for five years, to increase the number of ** Red Vans " to five, with which five counties were visited. This guarantee expired at the end of 1896, several of the largest sub- scribers having unfortunately died in the interval. The vans (reduced, alas, to two in number) are now every- where known and welcomed by the labourers throughout the East, South, and Midlands of England, and it was largely to their work that the notable successes of the Land and Labour candidates in the first Parish Council elections were due. The Annual ** Red Van Reports" (Offices of the League, one penny) give full accounts of each year's work, and contain much information, often otherwise inaccessible, as to the position of the working agricultural community under landlordism. The num- THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 403 ber of meetings held under the Red Van Trust, 1891-97 amounted to 3,157. Campaigning in Darkest Rural England. — The modus operandi of the ** Red Van," in Suffolk is typical and is thus described in the League's Report : — " The meetings were announced by means of posters, each containing a list of a week's meetings. In the first few weeks of the campaign, the advertising was done through the local bill-posters ; but experience soon suggested a more effective and, as it happened, a cheaper method of distributing the notices through the post, which, while entailing an increase of work at the London office, has, by the unanimous testimony of the lecturers, answered admirably. ** The *' Red Van," arriving at a village, in accord- ance with the announcements, early in the forenoon, was stationed in as prominent a position as possible. Its colour, ** Post-office red," sufficiently striking and not resembling that adopted by either of the political parties, soon made it the object of much curiosity, and two large cartoons, representing landlordism in action, which were always displayed upon it, appealed during the whole day even to the most illiterate passer-by, and brought many enquiries for further information. The next step was to enlist the help of the school children, who have throughout proved most willing advertising- agents. A pictorial leaflet, with a red-ink notice of the meeting, was distributed at noon to the children as they left the village school, and verbal notice given of the exact spot at which the meeting would take place. During the day other leaflets were distributed to cot- tagers ; enquiry made as to the social condition of the village ; and much quiet propagandist work carried on by means of personal interviews, any known friends of the movement in the place, being specially visited. **The meetings were almost invariably held in the open air at 7.30 or 8 p.m. The attendance varied greatly according to the population of the village, the weather, and the circumstances of the people ; but the attend- ance was always large in proportion to the population, 404 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. and frequently the meeting consisted of practically the whole of the labouring men in the place with a good number of the women. " Local grievances — the enclosure of the common, the misappropriation of the rent of Poor's Land, and the like — often afforded a text for the lecture, which always concluded with an invitation to join the (affiliated) E.C.L,F., and to use the Union not only as a means of obtaining better wages, healthier homes, and the like, but also as ^ means to make their votes effective with a view to the abolition of landlordism, " At the end of the meeting the names of those wishing to join the English Counties Labour Federation were taken down, and the men themselves elected a trea- surer and a secretary pro tem.^ and decided upon a meeting-place for the branch. All these particulars were at once forwarded to the General Secretary of the Federation in Ipswich, who arranged a second meeting at the earliest possible date in order to complete the local organization. In no case were any subscriptions collected by the League's representatives on behalf of the Federation." Work more interesting and more useful it would be difficult to conceive in the existing deplorable condition of our rural economy. I, therefore, make no apology to the reader for here eviscerating for his benefit, the League's last altogether masterly " Red Van " Report (1897). Its chief feature is an almost startling revelation, in unusual detail, of the operations of landlordism in the ** Black Country '* — landlordism as represented by Lord Dudley — during the past twelve months. The Autocrat of the "Black Country."— In this rueful region, William Humble Ward, second Earl of Dudley, of Dudley Castle, co. Staffordshire, Vis- count Ednam, of Ednam, co. Roxburgh, and Baron Ward of Birmingham, co. Warwick, plunders the people and lays waste their dwellings with perfect im- punity. How so ? In all he does he has ** law and ordefy' nay the entire ** resources of civilization " at his hack. THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 405 And yet this mighty potentate did not, as one might have expected, ** come over at the Conquest,*' Dugdale in his ** Baronage " (1675), quaintly says of the ninth Sutton de Dudley that — Betaking himself wholly to a concubine, on whom he begot divers children, he so far wasted his estate in the support of her and them that he left not much of that fair inheritance which descended to him, and it so clog'd with debts, that for the disengaging thereof, he married Frances his granddaughter and heir, to Humble Ward, the only son of William Ward, a wealthy goldsmith in London, jeweller to the late Queen. In 1883 the Dudley rent-roll was reported at ;^i23, 176 per annum ; but it is probably much, very much, more. In a single year when a coal-famine was raging, the late Earl, according to the Daily Telegraph (May gth, 1885), ** derived from his coal and iron mines in Staffordshire not much less than one million pounds." The Earl has three ** seats "in the country, besides a London resi- dence and, though by no means a conspicuous paragon of piety, he is the patron of thirteen " livings " in the Church. Moreover the people delight to honour this hereditary freebooter with their suffrages. He is an Alderman of the Worcestershire County Council ; has been Mayor of Dudley oftener than once ; and till lately he represented Holborn on the London County Council. He is also Lord High Steward of Kidderminster, and he succeeded Ex-miner Thomas Burt as Parliamentary Secretary of the Board of Trade. In this latter capacity, humorously enough, the noble Lord, at the very time when he was wrecking the homes and destroying the industries of the population of Quarry Bank, professed to act as " mediator " between the notorious royalty-robber, Lord Penrhyn, and the slate quarriers of Bethseda whose galling treatment recently evoked universal reprobation. The workers, it must, alas, be confessed, vote for the same tyrants who oppressed them bsfore they had votes. As well give libraries to the blind and pianos to the deaf as franchises to those who dare not be free. 406 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. Lord Dudley as DeYastator. — Of the town of Dudley itself the Red Van lecturer reports : — The Earl of Dudley is " owner '* of most of the land, and all that is under the land, and of most that is on the land. Wages are low. This is absolutely the worst town I have ever been in. The greater part of the cottage property here is in a frightful condition. I was very glad to turn my back on Dudley, and hope that I may never have to go there again. In 1784, **when George the Third was King" and ** pocket boroughs" were the rule, Pensnett Chase was ** enclosed " by Act of Parliament. Lord Dudley's pre- decessor in title got most of the surface "swag" and the right to everything below the surface of the entire Chase. In case of damage done by undermining, the Act cunningly made not the Lord of the Manor only but all the freeholders liable. The Compensation Clause cannot, therefore, be made to work, and Lord Dudley is consequently complete master of the situation. With what result ? After the enclosures. Lord Dudley's ancestors, and probably some of the other freeholders, sold portions of the surface of what had once been the Chase for building purposes. The little town- ship of Quarry Bank, with its dwelling-houses, its shops, its factories, schools, churches and chapels, grew up on the slope of the hill, and — as things go in the Black Country — prospered. Within the last few years, Lord Dudley has asserted his right to mine for coal or iron under these buildings — many of them standing on land which his predecessors in title sold expressly for building purposes. Owing to the angle at which the coal lies (45 deg.), to its great thickness (8 to 10 yards), to its comparatively small depth below the surface (40 or 50 yards), and it is alleged, to the neglect of Lord Dudley to prop up the surface after the coal had been extracted, the houses of Quarry Bank have suffered so much damage that the general appearance of the place would suggest a recent earthquake or a bombardment. The houses of Quarry Bank, where they have not fallen into utter ruin, may be seen in all stages of destruction, the walls leaning at all kinds of angles, often cracked from top to bottom, sometimes with the window frames and glass broken into fragments by the movements of the walls. People walking along I he streets or sitting in the houses can hear the shots fired in the mines under their feet, and feel the foundations shake as the coal is brought down. In the spring of 1897, iiotice was given to seventy families at once, numbering about 300 souls, that they could only continue to occupy their homes at the risk of their lives ' THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 407 Lord Dudley as Compensator. — On September 23* 1S97, the Daily Chronicle drew attention to the following case, and it is but one out of scores of instances of flagrant and insolent injustice which might be cited : A working miner, named Tristram, some years ago borrowed money to erect four houses at Quarry Bank, at a cost of ;^66o. After many years of hard work he managed to pay off the mortgage. Lord Dudley's undermining operations destroyed the whole of his property, and Lord Dudley's agent disclaimed all liability for compensation, but offered him ;^io (!) as an " act of grace " ! Nay, his lordship's benevolence it would appear, eventually took a supreme form. In order to relieve cases of ** urgent distress," he graciously deposited a sum (said to amount to ;^30o), undertaking, moreover, to supply iron for cramping and wood for shoring threatened houses, if the owners cared to provide the labour, A munificent price to pay, truly, for the luxury of desolating a whole district, and destroying houses and businesses representing in sundry instances the industry and savings of a life time ! Britains never, never, never shall be slaves ! Lord Dudley as Fleecer of Local Boards. — It is not only the homes and the industries, the Sunday schools and the chapels, of the people of Quarry Bank, that are being ruined by Lord Dudley. The whole Local Government and Municipal Institutions of the township are equally at his mercy. The District Council is being impoverished and starved by the wholesale destruction of rateable hereditaments, while local expenses are being increased by the ** crowning- in " of the roads. The proper drainage of the district has to await Lord Dudley's pleasure at the risk of an epidemic. In almost every discussion at the District Council, the dominant factor is ** Lord Dudley's mining operations." The Chairman of the Kingswinford School Board in his recent annual review of the work of the Board, showed that Lord Dudley, even under these 408 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. painful circumstances, is not too proud to accept money from the impoverished rate-payers. The Rev. R. H. Stretton told the Board that :— The purchase of mines . . . cost at Bent Street Board School, jf 570, and at Quarry Bank, ;f 1,929, or a total of ;f 2,499. The Board were at present arranging tor a further purchase and exchange of mines at Quarry Bank at a cost of £z^o. He might say on the pubject that the Board and the ratepayers might, he thought, be now reasonably satisfied that their schools would be safe from damage by the mining operations at Quarry Bank, which were doing so much injury to surrounding property. It was necessary for the Board to secure their schools as far as possible from damage. Of course it was not absolutely certain that they had gained their object, but he thought the Board had done all it could in that direction. The Yanished Map of Pensett Chase. — One of the chief difficulties in the way of enforcing the Compensation Clause of the Enclosure Act of 1784, has been that the boundaries of the ancient Chase cannot be definitely ascertained. Last session Mr. Brynmor-Jones, Q.C., M.P., at the instance of E.L.R.L. Executive, questioned the Home Secretary on the subject in the following very significant terms : — Whether he was aware that the Kingswinford Enclosure Act made provision that copies of the map annexed to the award of the Commissioners showing the common lands allotted under the Act, should be deposited in the parish church of Kingswinford, in the county of Stafford, and in one of her Majesty's Courts of Record at Westminster ; whether he was aware that the copy deposited in the said parish church had disappeared, and that the copy of the map deposited in one of her Majesty's Courts at Westminster, and duly indexed there could no longer be found, and that the sole copy now remaining was in the hands of the Lord of the Manor of Kingswin- ford (Lord Dudley) ; whether he was aware that, owing to the sub- sidence of the soil at Quarry Bank, in the said parish, caused by mining operations, there were disputes pending between the lord of the said manor and divers other persons which rendered access to the said map necessary ; and whether, under these circumstances, he could see his way to having a certified copy of the said map made, and deposited in the Record Office. Need it be said that hitherto the vanished map is as much a desideratum as it ever was ? One really some- times sickens at the supineness and servility of English- THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 4O9 men, and marvels what their condition would be like without the stimulus of the " Celtic fringes " and persons, like most of the General Committee of E, L. R, L., ** swept up from other places.'' "Educated" Yan-wreckers.— The ** right of public meeting," for example, is much more frequently violated than vindicated in the strongholds of rural landlordism. At Aylesbury the League's Red Van, drawn up in the market place, was, at the dead of night, savagely assailed by seven *' educated" ruffians with hammers and hurdles, and the two sleeping inmates were in as great danger of their lives as if they had been camping in a Congo jungle. Finding themselves unable to do all they desired, the assailants got on to the front of the van, and smashinej in the panels of the door, reached the cooking utensils and lamps and flung them at those inside with entire carelessness of possibilities. After near half an hour's struggle, one of the attacking party received a blow — probably from one of his own party — and the cs ew then hurried off. Neither of those attacked knew who they were, but by the light of the big lamp in the market they had a sufficiently good view of them to note three of the faces. They also noticed that when one of the party, with considerable heroism, invited the two men to " cpme on " against seven, and assured them "we can deal with you," they spoke as educated men. There was no more sleep that night, of course. The van was a sad wreck. Both windows were splintered to atoms, the door had been burst and the lamps broken, while Bartlett (lecturer) was badly bruised, and Patterson (driver) was scarcely able to walk. By way of compensation a ridiculously inadequate sum was offered and had to be accepted in the name of ** civil damages " ! The constable — supposed to be on " point-duty " in the market — left the square before the attack, and conveniently did not return till it was over. "Justices' justice" is of course proverbial, but where Red Vans are concerned it is simply a complete carica- ture of the word. It is injustice raised to almost any power to which the particular J. P. or J.P.'s have a mind. On one occasion Mr. Bartlett was summoned before the East Norton Bench for obstructing the highway and fined 30S., though the offence was at most merely tech- nical. On the same day four drunken German bands- DD ^10 THE ANNALS OJ TOIL. men assaulted a man on the highway with drawn clasp- knives in their hands. They were fined nothing ; costs IS. 6d. each ! From this it may presumably be inferred that a single English Land Restorer, armed with nothing but logic and justice, is twenty times more dangerous than an intoxicated foreigner brandishing a formidable knife ! Worcestershire Savages. — The almost incredible social tyranny under which the English agricultural labourer has groaned for ages has, in some God-forsaken parts of the country, been productive of a savagery that could hardly be paralleled outside of *' Darkest Africa." Indeed, I recently read Commander Lovett Cameron's wholly unvarnished record of his hazardous journey right across that Continent of Pagan " black men," but do not recall any incident quite so repulsive as the following **true story" of a lecturer's experience in the Christian ** Wilds of Worcestershire." *' Our van was placed on a small triangular plot of waste land in the village of Naunton Beauchamp, which lies four and a half miles north of the town of Pershore. At eight p.m., when I had com- menced to speak, some fifty men and women had assembled. Before I had proceeded far in my lecture, I was subjected to continual in- terruption from a farmer, who later on was aided and abetted by another farmer. There is no policeman here, and none attended from the neighbouring villages during the night. Furthermore, there is no inn ; but 4^ gallon casks of cider are sold to the men who club together to obtain the drink. On the night in question I continued my meeting till 9.30 p.m., when a ^i gallon cask of cider having been obtained, the men gathered round the van, insulting us, and threaten- ing violence. Between whiles they amused themselves by singing the filthiest songs, and their conversation was of the foulest descrip- tion. Worse still, young women were present, and they also in- dulged in unseemly remarks. There was one honourable exception, a young woman, wife of one of the villagers, who stood near our van from 8 p.m. till midnight, protesting with all the vigour of incensed maternity at the general conduct. Scarcely more than a girl, there she stood for four hours with a babe of only eight months in her arms. About midnight, suddenly her husband disengaged himself from the lewd rascals around him, and, striding towards her, struck her full in the face with his clenched fist, loosening her teeth and otherwise bruising her. The woman staggered and would have fallen with her infant child had not another woman caught her in time. Then for a moment or two a scene occurred which almost baffles description. Shrieks from the women, cries and savage yells THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 4II from the men, who were one and all on the side of him who had struck the mother. Suddenly the woman collected herself, and springing forward dealt a swinging blow at one of the aggressors, crying out that he had been the instigator of the blow which her husband had given her. He reeled and fell, and then the three — husband, wife, and farmer — were for some moments struggling and fighting on the ground almost beueath the van. We did what was possible in the case, and then the man arose and drove his wife before him to their cottage near at hand. The 'Worcestershire savages ' of this village stood idly by enjoying this scene, nor did they in any way attempt to stop the use of violence. Soon the hus- band returned, and then stripped and challenged anyone to come and fight him. More cider having been procured, the drunken orgie proceeded, and we were kept on the defensive in the van till day- break Now, sir, the root of all this lies in the ignorance of the people. This village is hopelessly in the hands of the representa- tives of the system of Land Monopoly. There is no Parish Council, and, when the Parish Meeting was called last December, I am told that the indifference and ignorance of the people were such that no one attended. There is no clergyman, though one comes over on a Sunday, I understand, to address the pews of the Church of Bar- tholomew, or the arms of the Beauchamp family which adorn the exterior walls of the chancel. Some, at least, of the local charities, the people say, can no longer be traced. The cottages, which mostly belong to the farmers (' tied '), are dear, and ' there is not a good one in the place. ' The drainage is disgraceful, and the water supply is so bad that only one man has decent accommodation in this respect in the village, the remaining villagers having to content themselves with the green and foul water from the brook. Of the morals of the inhabitants I have said sufficient, and the only consolatory remark I could draw from the oldest and largest farmer in this remnant of savage England was, that ' I had no business to come there at all,' " A Labourer's Domestic Budget. — A wonderful thing is a ** Labourer's Domestic Budget" in the very best of circumstances, when he has regular work, a rent-free cottage, few (two) children, and a wage averaging about 13s. a week. Here is a sample of such from a parish in the Bradfield Poor Law Union, Berks: — 5. rf. Bread (5 quarterns) i 10 Flour (i gallon) o 4 Tea (i lb.) o 6 Butter (i lb.) i 3 Lard (i lb.) o 6 Sugar (6 lbs.) I o Bacon or other Meat (about 4 lbs.) 2 8 412 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. Cheese (i lb.) o 8 Milk (half-tin contf^MS^^) o 3i Oil, Candles, Blue, Soap, Soda, Salt, Pepper, &c i o Coal I o Beer wow^ Tobacco • ^ow^ Insurance ("Prudential") o 3 Labourers' Union o i Wood, Tools, Dispensary, about o 6 Insurance (" Foresters' ") and margin for clothes i if 13 o The " average cost per head per week " of the inmates of the workhouse of the above Union, whose Guardians pride themselves on rigid economy, is for s. d Men 6 i^ Women 5 6| Children (Young) 5 ij It is plain, therefore, that if the family above described should be compelled by misfortune to seek the shelter of the workhouse, the cost of keeping them alive will be £1 is. lo^d. per week. Yet they are all expected to live and to " save," outside the workhouse, on 13s. a week ! What can be said of the condition of another family in the same parish, consisting of eleven persons, who have to " live " on a wage of I2S. a week (reduced to iis. in winter), out of which 3s. a week is paid for the cottage ? And here appropriately may be introduced THE LORDS' PRAYER. Lord, keep us rich and free from toil ; For we Are honoured holders of Thy soil, Which democrats would now despoil With glee. O Lord, our fathers got the land For serving those whom Thy right hand Had chosen to be great and grand As Kings. Tho' ta'en by force, we're not to blame. Thou know'st, O Lord, it is a shame To say to us — of titled name — Such things. Lord, let us live in wealth's content, And peace. THE ANNALS OF TOIL, 413 Lord, we are by Thy mercy meant To rule mankind, and make our Rent Increase. The birds that haunt the moors and hills, The fish that swim in streams and rills, The beasts that roam as Nature wills, We own. E'en Lord the minerals that lie Beneath the earth's periphery, Belong to us ! Thou knowest why » Alone. Lord, on the ragged rabble frown, For they Are foes to Us, the Church, and Crown, So bare Thine arm and grind them down To clay. O Lord, our God, we make their Laws, Which they reject with wild applause; Be Thou a buckler to our cause And caste. They scorn our Laws, Thy name and Word, They reverence now, nor Squire nor Lord, Oh, them consume with fire and sword At last. Lord, they are poor and ignorant, And worse. Compared with us how different In manners, garb, and lineament. And purse ! Lord never let them get or see The power which lies in unity. Keep us apart from them, for we Are men. Protect us from their greedy hands, Protect us from their vile demands. Protect us in our wealth and lands. Amen ! Amen ! LAND NATIONALISATION SOCIETY. For the following esoteric and somewhat pathetic data affecting the origin and early history of L,N,S. I am indebted to Mr. A. C. Swinton (of 2, Grove Road, Hastings), whose devotion to " the cause " has been, and still is, unwearied and unsurpassed : — ** Having been a Radical Reformer (says Mr. Swinton) since 1856, I was delighted to read an article in the Contemporary Review of Nov. 1880, by a Naturalist 414 THE ANNALS OF TOIL SO eminent as Dr. Alfred Russel Wallace, and I at once wrote to him suggesting that we should see what could be done to realise his proposals. He replied cheer- ingly, and I went to see him on the subject. Knowing, then, something of many of the chief Radi- cals throughout the country by some 25 years of previous Reform work, it was arranged that I should in- form them what we were disposed to do, and ascertain if they thought adequate support could be had to the Principle of Nationalisation. It seems that some 1,200 letters were then written by me, a number of them being addressed to members of Mr. John Stuart MilFs unsuccessful Land Tenure Reform League. The replies were, with a few exceptions, against any such attempt — even from those who had previously avowed that all reforms were mainly futile whilst the Land was monopolised, and that for its enfranchise- ment all of its victims should concentrate their strength. Some thought the time was premature ; others that the tendency was to strengthen freehold tenure, etc., etc. In short they failed to see that to this basic cause nearly all the preventable social evils and degeneracy may be traced, and that averting national death depends upon its extinction. Not being deterred bj^ the views of such seers. Dr. Wallace and I arranged to hold a preliminary meeting at my house on Central Hill, Upper Norwood, on Sunday March 6th, 1881, At that meeting there were present Dr. G. B. Clark; Mr. G. G. Flaws; Mr. Patrick Henessey — a noteworthy Labour representative, who said afterwards, ** This is an historical event " ; Mr. , a Solicitor ; myself; and Dr. Wallace^pre- siding. It was there and then decided that a Society should be formed, and known as the Land Nationalisation Society, I soon found that the Society must cease to exist un- less I continued to give it my work and constant super- vision, and this I did, however unfitted, under the titl6 of Treasurer for about five years — till my strength and sight failed me much, and I was relieved by men youngpr THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 4X5- and abler for such work. The main cause of this result!' was the non-fulfilment of promises to subscribe ;^i,i25, of which sum the Society only received £gS is, id,, £^0 of which I paid. Disagreement on some vital principles led to the secession of a number of members who advocated the methods oi Henry George. These formed a Society named the Land Reform Union, now known as The English Land Restoration League, ., During this early period of the hardest trials of the L.N.S. it had much for which to thank Mr. Henry W. Ley, who so ably and disinterestedly did, as a poor man, but ever cheerful and resolute in spirit, whatever he undertook — more especially the dreary routine work for Executive Meetings. I am glad and grateful to name this great service of the time, both on the Society's be- half and my own, and I hope it may be publicly recorded. It seems significantly noteworthy that as Dr. Wallace and his great friend Charles Darwin attained simultane- ously identical logical conclusions — now so generally accepted, as to the principle of Evolution by Natural Selection from the lower types of animal life up to man : — the former being in the Malay Archipelago and the latter in England : — so has the Land Tenure idea keenly impressed the receptive minds, and now it must fructify till, however gradually, the entire Land of the Nations is equally free to their use. In Dr. Wallace's work on the Malay Archipelago (edition, 1868) he states that our Land system shows, ** as regards true Social Science, we are still in a state of barbarism " (See ex- tract in L.N.S. leaflet xxv., ** Opinions of Leading Thinkers "). A year or so after we started our L.N.S., Mr. Henry George being then probably in California, we met with a First Edition of his great and far-shining work Progress and Poverty. The idea of realising Land Nationalisa- tion was then, so to state it, strong in the air. It is, of course, in evidence, as has been seen, that Dr. A. R. •Wallace is the Founder of the L.N.S. as well as its President. He warmly shares, I know, with all its 4l6 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. true-hearted workers the cheer we now have of seeing much persisent care and toil being rewarded by the pro-, gress we are making in the greatest and holiest cause which human beings can devote themselves to win." Let us next see what are the main positions of the L.N,S,j as defined by its venerable President, the great Naturalist himself and eminent Land- Surveyor, to whom we all owe so deep a debt of gratitude : — PRINCIPLES OF NATIONALISATION.— (a) The land alone in its inherent value, as dependent on natural conditions, means of communication, nearness to markets, etc., should become the Property of the State. The houses, buildings, private roads, fences, and the increased value given to the land by cultivation, drainage or other permanent improvements, would remain the property of the landlord, and constitute his tenant-right. This he might sell, or transfer in any way he pleased, either as regards the whole or any part of the buildings ; and the purchaser or transferee would become thereby the holder or perpetual tenant under the State, on payment of the fixed quit-rev t, and subject only to such general rules and bye-laws as might be made by Parliament from time to time. (h) All land — whether in country or town — should be held direct from the State, and solely for the personal use and enjoyment of the occupier. It should therefore never be sublet, as, if this was allowed, large quantities of land or house property might again be held by individuals to relet at profit, and most of the evils of unrestricted private property in land might be reproduced. (c) Complete freedom in the choice of a home, and ample space whereon to build a dwelling-house are essential to health and happiness. It should, therefore be declared the right of everyone, once in their lifetime, to chose a piece of agricultural land (say not less than one nor more than five acres, for personal occupation on paying fair compensation to the occupier, and under such conditions and regulations as would minimise the inconvenience of such free selection. Such a power of pre-emption of land for a dwelling house or garden, at little increase uf cost over its agricultural value, would largely increase the production of food, and divert the surplus population of towns to rural districts. Perhaps, more than anything else, it would tend to abolish pauperism and to diminish crime ; and though this incalculable benefit is quite impossible of attainment under our present system, it would be easy and natural under the system of the nationalisation of the land here advocated. (d) The State should resume the land for the benefit of the community ; but while doing so, should recognise equitable claims arising out of its possession by individuals ; these claims should be extinguished by terminal annuities payable to landlords and their already living heirF, THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 417 METHODS OF NATIONALISATION.— (a) The land itself, in its inherent value (as already explained) to become the pro- perty of the state at a fixed date, say five or ten years after the passing of the Act. (b). The fair net rental value of all the landed property of the United Kingdom to be determined by a general valuation of every separate enclosure or plot of land. (c) The rental value thus determined to be in each case divided in two portions, the one presenting the value of the land itself, the other the additional value given to it by the landowners or occupiers. (d). The first of the two portions would be the quit-rent to be hereafter paid by the occupier to the State; the other portions would be the annual value of the tenant-right to be purchased, or otherwise acquired from the landlord by the tenant, and thereafter to give to its owner the right to occupy the land under the State, subject to the revision of quit-rents (say, once in a generation) to adjust any important changes in inherent value. (e). The amount to be paid to the landlord for the portions of his property represented by the teftant-right should be fixed at a certain number of years' purchase, to be settled by the valuers according to the circumstances of each case ; and this sum should be payable by the tenant (unless the tenant-right already belongs to him) either in one sum or by a terminable rental. if). In lieu of that portion of his property taken by the State, each landlord should be awarded a Government annuity of the same amount as the quit-rent, to be paid to him and continued to such of his heirs as may have been alive at the passing of the Act. (g). All enclosed lands on which little or no human labour has been expended — such as the vast deer forests of Scotland and the mountain wastes of Wales and Ireland — having no tenant-right attached to them, should become the absolute property of the State on payment to their present landlords of the Government Annuity representing their annual value for grazing purposes. These would furnish a wide area for settling peasant occupiers in farms of from ten to twenty acres, with right of pasture over the unenclosed por- tions, thus affording an outlet for the surplus population of over- crowded districts by home colonisation of a kind most beneficial to the community. RESULTS OF NATIONALISATION.— Such a system of Land Nationalisation would carry with it a great progressive alleviation of our fiscal burdens, for, as the annuities to existing landlords and their heirs terminated, the quit-rents of the land would be applied in reduction of taxation, and thus render possible the clearing off our vast load of debt. The royalties on all mines and minerals would still further diminish taxation; while much of the unen- closed land in the less peopled districts might be let out for cul- tivation at low quit-rents, and thus furnish another source of 4l8 THE ANITALS OF TOIL. national income. So soon as this grand and beneficent reform is effected, every Englishman will for the first time in our history, be really free to share in the benefits which the possession of land for personal occupation is calculated to afford. No restric- tion need at first be placed on the quantity of land a person may occupy, because, subletting being illegal, few persons would care to have more than they could profitably cultivate, or reasonably enjoy. None would possess exclusive privileges. The labourer or mechanic, with his acre or two of land, would be in every respect as independent and as free to enjoy it unmolested as the peer or merchant with his demesne of a thousand acres or more ; and the free action of supply and demand would everywhere lead to that^ mode of cultivation best adapted to satisfy the wants and promote the welfare of the community. Under this system, the whole of the land would belong to the State, without cost ; yet no Government supervision or management (with its inevitable wastefulness and favouritism) would be permitted, or would be even possible. The possession of the tenant-right as private property, saleable and trans- ferable with ease, and carrying with it an absolute right to the occu- pation of the land, with its house or other buildings, subject only to payment of the State quit-rent, would render all supervision and any. interference with the perfect freedom of the owner unnecessary, and any jobbery or patronage impossible— thus entirely obviating the greatest objection to all schemes of nationalisation of the land hitherto proposed. For the rest, the methods of propaganda pursued by the L.N'.5. — "Established to restore the Land to THE People and the People to the Land" — are very similar to those of the E,L.R,L. and need no de- tailed exposition. If the E.L,R,L, has its '* Red Vans," the L,N,S. has its ** Yellows," its missionary literature, and its monthly organ, Land and Labour " (Reeves,' 185, Fleet Street). Its headquarters, where all neces- sary information may be had, are at 47, Victoria Street, Westminster, London, S.W. '^ Spence's Glorious Plan of Parochial Partnership without Private Landlordism" (1775). — In expro- priating the vampires of landlordism the proverbial ** three courses" seem to be open to reformers. The E.L.R.L, says "tax" them out and the L.N.S, says " pay " them out. But for unmatched lucidity and comprehensive righteousness "Spence's Plan" {^775) hath to this day no fellow. Its burden is ** kick " them .out and it should be blazoned aloft in letters of gold THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 4X9 wherever the weary sons and daughters of toil most do congregate : — Let the Parishioners unite, take Archdeacon Paley in the one hand and the Bible in the other, assemble in an adjoining field, and, after having discussed the matter to their own satisfaction, enter into a Convention, and unanimously agree to a Declaration of Rights, in which it is declared that all the land — including coal pits, mines, rivers, etc., belonging to the Parish of Bees, now in the possession of Ldrd Drone — shall, on Lady Day, 25th March, 18 — , become Public Property, the ^oint- Stock c^nd Common Farm, in which every Parishioner shall enjoy an equal participation . The same Declaration shall serve as a notice to Lord Drone to quit possession, and to give up all right and title to all the land, etc, he has hitherto possessed to the People of the sai^ Parish of Bees, on or before the above-mentioned day for ever. And it may be further declared that, on Midsummer Day ensuing, all the Rents arising from the lands, mines, rivers, coal-pits, etc., belonging to the said Parish, instead of being paid, as heretofore, into the hands of Lord Drone or his Steward, shall be paid into the hands of a Parish Committee or Board of Directors, who may be appointed for that purpose, after being duly elected by a respectable majority of the whole Parish ; and that, after the National, Provincial and Parochial Governments are provided for out of the Rents thus collected, the Remainder may be divided into equal shares among all the 'Parishioners — men, women and children — includinor Lord and Lady Drone and all the little Drones belongitig to the family, and the like division to be made on every succeeding Quarter Day forever. NEO-SOCIALIST ORIGINS.— No. III. POSITIVISTS AND POSITIVISM. The Working Classes are entitled to claim that the whole field of Social Institutions should be re-examined, and every question considered as if it now arose for the first time, with the idea con- stantly in view that the persons who are to be convinced are not those who owe their ease and importance to the present system, but persons who have no other interest in the matter than abstract justice and the general good of the community. — ^J. S. Mill. Freedom is something substantial. A. man who is ignorant is not free. A man who is a tramp is not free. A man who sees his wife and children starving is not f^ee. A man who must toil twelve hours a day in order to vegetate is not free. A man who is full of cares is not free. A wage-worker, whether labourer or clerk, who, every day for certain hours, must be at the beck and call of a *' master " is not free. — Lawrence Gronlund. A class is fixed when nine-tenths of those composing it can never get out of it. Why mock working men by putting rare exceptions for a general rule ? — ^Jesse Jones. Be careful, Sirs, how ye judge of God's Revolutions as the pro- ducts of Man's invention. — Oliver Cromwell, For the following brief but comprehensive account of the numerically insignificant, but intellectually and morally unmatched, body of English Positivists, their aims and doings, I am wholly indebted to their excellent Secretary, Mr. S. H. Swinny. It has but one defect— the rarest of any in the modern democratic world — it is much too modest : Scope of PositiYist Action.— The English Positiv- J.20 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 421 ists, adherents of a system of life and thought based on science, physical, social and moral, and with the progress of mankind as their aim, have always been eager to take their part in dealing with the practical needs of the day, whether the question was to de- fend intellectual freedom, to utilise all the resources of civilization for the benefit of the mass of people, or to protect weaker races and promote friendship and justice between the nations. As to the first point, the vindication of freedom of speech and teaching, the Positivists outspoken avowal of unpopular beliefs has had some effect in encouraging others to avow them, and in making them less unpopular. They have also, from time to time, made occasional protests against invasions of spiritual liberty, such as the Blasphemy Prosecutions of 1883, the exclusion of Charles Bradlaugh from Parlia- ment, and the attempted interference with Socialist meetings in 1885 ; but in general the continuous growth of religious freedom has rendered this part of the work of secondary importance. It has been far otherwise in regard to Foreign Affairs and to the Condition of the People. Imperialism, unlike intolerance, has increased rather than dimin- ished, while though the position of the workers has improved and their power has advanced, yet this has been brought about by a hard struggle in which the Positivists played a distinguished part. They have always looked upon the two questions as closely connected. Foreign and Colonial aggression have ever been favourite baits to draw people from internal reform ; and it is impossible for men to be free citizens at home and despots abroad. Imperial expansion employs the hopes and energies which would otherwise be spent in the re-organization of industrial life. I shall therefore tell the story of the public action of the Positivists from 1859 onwards without too nicely dis- criminating whether it bore directly on Labour and Trade Unions, or was concerned with the peoples of Africa and India, and the maintainance of just and ^^2 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. honorable dealing between England and the other nations of the world. The PositiYists' Relation to Trade Unionism.— Dr. Richard Congreve had already put forward pamph- lets on the Foreign Policy of England and on India, when in 1859 he wrote a letter supporting the Building Strike and thus commenced the long and important connection of the English Positivists with the Trade Union leaders. He was soon joined in the work by some younger colleagues, Edward Spencer Beesly, Frederic Harrison, Godfrey and Vernon Lushington, and, rather later, by Henry Crompton and others. The advantage of the connection was obvious. Trade Unionism had at that time few friends. The leading Positivists, men of wide views and enthusiastic in the cause of the workers, were well fitted to defend the Unions in their writings, and to oppose the stream of calumny which issued from the Capitalist Press ; and the lawyers amongst them gave invaluable advice at a time when the Unions had no legal status, and when so much turned on the vague and odious Law of Con- spiracy and its Amendment. Beginning with Professor Beesly's defence of Trade Unions in the Westminster Review (1861) we find a series of Positivist writings sup- porting the Workers at home and a policy of justice and generosity abroad, until in the year 1867, the ap- pointment of Frederic Harrison as one of the two repre- sentatives of the Trade Unionists on the famous Royal Commission, identified the Positivists with the cause of the Unions in a still more definite and pubhc way. It is unnecessary to relate in detail the services he rendered on that Commission — to the ruin of his own practice at the bar — ^services, not only in the examination and cross examination of witnesses but still more in drawing up the Minority Report, which contained an account of the character and objects of Trade Unionism, and of the amendments required in the law. At that time per- haps only one Member of Parliament was completely in sympathy with these demands, but a few years later they were for the most part passed into law by a^ THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 423 Conservative Government in a Conservative House of Commons. The Eyre and Broadhead Incident. — One inci- dent of the time, small in itself, had the effect of making Professor Beesly's name as well known to the workers as Frederic Harrison's. While the Com- mission was sitting and the Trade Union Leaders were giving evidence of the law-abiding character of the Unions, their opponents were put into high feather by the discovery of a connection between Broadhead, a Sheffield Unionist, and certain trade outrages which had occured in that town, and had been much discussed. It is needless to say that the friends of the Unions felt little inclined to defend one who had done their cause so great an injury, but some remarks made by Beesly at a meeting in Exeter Hall were seized upon by the press as being intended to excuse the Sheffield crimes. It so happened that the public mind was then much exercised by the case of Governor Eyre, who was accused of putting down a negro rebellion in Jamaica with unnec- cessary cruelty and bloodshed. A committee, on which the leading Positivists sat, had been formed to prosecute him for murder, and although it failed to bring him to justice, the celebrated charge of Lord Chief Justice Cockburn to the Grand Jury was a not unimportant result of its labours. Now Professor Beesly, at the meeting in Exeter Hall, did not hesitate to suggest a comparison between Eyre and Broadhead, between the criminal defended by the rich and powerful, and the criminal sprung from the people. As a consequence he became for a time the best abused man in England. So high did the storm rise that the London Trades Council thought it necessary to issue a protest in the defence of one " who for the past seven years has been the patient, zealous and judicious friend and adviser of the Trades Unions of the United Kingdom." But the abuse that was lavished on him only served to endear him the more to the workers. Positivists and the International. — In the years that followed the Positivists continued to battle beside />^1 424 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. the Trade Unionists for the legal recognition of the Unions, and the abrogation of the Law of Conspiracy, defending the Unionist theory, drawing attention to particular cases of hardship, and even, when all else failed, meeting the victims of injustice at the doors of the prison. In another part of their work they were less success- 1. Looking at the labour question from a human and not a purely national point of view, they were anxious to complete the union of the workers by joining together those of every nation. A confer- ence held in 1863 to express sympathy with the Poles, led in the next year to the first meeting of the International, and at this Professor Beesly presided ; but certain fundamental differences between the English and Foreign leaders prevented the movement from playing the great part its founders had hoped. Later on, the same interest in all mankind led to the Positiv- ists espousing the cause of the French, and trying to rouse the public opinion of England against the dis- memberment of France — the origin of that armed peace from which Europe has suffered so long. The masses were roused, but not the rulers, and the dismemberment took place. After the fall of the Commune the Positiv- ists joined in another work of a very different kind, the succouring of the starving refugees from Paris. Positiyist and Trade Union ** Split" OYer Irish (Liberal) Coercion. — For many years after the legalisa- tion of Trade Unions, the close connection between their leaders and the Positivists continued. But it was not likely to be permanent. The extension of the franchise — a measure advocated by the Positivists, not on any theory of democratic right, but as a means of improving the condition of the workers and forcing their wants on the attention of the Government — secured for the toilers a different treatment in the political world. As time went on, they were courted on all hands, and had no want of friends, while the suspicion that many of these friends were far from disinterested, made the Trade' Unionists distrustful of all outsiders. In i860, they THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 425 were alone and despised; in 1880, they were an ac- knowledged part of the body politic, flattered by great parties and great statesmen. The actual breach, how- ever, came with the Irish Coercion policy of the Liberal Government in 1881. The sufferings of Ireland had long been a subject of concern to the English Positivists, In 1867, they had petitioned the House of Commons in favour of the Fenian prisoners, praying that their sentences might be reconsidered, and that they might not be treated as ordinary criminals — a petition which at the time, provoked great indignation. Dr. Bridge wrote on the same subject. In the years that followed the Positivists Continued to urge the claims of Ireland and in 1881 they warmly opposed the Liberal Coercion as they opposed that brought in by the Conservatives six years later. Now, as part of the Liberal policy was to put down Combination by the Law of Conspiracy — the very thing Trade Unionists had been protesting against for so many years — it seemed to the Positivists that the Trade Unionists ought to have joined them in opposing Coercion ; but they refused to break with the Liberal Government. They thus not only betrayed their principles, but they abandoned the policy of keep- ing aloof from political connections ; they ceased to aim at holding th« balance between parties, and for a time sank into an appendage of the Liberals. And so they and the Positivists parted company. Wherein Positivism and Trade Unionism Differ. — It should, however, be said that the Positivists, anxious as they were to support Trade Unions and extend their influence, never believed that Trade Union- ism was a cure for all the troubles of Labour. Like the Socialists, they look to a complete re-organisation of Society, but unlike the Socialists, they think that this re-organisation must extend to all parts of human life, to thought and feeling as well as to action and institutions. To the Positivists, Trade Unions were a means to an end, a means of obtaining for the Workers their due place, not as a class, but as the Body of Society. eb 426 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. In later, years, the Positivists, while abating none of their zeal in the cause of the workers, have perhaps been more occupied in denouncing the wrongs which the present craze for Empire renders inevitable. Whether in the Positivist Society, in the public ad- dresses at Newton Hall, in the Positivist Review^ or elsewhere, they have continued to bear their testimony against the enslavement and the exploitation of weaker races. And if they have seemed to some to be so occupied with this, as to neglect other questions of equal importance, it must be remembered that this is a cause for which at the moment few are ready to fight. They have gladly joined with the Social Democrats in defence of the unfortunate people of India, as they joined with the Christian Socialists forty years ago in vindication of the claims of the workers. Too often they have had to fight alone ; but alone or with others, the fight will still go on. CHAPTER XIV. SOCIALISTS AND SOCIALISM.— No. I. The Fabians (F.S) Modern greed, with its class hatreds, individualisms, aristocracies, its struggle for personal wealth, dangerous defiance in our faith and in our political economy, is not Christianity at all. It is the ancient evil still lingering in the roots of the gradually decaying Paganism that appears to remain for the labour movement to smother, and at last uproot and completely annihilate. The phenomenal fact remains that the present movement, whose most Radical wing loudly disclaims Christianity, is nevertheless building exactly upon the precepts of that Faith, as it was told to us and taught us by Jesus Christ. Jesus, who planted among the communes and labourers all that was good and pure, but whose beautiful works have been almost banished by the proud old Paganism still adhering in His temples, departed only to return ; for these growing squadrons of modern " mites " foretell that He is fleeting back to assume command of a great army of unreconciled but longing inttUigences, which ihe ancient working people quickened, and which the suns of two thousand years have mellowed for the harvest. — Osborn Ward, Fabian ** Origins." — The Fabian Society was founded in London, in 1883. Its virtual founder was my brother, Dr. Thomas Davidson of New York, author of the *' Philosophy of Rosmini-Serbati," ** Aristotle and Ancient Educational Ideals," the ** Parthenon Frieze," etc. He had just returned from Rome, where he had discussed affairs with his Holiness the Pope, and was in a frame of mind to regenerate mankind on lines which did not appear to me — who was then doing all I could to prevent the G.O.M. from throttling Ireland — very promising. Mr. Edward R. Pease, the General Fabian Secretary, in an article written some years ago, describes the origin of Fabianism thus gaily : 427 428 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. ** Like all other great movements, the Fabian Society boasts of a humble origin. In the year 1883, Socialism was almost unknown in these islands. The toiling wage-slaves, otherwise called proletariat, fancied that they were free and independent electors, and were content to spend their lives heaping up riches for Land- lord and Capitalist, with no dreams of the good time coming when the land tax shall be twenty shillings in the poand, and the Capitalist shall be as extinct as the freebooter or highwayman. But Mr. Henry George's '* Progress and Poverty,'^ had "been written; and here and there a few people were wondering whether the many must always toil and the few squander ; whether the ** laws of political economy" really did command that the East-end of London must ever grow farther and farther from the West- end. ** Then there came a man from New York, Professor Thomas Davidson by name, and a few discontented loafers sat at his feet whilst he sketched a vague scheme for convincing the world of its errors in respect of transcendental metaphysics — Mr. Davidson believes devoutly in the teachings of one Rosmini — and for founding a settlement of sound metaphysicians in North Chili, where they should dwell apart from the world, enjoying plain living and high thinking, leading a new life far away from the base struggle for wealth and luxury. " Mr. Davidson soon departed but his disciples met in a small upper chamber to discuss further of these things. Then however, there arose a friendly split. The true disciples, formed a society which has slowly . grown, and is now called the New Fellowship. The rest, led by Mr. Frank Podmore, decided to debate these things more fully, and, having evolved a gospel, to preach it to the world, that it too, might turn from its wickedness and live. " Thus was founded the Fabian Society, by a little band of a dozen men and women, mostly young and green and middle -class, but resolved to strike hard when the time came." THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 429 First Strokes. — For several years the Fabian Society continued in the drawing-room stage ; but the time was by no means wasted. The members devoted them- selves to a rigid examination of the economic basis of existing society and, as was to be expected, found it lamentably unsound. Their first sally into the field of practical poHtics was to join one of the numerous amateur London ** Parliaments," which they were soon able to dominate. They formed a ** Ministry," and formulated a complete Socialist Program. They carried their "Bills" by large majorites, and thus learned to manipulate facts and figures. In 1887 the Fabians published their first statistical tract, ** Facts for Sociahsts," which deservedly attained an enormous circulation. It was the precursor of more than eighty others, every one of which is well worthy of perusal. Most important outcome of the literary activity of the Society was "Fabian Essays in Social- ism," a series of seven lectures on the basis and aims of Socialism by seven men of approved ability, learning, and candour. The Essays have had a phenomenal sale, and were generally received by the Capitalist Press with surprising equanimity. Fabian Confession of Faith.— The Fabians are held together by no other tie than subscription to the follow- ing simple Confession of Faith. BASIS. — The Fabian Society consists of Socialists. It therefore aims at the re-organisation of Society by the eman- cipation of Land and Industrial Capital from individual class ownership, and the vesting of them in the community for the general benefit. In this way only can the natural and acquired advantages of the country be equitably shared by the whole people. The Society accordingly uorks for the extinction of private property in land and of the consequent individual appropriation, in the form of Rent, of the price paid for permission to use the earth, as well as for the advantages of superior soils and sites. The Society, further, works for the transfer to the community of the administration of such industrial Capital as can conveniently be managed socially. For, osving to the monopoly of the means of production in the past, industrial inventions and the transformation of surplus income into Capital have mainly enriched the proprietary 430 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. class, the worker being now dependent on that class for leave to earn a living. If these measures be carried out, without compensation (though not withoat such relief to expropriated individuals as may seem fit to tha community), Rent and Interest will be added to the reward of labour, the Idle Class now living on the labour of others will necessarily disappear, and practical equality of opportunity will be maintained by the spontaneous action of economic forces with much less interference with personal liberty than the present system entails. For the attainment of these ends the Fabian Society looks to the spread of Socialist opinions, and the social and political changes consequent thereon. It seeks to promote these by the general dia- semination of knowledge as to the relation between the individuls and society in its economic, ethical, and political aspects. Personnel and Res Gestae of the F.S.— The Fabians have a good-natured habit of laughing at themselves and their doings, but none the less are they in downright earnest, and it would be exceedingly difficult to over-estimate their influence. Indeed, not to be a Fabian is almost to be outside the world of in- tellect altogether. Such names as those of Grant Allen, Hubert Bland, Stopford Brooke, Walter Crane, Stewart Headlam, Sydney Olivier, Frank Padmore, Bernard Shaw, H. C. Shuttleworth, Graham Wallas, Sidney Webb, Mrs. Sidney Webb, Charles Charrington, Miss Emma Brooke, Dr. John Clifford, to go no farther, are sufficient to stamp any ** Cause " as of genuine and endurinor human interest. The Fabian Society had 835 Members in March, 1898, about half of whom resided in London ; in addition there are local Fabian Societies at a few places in Eng- land, particularly at Liverpool. At one time every important town in the kingdom had its Fabian Society, but on the formation of the I.L.P. they mostly merged themselves in that organisation. At present the most important Branch Societies are at the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Aberystwyth. The work of the Society is largely educational. Its fortnightly meetings are devoted to the discussion of various problems of Democracy and Collectivism, and THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 43 1 the outcome of these debates is often the publication of tracts, which have a large circulation, and a world-wide reputation. In some years nearly 400,000 of these have been distributed, and as much as £i^(^ have been taken in a year by the sale of these publications. The Society provides Lending Libraries in the form of Book Boxes, containing books on Socialism, Econo- mics, Social and Political History, and similar subjects. It has now 112 such boxes which are lent out for a small fee to Branches of the I.L.P. and S.D.F., to Labour Clubs, Trade Unions, and to any organisation of working men. It institutes yearly Correspondence Classes in Economics and Social History which always attract many students. It has organised enormous numbers of amateur lectures, but of late years the demand for this form of political instruction has a good deal fallen off. At present the most important feature of this work is the Hutchinson Trust Lectures, mainly financed from the source so named. Under this scheme it pays pro- fessional lecturers who deliver carefully prepared courses of lectures in the larger towns and the industrial centres. These lectures are keenly sought after and are a most valuable means of spreading popular education in politics and economics. They do not profess to be propagandist in tone, but to give accurate information and true ideas of existing institutions and organisations. The Fabian Society has no strictly enforced political policy. Every member must be a Socialist, but each adopts the policy he thinks best for carrying out the common object. Hence Fabians often run as Liberal candidates for Parliament, and its one M.P., W. C. Steadman, member for Stepney, was elected as a Liberal. On the other hand most of the prominent members and officials of the I.L.P. (such as Tom Mann, Keir Hardie, J. R. Macdonald and many others) are Fabians. But the leading members of the Society, those who have actively worked for it, and to whom it owes its success, have always advocated the doctrine of Permea- 43^2 THK ANNALS OF TOIL. tion, that is of making use of existing organisations, political or other, to attain its ends. In the Report on Fabian Policy (Tract 70) the follow- ing is stated to be the mission of the Fabians : I. THE MISSION OF THE FABIANS.— The object of the Fabian Society is to persuade the English people to make their political con- stitution thoroughly democratic and so to socialize their industries as to make the livelihood of the people entirely independent of private Capitalism. The Fabian Society endeavours to pursue its Socialist and Democratic objects with complete singleness of aim. For example : — It has no distinctive opinions on the Marriage Question, Religion, Art, abstract Economics, historic Evolution, Currency, or any other subject than its own special business of practical Democracy and Socialism. It brings all the pressure and persuasion in its power to bear on existing forces, caring nothing by what name any party calls itself, or what principles, Socialist or other, it professes, but having regard solely to the tendency of its actions, supporting those which make for Socialism and Democracy, and opposing those which are reactionary. It does not propose that the practical steps towards Social- Democracy should be carried out by itself, or by any other specially organized society or party. It does not ask the English people to join the Fabian Society, II. FABIAN ELECTORAL TACTICS.— The Fabian Society does not claim to be the people of England, or even the Socialist Party.and therefore does not seek to direct political representation by putting forward Fabian candidates at elections. But it loses no opportunity of influencing elections and inducing constituencies tO select Socialists as there candidates. No person, however, can obtain the support of the Fabian Society, or escape its opposition, by merely' repeating a few shibboleths, and calling himself a Socialist or Social-Democrat. III. FABIAN COMPROMISE.— The Fabian Society havmg learnt from experience that Socialists cannot have their own way in every- thing any more than other people, recognizes that in a Democratic Community Compromise is a necessary condition of political progress. In London this policy has been very successful on the London County Council and the London School Board. Both bodies have had a number of Fabian THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 433 members for many years past and, at the 1897-8 elections more Fabians were elected than on any previous occasion. The progressive polic}'^ of the County Council has always been largely inspired by and is wholly in accordance with the teachings of the Fabian Society and the success of the Progressives in a place politically so Conservative as London is held to be a proof that Socialism as taught by the Fabian Society needs only to be known to conquer the United Kingdom. May the Society go on and prosper in the full assur- ance that in the world of to-day there is no better work to do, or is being done, than that in which the ** Waiters " (Cunctatores) are engaged ! SOCIALISTS AND SOCIALISM.— No. II. The Social Democratic Federation (S.D.F.) And all that believed were together and had all things in common ; And sold their possessions and goods, ano parted them to all men as every man had need. — Acts II., 44 and 45. And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and one soul ; neither said any of them that aught of the things which he possessed was his own ; but they had all things in common. Neither was any among them that lacked : for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them and brought the price of the things that were sold, and laid them at the Apostles' feet; and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need. — Acts IV., 32, 34, 35. Opulence is always the product of theft committed, if not by the actual possesser, then by his ancestors, — St. Jerome. The rich man is a thief. — St. Basil. The rich are robbers ; better all things were in common. — St. Chrysostom. Iniquity alone has created private property. — St. Clement. It is as easy for a camel to go through the eye of a needle as for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. — Jesus Christ. The Democratic Federation. — In 1880 the Liberal Party was returned to power and place with an overwhelming majority. The famous " Midlothian Speeches " had aroused unbounded expectations in the inexperienced " Masses," which perhaps only the faithful remnant of the older Democrats, who had fought by the side of Bronterre O'Brien, Feargus O'Connor, Ernest Jones, and other Chartist chiefs, did not share. 434 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 4^5 But the most credulous were soon undeceived. The Gladstonian Administration was at the greatest pains to demonstrate that it was quite as much as its pre- decessor a Government of the ** Classes." A reaction against barren Liberalism set in, and a handful of malcontent Workers were casting about for the means of entering an energetic protest, when they were un- expectedly joined by such eminent Reformers of the middle-class as Joseph Cowen, Professor Beesly and others. The first meeting of the Democrats was held in the Westminster Palace Hotel, where Joseph Cowen pre- sided. It was difficult to arrive at any common basis of agreement, but eventually a program was pro- visionally formulated, and the Democratic Federation formed. Uafortunately, through some inexplicable misunderstanding, Cowen, the best-informed Democrat in Britain — and, since Mazzini's death, perhaps the best in Europe — ceased to take any further active interest in the movement. The Social-Democratic Federation Formed. — The Westminster Palace meeting was followed by a Con- ference at the Memorial Hall, where H. M. Hynd- man took the chair. The program was adopted, but not without dissent. Professor Beesly was of opinion that the time had not yet arrived for the forma- tion of an Independent Democratic Party, and dropped out of the ranks. His loss was great, for in the evil days, when to be a Trade Unionist was to be a social pariah, he had been a tower of strength to the Workers. Mr. Andreas Scheu and I attended this Conference, and dissented for a very different reason. It was ruled, strange as it may appear, that the Monarchy was an institution too sacred even to be discussed, where- upon we shook the dust from off our feet and left the Hall. I proceeded to the Weekly Dispatch office, a journal then at the zenith of its influence and useful- ness, and, in the plenitude of my foresight, penned a leader on the Democratic Federation which was any- thing but complimentary, both in regard to program 436 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. and personnel. The one seemed to me absurdly meagre, and the other, to say the least, dubious. In a word, though the hand might be that of the Democratic Esau, the voice sounded uncommonly like that of the Tory Jacob. I mention this little incident in depreciation of my own prescience, as a warring to others not to be hasty to condemn any movement m embryo, by whomsoever pro- moted. The Democratic Federation in due time de- veloped into the Social-Democratic Federation, which, with all its shortcomings and inexcusable internal dis- sensions, has directly and indirectly been of immense service to the Collectivist Cause. There may, after all, be some Mahatmas in the Gobi Desert or on the Snowy Range, and some good in them. Who can tell ? The program of the S.D.F. in its ultimate revised form runs thus : — I. OBJECT.— The Socialisation cf the Means of Production, Dis- tribution, and Exchange, to be controlled by a Democratic State in the interests of the entire community, and the complete Eman- cipation of Labour from the Domination of Capitalism and Land- lordism, with the establishment of Social and Economic Equality between the Sexes. IT. PROGRAM. — I. — All organisers or Administrators to be elected by Equal Direct Adult Sufirage, and to be maintained by the Community. II. — Legislation by the People in such wise that no project of Law shall become binding till accepted by the majority of the People. IIL — The abolition of Standing Armies, and the establishment of National Citizen Forces ; the People to decide on Peace or War. IV. — All Education to be Compulsory, Secular.Industrial, and Free. V. — The Administration of Justice to be Free to all. VI. — The Means of Production, Distribution and Exchange to be declared and treated as Collective or Common Property. VII. — The Production and Distribution of Wealth to be regulated by the Community in the common interests of all its Members VIII. — The establishment of International Courts of Arbitration. III. PALLIATIVES. — As measures called for to palliate the evils of our existing society the Social-Democratic Federation urges for immediate adoption : — THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 437 The Compulsory Construction by Public Bodies of Healthy Dwellings for the People, such dwellings to be let at rents to cover the cost of construction and maintenance alone. Free, Secular and Technical education, compulsory upon all classes, together with Free Maintenance for the children in all State Schools. No child to be employed in any trade or occupation until i6 years of age, and heavy penalties to be inflicted on employers infringing this law. Eight Hours or less to be the Normal Working Day, or not more than Forty-Four Hours per Week, to ba fixed in all trades and industries by Legislative Enactment. Imprisonment to be inflicted on employers for any infringement of this law. Cumulative Taxation upon all incomes exceeding ;f 300 a year. State Appropriation of Railways and Canals ; Municipal Owner- ship and Control of Gas, Electric Light, and Water Supplies; the organization of Tramway and Omnib as Services and similar monop- olies in the interests of the entire community. The extension of the Post Office Banks so that they shall absorb all private institutions that derive a profit from operations in money or credit. Repudiation of the National Debt. Nationalisation of the Land, and Organisation of Agricultural and. Industrial Armies under State or Municipal control on co-operative principles. The Disestablishment and Disendowrnent of all State Churches. The Establishment of Adequate Pensions for the Aged and Infirm Workers. Every person attaining the age of fifty to be kept by the Community, work being optional after that age. The Establishment of Municipal Hospitals and Dispensaries. Municipal control of the Food and Coal Supply. Abolition of the present Workhouse System, and the Provision of Useful Work for the Unemployed, State Control of the Life-boat Service. As means for the peaceable attainment of these objects the Social- Democratic Federation advocates : — Payment of Members of Parliament and of all Local Bodies. Pay- ment of Official Expenses of Elections out of the Public Funds. Adult Suffrage. Annual Parliaments. Proportional Representation. Second Ballot. Initiative and Referendum. Canvassing to be made Illegal. Abolition of the Monarchy and the House of Lords. Extension of the I'owers of County, Town, District and Parish Councils. Legislative Independence for all parts of the Empire. Secretary, SDcial-Democratic Federation, H. W. Lee, 3, Bolt Court, Fleet St., W.C. A marvellously thorough Economic Program this, surely, to grow out of the puny, purely political bant- ling of the Memorial Hall Conference ! 438 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. In Justice to H. M. Hyndman. — And here let me do an act of justice to H. M. Hyndman, who seems to be less of a persona grata in certain CoUectivist quarters than one might expect from his undoubted attainments as an Economist and his proved devo- tion to the *' Cause." As Scheu and I were leaving the Conference Hall, there was put into our hands a Httle book, by H. M. Hyndman, entitled, England for AIL I read it about a month afterwards, and said in- wardly, " Be this man Tory-Democrat or not, this little book of his contains the root of the matter, and no mistake." So far as I am aware England for All was the precursor of the immense stream of distinctly CoUectivist literature that has since issued from the Press; and what is more it contains the bones at least of all that Collectivists even now contend for. And hardly less serviceable was Hyndman's reprint in 1882 of old Thomas Spence's inimitable lecture (1775) in favour of Land Nationalisation, though to disfigure so unique a production with Marxian-like footnotes was a serious presumption. For the following unvarnished account of the mani- fold labours of the S.D.F. I am wholly indebted to Mr. Hyndman, whose pen is ever as ready as his voice in the *' Cause " for which he and his good lady have made such heavv personal sacrifices : First Efforts of S.D.F.—" The work of the Social- Democratic Federation began with an endeavour to enlighten the Radical Clubs of London as to the real relations between Capital and Labour ; but the public agitations, in which its members were specially active, were the maintenance of the right of free speech, all over London, as essential to the Socialist propaganda, and a steady support to the Irish in their efforts to resist the Coercion Acts and Tyranny of Mr. Glad- stone's Liberal Administration. What was done in these two directions, under great difficulties, by the members of the body, is now mostly forgotten. But it is certain that the upholding of the right oi public speaking in the parks, streets, and other open spaces is THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 439 largely due to their persistent efforts ; while their steady adhesion to the cause of justice for Ireland had its effect, at the time and afterwards, on the attitude of the people of England towards the Irish, in their struggle for fair play. Manning the S.D.F. — The palliatives given above were first formulated as long ago as 1882 and, in that year and 1883, the Federation was strengthened by the acces- sion to its ranks of William Morris, J. L. Joynes, H. H. Champion, Herbert Burrows, Belfort Bax, and others, 1884 saw John Burns and Tom Mann added to the fold, the former, up to withm a week of joining, having been a most bitter opponent of Socialism. In the same year occurred the " split " that led to the formation of the Socialist League which lasted and did good work in its way from then until 1892. As, however, nearly all the members of that League either rejoined the S.D.F. or are working cordially with it there is no need now to enlarge upon the causes which led to the temporary disruption. Home, Foreign, and Colonial Policy of S.D.F. — ** Durmg the whole of its career the S.D.F. has remained true to the principles of Revolutionary Social- ism ; has kept up its uncompromising organ justice in the face of great obstacles pecuniary and other ; and has taken an active part in all the Great International Socialist Congresses which have been held from 1884 onwards. " In home affairs its vigorous agitations in favour of the Organisation of Unemployed Labour, of the Legal Eight Hours Day, of Free Education, of Free Mainten- ance for Children, of Nationalisation of Railways, and against the thrift and emigration nostrums, have pro- duced a considerable impression on the public mind, and have brought some of the proposals even within the narrow sphere which is covered by so-called *' prac- tical politics." '* In foreign affairs, the S.D.F. has cultivated in- creasingly close relations with Socialists of other countries, and has never lost an opportunity of pro- 440 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. claiming the truth that the peoples of all nations have one common interest, and that economic antagon- isms and war can serve only to strengthen the power of their common foes, the landlords and capitalists of all nationalities. " In Colonial matters, the body has persistently denounced the unscrupulous methods used by the Capi* talists for extending their markets for gin and shoddy goods among less civilised or less well-armed popu- lations, under the pretence of putting down slavery and spreading Christianity, and was the only organisa- tion in Great Britain which steadily denounced and exposed the criminal malpractices of the scoundrel Rhodes and his gang of aristocratic and millionaire supporters. The S.D.F.'s Noble Pro-India Propaganda,—" For many years also the S.D.F. has championed the cause of the oppressed Ryots of India, who are being bled to death by the yearly drain of produce to England, fov nothings to the value of ;^30,ooo,ooo in gold. This frightful tribute, paid to the upper and middle classes of Great Britain, the Social-Democratic Federation has stigmatised as the direct cause of the misery and starvation which afflict the majority of the 250,000,000 of people under our direct rule. It is possible that, in time to come, this will be recognised as the noblest work done by the organisation, seeing that the members could not expect to be benefitted them- selves, in any way, by the success of their propaganda, even should they succeed. The growth of the opinion, in this country, that India is being ruined, perhaps for generations, by the unscrupulous and shameless system of robbery and tyranny which we inflict upon her, is at any rate chiefly due to the earnest and self-sacrificing work of the Social- Democrats. ** The S.D.F. is now in its eighteenth year and held its eighteenth Conference in Edinburgh in August. Never at any time has it been so strong in numbers, so well disciplined for action, or so active in various directions as it is to-day, and it is scarcely to be doubted THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 44! that its influence in the future will be far greater than it has been in the past.*' Magna Pars FuisH, The Social Democratic Federation is, therefore, still a living force in our midst, and it is to be hoped it has a long career of usefulness before it. On divers occasions its members, as has been seen, have exhibited political foresight, civic courage, and self-sacrifice in a high degree, and, if it is not now so strong in its personnel as it might have been, it is certain that of all the able men who have left its ranks, few, if any, have been recreant to its principles. Its educational influence has been great, and what with its *' tyrant-quelling'* Quelch and his remorseless Justice — sometimes narrow but always honest — and its indomitable Secretary Lee, (whose almost incredible distinction it is to do every- thing, and say nothing), it ought still, in the stirring times that are impending, to vindicate the promise of its enterprising youth. The Socialist League. — On December 30th, 1884, was formed the Socialist League, at 37, Farringdon- street. It, in the main, hived ofl" from the Social Democratic Federation for reasons of a controversial nature, into which it would do no good, but perhaps some harm to enter. Suflice it to say that among the secessionists was William Morris, the sweet Singer of Socialism and the unlaurelled Laureate of the Co- operative Commonwealth that is to be. Around him gathered the following active '* stalwarts" of the move- ment who formed the Provisional Council of the League : W. B. Adams, Ed. Aveling, Eleanor Marx Aveling, Robert Banner, E. Belfort Bax, Thos. Binning, H, Charles, W. J. Clark, J. Cooper, E. T. Craig, Chas. J. Faulkner, W. Hudson, Frank Kitz, Joseph Lane, Fred, Lessner, Thos. Maguire (of Leeds), J. L. Mahon, S, Mainwaring, James Mavor (Glasgow), Wm. Morris, C. Mowbray, Andreas Scheu (Edinburgh), Edward Watson. It was determined to start a weekly newspaper. The Commonweal^ and to issue a manifesto. The Commonweal 442 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. ran its race, like so many other prints before their time. It did its work, however, with exemplary fidelity, and we may be permitted to hope for it a speedy and blessed resurrection. The Manifesto to which the Provisional Council of the Socialist League put their hands was in the following explicit terms, which it seems well that I should here put on permanent record : MANIFESTO.- Fellow Citizens. — We come before you as a body advocating Revolutionary International Socialism ; that is we seek a change in the basis of Society. At present, there are two classes of society, one possessing wealth and instruments of production ; the other producing wealth by leave only of other class. Two classes in antagonism ; Possessing class live on labours of producers. Producers strive to better themselves at expense of others. Conflict is endless. Producmg class compelled to sell labour at merely enough to suffice for their wants and enable them to beget children. Profit-grinding system maintained by competition or war among the profit-grabbing classes themselves. Also there is war among the workers. Goods made to sell not to use : Labour is wasted. Method of distribution wasteful. Results of our so-called civilization : Our system terrible — misery brutality, selfishness and cynicism. Remedy : / // means of p oducdon must be common property of all. Great reduction of waste of hoars of labour, giving to each one leisure, and enable all to live decently. Modern bourgeoise property marriage gives place to kindly and human relations. Education become a reasonable drawing out of men's varied faculties, in order to fit them for life of social intercourse and happiness Mere politics have all been tried and found wanting. Co-operation would only increase number of joint stock companies, and intensify severity of labour by its temptations to overwork. Nationalisation of the land alone would be use- less. State Socialism also inoperative. No number of merely ad- ministrative changes, until the workers are in possession of all political power, would make any real approach to Socialism. Socialist League aims at the realization of revolutionary Socialism. Must have help of the workers of all civilizations, A great change is upon us. The great commercial system i« becoming unmanageable, and slipping from the grasp of its present rolers. The only change possible is Socialism. THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 443 To the realization of this change the Socialist League addresses itself with all earnestness. Close fellowship wiih each other and steady purpose for the advancement of the Cause, will naturally bring about the organisa- tion and discipline absolutely necessary to success. No distinction of rank or dignity amongst us. We are working for equality and brotherhood, and it is only through equality and brotherhood we can make our work effective. If we wish to avoid speedy failure we must work patiently yet hopefully, not shrinking from making sacrifices for the Cause, and must have frankness and fraternal trust in each other, and single- hearted devotion to the religion of Socialism, the only religion which the Socialist League professes. SOCIALISTS AND SOCIALISM.— No. III. The Independent Labour Party (I.L.P.). To work at the bidding and for the Profit of another, without any interest in the work — the price of their Labour being adjusted by hostile competition, one side demanding as much, and the other paying as little, as possible — is not, even when wages are high, a satisfactory state to human beings of educated intelligence, who have ceased to think themselves naturally inferior to those whom they serve. — John Stuart Mill. At present the Workers, as a rule, are mere hirelings. Under the present system men often hate their work. They have no share in the profit that results. Make them realise they are working for themselves and their fellows, and their point of view is changed When a man is interested in making a business successful he is quick, not slow, to adopt improvements. In many cases twenty-five per cent, more output will be obtained without increase of hours of human wear or tear. — Lord Grey Interviewed, August iG, 1898, Say not the struggle naught availeth, the labour and the wounds are vain ; The enemy faints not nor faileth, and as things have been they remain. If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars; it may be, in yon smoke concealed, Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers, and, but for you, possess the field. For while the tired waves, vainly breaking, seem here no painful niche to gain, Far back through creeks and inlets making, comes silent, flooding in, the main. And not by eastern windows only when daylight comes, comes in the light ; In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly ; but westward, look the land is bright. — Arthur Hugh Clough. Origin of the Independent Labour Party. — For the following terse and comprehensive history of the I.L.P. the reader and I are indebted to a worthy friend 444 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 445 of the ** Cause " who has carefully followed the evolution of the movement from its genesis. Those who have never tried to treat contemporary events historically can have but a faint conception of the difficulty of the task. " With the passing of the Franchise Bill of 1884, the Labour movement assumed a new aspect. Politi- cal power having been secured, the question naturally arose to what use should it be put. " At the Trade Union Congress of 1886, a Com- mittee was appointed to determine the lines upon which Labour Representation should be sought, and at the gathering of the same body in 1887, the Labour Electoral Association was formally launched, as the outcome of the work of the Committee. But from the beginning it was evident t hat the bulk of those con- nected with it had no clear conception of the fact that the Labour Problem is essentially economic. The program, therefore, was for the most part political. A small section, led by Mr. Keir Hardie, desired to make a new movement independent of the Liberal Party, and in its first Conference, held at Sheffield, the following year, a battle royal was waged on this point. In the end the timid souls prevailed, and the doom of the Labour Electoral Association was thereby sealed. For a few years it continued to drag on a weary and im- potent existence, and eventually died of sheer inanition. " Meanwhile, in various parts of the country, small groups were being formed into Independent Labour Parties. In 1888, Mr. Hardie contested the Mid- Division of Lanarkshire, Scotland, against both Liberal and Tory. He secured in all 619 votes, but the campaign aroused considerable interest all over the land. In the autumn of the following year, the Scottish Labour Party was founded, and soon became a power to be reckoned with, over the North, East, and West of Scotland. At the Trades' Congress, which met in Glasgow in 1892, a Conference of delegates who were favourable to independent political action was convened in the Lesser City Hall, when Mr. Hardie was elected to the Chair. After discussion, a Committee was ;446 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. appointed to arrange for a National Conference to con- sider the formation of an Independent Labour Party, and early the following year, the first gathering was held at Bradford. Mr. Hardie was again Chairman, and in the end a Program and Constitution were agreed to. "The outstanding feature of the new organisation was its contempt for mere political reforms ; its pro- gram declared for Socialism as the only possible solution of the Labour Problem, and demanded as ameliorative measures, a Legal Eight Hours' Day, Pensions for the Workers, Work for the Unemployed, and the Taxation to Extinction of all Unearned Incomes. Progress of I.L.P. in and out of Parliament.— ** At the general election of 1892, Mr. Hardie had been returned to Parliament for South West Ham, and the vantage-ground thus secured he used to further the objects of the new movement. At that time, as it happened, owing to depression of trade, the unemployed question was somewhat acute, and he made a specialty of it in the House of Commons. When the House met in August of 1892 after the general election, Mr. Hardie asked that a special autumn session should be held to deal with the problem of finding work for the unemployed. Nothing came of the proposal, however, and the House adjourned till the beginning of the following year, when he again raised the question in the form of an Amendment to the Address. A number of the Tories voted with him, but no single Liberal was found to desert his Party. By the moving from time to time of adjournments and amendments and putting questions to keep the subject well before the public, the Independent Labour Party grew literally by leaps and bounds throughout the country. ** At the Conference held in Manchester in 1894, Mr. Tom Mann was appointed Secretary, and he at once threw himself with splendid zeal and virile energy into the work of consolidating and building up the new organisation. THE ANNALS OF TOOL, 447 In this same year, a bye-election occurred at Atter- clifFe, when Mr. Frank Smith was put forward as the nominee of the Party in opposition to a Liberal and a Tory, and after a short but brilliant campaign, suc- ceeded in polling over 1,400 votes. Scarcely a bye- election took place in an industrial constituency, in which the I. L. P. was not well in evidence, either with a candidate, or by the holding of public meetings, in impartial denunciation of both sides for their neglect of the claims of Labour. General Election (1895) : Defeated not Dismayed. — ** Matters continued thus until the General Election of 1895, when the Party ran 28 candidates, polling 44,594 votes. All of them were defeated, including Mr. Hardie, and thus the Party was left without a Representative in Parliament. The unthinking multitude, including a majority of those who filled our editorial chairs, con- cluded that the I.L.P. had been disposed of, but the next bye-election saw the Party again in the field, and although its candidates since then have been uniformly defeated, it is now recognised on every side that the movement is one to be seriously reckoned with. The votes polled at the general and bye-elections indicate that the I.L.P. can control from 15 to 25 per cent of the electors, and as a transfer of 2 per cent of our voters from one side to the other determines the fate of parties, at a general election, it at once becomes apparent that these men may decide which Party shall fill the Government Offices. Municipal Successes of I.L.P. — "Inmunicipalmatter?, the LL.P. has fared much better. In Glasgow there are nine CoUectivist members on the City Council, a majority of whom belong to the I.L.P. ; nor would one of them have been returned without its powerful aid. ** In Bradford there are five. Labour ** Stalwarts " two being aldermen, and parties are so evenly balanced on the Council that the I.L.P. is the arbiter that decides the fate of aspirants for the aldsrmanic bench or the mayor's chair of office. As an example of this, it may be pointed out that the mayor of 1896 was 448 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. accused of having acted in an ungentlemanly manner towards Mr. Hardie when the latter was candidate for the Eastern Division and, as a consequence, the offender was turned out by the I.L.P. vote and sup- planted by a member of the opposite party. '* School Boards, County Councils, Parish Councils, Vestries and the like, have their quota of I.L.P. members, not only in the big centres of population but in such apparently out-of-the-way places as the counties of Norfolk, Gloucester and elsewhere in the South and West of England. Altogether there are over 400 I.L.P. representatives on our public bodies. I.L.P. and Socialist Press.— "The movement, too, is rapidly developing a press and literature of its own, the bright little LL,P, News conducted by Mr. Russel Smart and Mr. Penny (I.L.P. Secretary and of officials most competent and zealous), being its monthly official organ. The Clarion and Labour Leader are papers with a national circulation, whilst over a score of places have local I.L,P. journals of their own. Pamphlets and leaflets are circulated by tens of thousands yearly and the movement continues to show a strong all round vitality. I.L.P. and Trade Unionism. — " Much of the success attending the I.L.P. has been due to the sympathy which it has been able to attract from the more ad- vanced section of Trade- Unionists. There is scarcely a Trade-Council in Great Britain which has not a majority prepared to support Independent Labour can- didates, either for local or parliamentary elections. Its members are to be found in the responsible positions of secretaries and presidents, not only of Trade-Councils but of some of the largest trades organisations in the world. Witness the triumphant re-election of Mr. George Barnes to the Secretary-ship of the A.S.E. Mr. Barnes has been from the first a member of the I.L.P. and was one of its candidates at last general election. The I. LP. How Financed. — " The movement is financed in the same way as a Trade-Union — by a weekly THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 449 contribution from the members. In addition to their weekly dues to the party, most of the members belong to clubs which have grown up as a part of the movement. They also **levy" themselves for fighting purposes in connection with all elections, and it has been calculated that, on an avarege, each member of the party pays for his or her politics not less than 15/- per annum. ** Men and women prepared to do this are obviously not to be lightly put down. I.L. Peers of Every Class. — " It would be a mistake to assume that the organisation appeals only to working- men. Its first Treasurer, Mr. John Lister, is a land- lord, belonging to one of the leading families in York- shire, whilst another prominent, aristocrat and man of genius Mr. Cunninghame Grahame is also an active member. In Bradford, one of its representatives on the Town Council is Mr. Arthur Priestman, a lead- ing manufacturer, whilst the present Treasurer, Mr. France Littlewood, is also engaged in the same line of business. The professional classes, especially the school-teachers, are largely represented in its ranks, whilst the veteran Radical lawyer. Dr. Richard Marsden Pankhurst, whose recent demise has affected the entire Party of Progress with heartfelt sorrow, was one of its most enthusiastic members. The following is the pro- gramme of the Party : — I. OBJECT. — An Industrial Commonwealth founded upon the Socialisation of Land and Capital. II. METHODS. — The Education of the community in the prin- ciples of Socialism. The Industrial and Political organisation of the workers. The Independent representation of Socialist principles on all elec- tive bodies, III. PROGRAM. — The true object of industry being the production of the requirements of life, the responsibility should rest with the community collectively, therefore : The land being the storehouse of all the necessaries of life should be declared and treated as public property. The capital necessary for industrial operations should be owned and used collectively. 450 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. Work and wealth resulting therefrom should be equitably dis- tributed over the population. As a means to this end, we demand the enactment of the follow- ing measures : 1. A maximum eight-hour working-day, a six days working- week, with the retention of all existing holidays, and Labour Day, May ist, secured by law. 2. The provision of work to all capable adult applicants at recognised trade union rates, with a statutory minimum of sixpence per hour. In order to remuneratively employ the applicants, Parish^ District, Borough, and County Councils to be invested with powers to : (a) Organise and undertake such industries as they may consider desirable. (b) Compulsorily acquire land ; purchase, erect, or manufacture, buildings, machinery, stock, or other articles for carrying on such industries. (c) Levy rates on the rental values of the district, and borrow money on the security of such rates for any of the above purposes. 3. State pensions for every person over 50 years of age, and adequate provision for all widows, orphans, sick and dis- abled workers. 4. Free, secular, primary, secondary and university education, with free mainte aance while at school or university. 5. The raising of the age of ^child-labour, with a view to its ultimate extinction. 6. Municipalisation and public control of the Drink Traffic. 7. Abolition of indirect taxation, and the gradual transference of all public burdens on to unearned incomes with a view to their ultimate extinction. The I. L. P. is in favour of every proposal for extending electoral rights to both men and women and democratising the system of government." CHAPTER XV. Realities, Probabilities, and Possibilities. , This great Truth, which I have now to declare to you, is that THE system on WHICH ALL THE NATIONS OF THE WORLD ARE ACTING IS FOUNDED IN GROSS DECEPTION, IN THE DEEPEST IGNORANCE, OR A MIXTURE OF BOTH : ThAT, UNDER NO POSSIBLE MODIFICATION OF THE PRINCIPLES ON WHICH IT IS BASED, CAN IT EVER PRODUCE GOOD TO MAN ; BUT THAT, ON THE CONTRARY, ITS PRACTICAL RESULTS MUST EVER BE TO PRODUCE EVIL CONTINUALLY. — RoBERT OWEN. Cast thy bread upon the waters ; for thou shalt find it after many days. Give a portion to seven, yea, even unto eight ; for thou knowest not what evil shall be upon the earth. If the clouds be full of rain, they empty themselves upon the earth ; and if the tree fall towards the south, or towards the north, in the place where the tree falleth, there shall it be. He that observeth the wind shall not sow ; and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap. As thou knowest not what is the way of the wind, nor, how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child ; even so thou knowest not the work of God who doeth all. In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thy hand ; for thou knowest not which shall prosper, whether this or that, or whether they both shall be alike good. — Ecclesiastes xi., 1-7. Clan Marriage and Communism. — There, doubtless, was a time when even the most ** advanced" of man- kind lived the horde life of the ** lower animals" they most closely resemble in structural form. But primal promiscuity gradually gave place to a social organisa- tion based on difference of sex. Brothers and Sisters ceased to intermarry, and the gens or clan made its appearance as the all but universal social unit. The members of the clan, in its most primitive form, i^ight not intermarry, the women being regarded as the 451 452 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. wives of the men of other clans within the same tribe or fraternity of clans. The husbands are merely the guests of the clan of the mother, and to her clan all her offspring belong, and through her all descent is traced. This form of limited promiscuity existed in Britain in Csesar's time and it is still prevalent in many savage tribes. It is the clan that marries. In this stage of society Private Property is unknown. The land, and whatever it yields, is common, be it fruit or grain, fish or flesh. And generally, if no longer nomadic, the ** undivided family " occupies one house. Co-operation is complete within the tribe, and a wonder- ful esprit de corps is evoked. There is no *' patriotism " to be compared with clanship in depth of intensity. All the tribesmen are brothers to be cherished, and all the out- side world are enemies to be plundered. The Latin word "hostis" means both ** stranger " and " enemy." A Highland lad my love was born, The Lowland laws he held in scorn ; But he still was faithfu' to his clan, My gallant braw John Highlandman. At first there was little or no ** division of labour," but gradually the difference of sex inevitably told, assigning to man the sphere of war and the chase, and to woman that of household duties and child-rearing. Man, alas, began to be the " predominant partner." The terrible curse of the Patria Potestas manifested itself and the infinitely more natural Matriarchate slowly waned. We now see the old communal society rent in twain along the line of sex, the ** better half" ultimately going com- pletely to the wall. We have the first premonitions of the Classes and the Masses, of Independent and Depen- dent, of Master and Slave, of Employer and Employed, of Haves and Have-nots. In a word, the seeds of Property and Authority have been sown. Enter Priest, Warrior, and Capitalist.— In the twilight of civilization the Priest, Druid, or *' medicine man " — the child of ignorance and superstition — lorded it over his fellow men with almost unlimited authority. But presently a stronger than he came upon the scene, THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 453 the ** man of blood and iron," born of brutal violence — the Warrior. And he said to the Priest : ** Hence- forth the Earth shall be mine; but do you retain Heaven, and between us there shall be a perpetual alliance, offensive and defensive, against all the rest of mankind. You shall pray for me, and jointly we shall puy upon every other human being." Next came the turn of the Capitalist — the offspring of greed insatiable. He, taking the sceptre from the Warrior, said, ** The Earth is mine. You, Warrior, shall fight for me, and you. Priest, shall pray for me." And these two revolutions are substantially all the revolutions that have ever yet taken place in the history of the human race. Origin of Money and the "Nursery of Cheaters." — It was not alone along the line of sex that society began to be divided. The spontaneous products of nature no longer sufficed man's growing intelligence. In Asia there were useful animals that could be domesticated, animals whose flesh, milk, and wool fur- nished far more reliable materials of subsistence than aught to be derived from the always precarious chase. Flocks and herds afforded means of subsistence beyond the immediate needs of the tribe, and their existence in time led to an exchange of such products. And the Medium of Exchange was at first and very naturally, cattle, as being the first available form of Pro- perty. Oxen were the " gold " and sheep the ** silver " of antiquity, in which all other commodities were measured. The Latin word " pecunia " (money) is derived from "pecus" (cattle); whence our own word ** pecu- niar3\" Coins at first bore the stamp of an ox's head to symbolise their origin and representative character. Buyers and sellers, mortgagees and mortgagors, slave- holders and slaves, were now possible, and thus on the ruins of the Old Communism arose the monstrous strong- holds of Landlordism and Usury, which now dominate the whole world. Well has it been said, ** Ever sticketh fraud between Buying and Selling as doth mortar between stones." 454 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. Thus (says Prince Kropotkin : Philosophy of Anarchism), results the accumulation of ^.apital, not in its faculty of absorbing Surplus-value, but in the forced position the Worker is placed to sell his Labour-power — the seller, being sure in advance that he will not receive all that his strength can produce, of being wounded in his interests, and of becoming the inferior of the buyer. Without this the Capitalist would never have tried to buy him ; which proves that to change the system it must be attacked in its essence, in its cause — Sale ajid Purchase — and not in its effect — Capitalism, If the Worker continues to be paid in wages, he necessarily will remain the slave or the subordinate of the one to whom he is forced to sell his Labour-force — be the buyer a Private Individual or the State. Yes : that pierces to the very heart of all our social woes. It is this nefarious Custom of Buying and Selling LciJidj CommodiiieSy and Services that must be uprooted. It is the ** Nursery of Cheaters," as wise old Winstanley " the Digger " called it, two centuries and a half ago, and its devil's device, Money, is even as George Herbert quaintly apostrophises it : Money, thou bane of bliss, and source of woe, Whence com'st thou, that thou art so fresh and fine ? I know thy parentage is base and low ; Man found thee poor and dirty in a mine. Surely thou didst so little contribute To this great Kingdom, which thou hast got, That he was fain, when thou wert destitute, To dig thee out of thy dark cave and grot. Then forcing thee, by fire he made thee bright : Nay, thou hast got the face of man : for we Have with our stamp and seal transferred our right ; Thou art the Man, and man but dross to thee. Man calleth thee his wealth, who made thee rich ; And while he digs out thee, falls in the ditch. The use of crude gold and silver as money originated with the mighty despotisms of Asia in the remotest antiquity ; but coined money is of comparatively recent date. It is ascribed to the Lydians in the ninth century B.C. Others credit or discredit the people of Argos with the invention. Anyhow, it speedily found its way from Asia to the shores of the Mediterranean through the agency of the Phoenicians, who, as a maritime, people were t;he annals of toil. 455 to the Ancient World what we Britons are to the world of to-day. They traded with the Greeks, whom they first taught the use of gold, as the medium of exchange, and they eventually inoculated with the Lydian invention the remotest nations then known beyond the Pillars of Hercules. They attained to enormous wealth, developing wherever they went or settled the orders of ** Haves " and ** Have-nots," based on the crafty manipulation and control of the metallic medium of exchange. It was everywhere the study of the Haves to make this currency as scarce and dear as possible ^ and by means of it Imperial Rome made quite as many slaves as she did by the sword. Rome conquered the world, and the worst legacy she has left it is this curse of primeval barbarism — a metallic currency, the parent of usury and iniquitous wealth-accumulation. Redeeming Features of Feudalism. — For long cen- turies, under the Feudal System and the ban of the Church, the Usurer or Money-lord remained somewhat in the shade, the dungeon, the lash, the wheel and the gibbet being the chief means used to inculcate the doctrine that the earth and the fulness thereof belonged to the aristocratic few, and that the toiling masses lived only by their indulgent permission. Even in the England of to-day there is more land laying idle in the parks and game preserves of the nobility than is con- tained in the Kingdom of Belgium, which supports a population of six millions. Everything that could be done to rob and brutalise the Workers was done, and if the brutes thus manufactured did attempt a little robbing in turn, on their own account, woe betide them. Even in the early days of the present cen- tury, it was calculated that there were upwards of 300 offences against private property punishable by the gallows. The life of a deer or a partridge was of far more value than that of a man. Under the Feudal System, however, with all its savagery,there were some compensations to the Workers of which they have since been ruthlessly deprived. 'Xbe serf had food, clothes, and shelter for certain. It 456 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. was to the lord's interest to keep his animals, both brute and human, in such condition as that they should render him the most efficient service, and he did so. The emancipated serf must now depend on himself, in every calamity of life, and whatever befall him, the monopolist is not incommoded in the least. Let our modern wage- slaves perish by thousands or even millions, and there will still be found other thousands and other millions but too glad to step into the chains that death has emptied. Economic necessity is a tyrant more pitiless and exacting than the bloodiest statutes of Draco. Even when the State abolished negro slavery in the West Indies, it is noteworthy that it did not really do so from any considerations of humanity, or by reason of the growth of Christian sentiment. It abolished it because slavery was fast becoming too expensive. It was ceasing to "pay," inasmuch as it had been demonstrated by David Hume and others, that the wage- worker is a " better property-making machine " than the chattel slave. Early in the eighteenth century, Hume, most incisive of philosophers, had admonished the Classes, and well did they learn the lesson he taught : — I shall add that, from the experience of our planters, slavery is as little advantageous to the Master as to the Slave, wherever hired serv- ants can be procured. A man is obliged to clothe and feed his slave ; and he does no more for his servant. The price of the first purchase is, therefore, so much loss to him ; not to mention that the fear OF PUNISHMENT WILL NEVER DRAW SO MUCH LABOUR FROM A SLAVE AS THE DREAD OF BEING TURNED OFF, AND NOT GETTING ANOTHER SERVICE, WILL FROM A FrEEMAN. Lendlord Worse Than LandloFd.— With the break up of the Feudal System proper, and the shifting of the centre of social gravity from land to commerce^ this terrible ** dread " began to be felt by the ** Masses " in all its rigour, and the problem how to utilise it for their own selfish ends immediately engaged the attention of the dominant ** Classes." Land might now be bought, but when the Serfs emerged from serfdom they had nothing wherewith to buy it. They had hardly even the necessaries of life. The "Classes" owned not merely the landy but another and still more THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 457 baneful monopoly, Money, or the Medium of Exchange, which they have eventually been cunning enough to restrict to the useless but scarce metal gold, labelled by them legal tender. Of the two monopolies, land and gold, the former is relatively by far the more accessible. This being so, the ** Classes " more than ever had the ball at their foot. They, with one consent, in the teeth of the religion of Christ of which they made loud profes- sion, became a gang of relentless Usurers, The ** Masses " must have the necessaries of life, and to obtain these they must needs borrow money from those in possession of the ** precious metal." They did so, and thus began their ** free " labours, under crushing obligations to the dominant class, in the form of interest, from which escape seems all but impossible. The borrower pledged himself to give up to the lender, in accordance with law, his home, his all, on failure to meet the letter of the bond, and soon enough did he dis- cover that the utmost exertion of his energies was in- sufficient to sustain life and pay the tribute to the bond holder. What to do ? Call in the aid of overburdened wife and feeble child in the hopeless endeavour to fill the insatiable maw of the creditor. Want, hunger, untold misery became a constant companion in the Worker's home. His labour brought forth abundant returns, smiUng plenty, but not for him. Die he might, but the money-lord's bond died not. On earth his ultimate refuge was the city *' slum." These slums of great cities, says Professor J. A. Collins (U.S.A.), which are the heart of the modern social system, are the hells of modern society ; let one think of the horrors of such festering ulcers upon the body of modern civilisation, of the filth, disease, degrada- tion, poverty, misery of every description too horrible to detail, and then realise that it is this civilised barbarism, this heathenish system based upon the divine rights of property, that puts property above humanity, that regards profit before life, or soul, or human happi- ness here or hereafter, that makes such earthly hells possible. And yet men, in this day of enlightenment, laud and boast of the benefi- cent system under which we live. Two Profound Truths. — And the hopelessness of it all lies in this, that there are now no tangible GG 458 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. malefactors as of yore on whom a just vengeance may be wreaked. The obhgations formerly exacted by robber kings and barons have now, by fiction of law^ been transferred to a mysterious, invisible, intangible power called Property^ or in the language of Christ, Mammon^ before whom all men grovel in the dust. To this impersonal tyrant, whose rule is more brutal than that of Nero, the *' Masses" by their ready submission, nay, by their Votes, have granted unlimited power to execute his decrees and he does so through M.P., judge, soldier, policeman, gaoler, and hangman, with a will. In Les RuineSf Volney imagines a judgment of the Priests and the Rulers before a celestial tribunal. His words may be translated as follow : — ••What then, Teachers of the People, is it thus that you have de- ceived them ? •• And the disconcerted Priests answered : •' O, Righteous Judge ! We are men ; and the People are so superstitious ! They have themselves provoked our errors." And the Kings said : ••Q, All-wise Judge! the People are so servile and so ignorant, they have prostrated themselves before the yoke that we hardly dared to show them." Then the Judge turning to the People, said : ••People, remember what you have just heard. These are two profound truths. Yes, you yourselves cause the evils of which you complain ; it is you who encourage the tyrants by a cowardly adu- lation of their power, by an imprudent, exaggerated admiration of their false charities, by abasement in obedience, by the credulous welcome of all imposture. Upon whom will you punibh the faults of your ignorance and your credulity ? " And the confused people remained in sad silence. Yes ; these, indeed, be " profound truths.'* Caesar or the Sword-Power. — In all ages the useful workers of the world have been the victims of Conquest or Purchase, of Caesar or Shylock. In ancient times bands of marauders following a chief, such as Willliam the Conqueror, would invade a country, destroy its defenders by the sword, outrage women and children without mercy, blasphemously thank heaven for the success of their arms, and then THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 459 proceed to divide among themselves the land, the portable booty, and the people, without remorse or scruple. The Conquerors would next constitute themselves an Upper Class of civil and military rulers " by the grace of God," whose function it was to make laws, suppress insurrections within and invasions from without ; and for such arduous services to exact from the governed the entire fat of the land. Under such social conditions the production of wealth was directed, not to supply the legitimate needs of the workers, but solely to gratify the depraved caprices of the Upper Ten, who caroused in frowning castles, while the castle-builders cowered in wretched hovels at the foot of the hills on which the castles stood. In a generation or two after such conquest, the con- quered losing all hope of regaining their liberty, would direct their efforts to begging their taskmasters for more straw and less bricks (for, say, " eight hours " and a "tanner") and once in this servile frame of mind their rulers' priests were at hand to instruct them in the whole duty of the serf to his lord. It was summed up in one word — Obedience — "obedience to all in authority over them," from prince to policeman. In order to be blessed here and hereafter they must be content with the station in life in which God {i.e,, their rulers) had placed them, and, as true patriots, they must at all times be prepared heroically to shed their blood in defence of a country of which they did not own a single foot. To question the authority of the politician was called Rebellion ; to challenge that of the priest was called Heresy. When neither was impugned, " Society " was pronounced to be based on a firm foundation of " Law and Order." If it were otherwise, it was said " the country is going to the dogs." (** The country,'* be it noted, bears no relation to the country w^»). This system of baronial or feudal despotism culmin- ated in Europe in the reign of Louis XIV., of France. In 1789 it was mortally wounded by the French 460 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. Revolution, and has been slowly, but surely dying ever since. Shylock or the Money-Power. — But alas ! a more insidious and deadlier enemy — the Money-Power — has arisen to take its place. This power had a different origin, and operates differently from des- potism pure and simple. It does not invade a country, it INVESTS in it. It does not conquer, it acquires. It does not govern the inhabitants, it is content to control them. It does not enslave the .workers, it hires them. Instead of exposing armies of men in the battlefield, it launches some few cubic feet of yellow metal on loan into the country to be acquired, and victory is assured. Even the despotism of Kaiser and Czar bows submissively to the Money-Power. The despotism of Emperors and Kings is at best but a hazardous and clumsy affair. An invading army encounters resistance, perchance defeat, but the advent of the precious metals is uniformly hailed as an unqualified blessing. "Capital is coming into the country ! Hurrah !" cry the great capitalist dailies and all men read and rejoice with an exceeding great joy. Any citizen abetting an invading foe would infallibly be shot as a traitor to his country ; but he who manages to negotiate a loan, which shall inaugurate the reign of the native or foreign usurer, is acclaimed as a benefactor of his kind. The Capitalist hirer of labour is in a much more advantageous position than his brother, the Slave- owner. If a slave dies, his owner can only replace him by purchase. It is otherwise with the Capitalist. If one of his ** hands " perish, ten to one, there is a scramble among a dozen ** out-of-works " for his place, at a reduced wage. In America, when a Slave-owner had any work to be performed involving risk to life or limb, he prudently hired a ** mean white " to do it ! The Money-Power once firmly established in any country its influence is resistless, however unobtrusively it may seem to be wielded. It has all the forces of the Government, judicial, military and police, at its disposal THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 461 free of charge, to enable it to collect its tribute, to the spoilation and eviction of the inhabitants whom it has hopelessly enthralled, with their own consent. Shylock and CsBsar Compared. — But if the methods of the Money-Power differ from those of the Sword-Power, their effects are the same. Both live by prey ; both are the incubi and succubi of in- dustry; both divert production and distribution into unnatural channels ; both make labour subserve the ends of selfish luxury and wanton waste. Both are the foes of all true progress, mental and physical; both manufacture homelessness, nakedness, hunger and general misery out of the very abundance which their victims create. Of the two — Caesar and Shylock — if I must choose between them, pray give me Caesar. He can be sup- pressed, nay is already in a fair way to be suppressed ; but Shylock will be a much harder nut to crack. He sits on a throne higher and safer than Caesar's, con- trolling his subjects, not by capturing them on the field of battle, but by acquiring their sources of life-necessaries and the means of intercommunication. Armed with these weapons he can with impunity ofifer his victims the dire alternatives : pay me tribute or starve, Shylock's great strength as compared with Caesar's lies in the fact that Caesar's misdeeds arouse indignation in the breasts of his victims^ and Shylock's do not. A man cowed by physical force will fight for his rights whenever a favourable opportunity offers ; but rob him of all that is most conducive to his welfare and those nearest and dearest to him by some " bond " or ** morta- ^age," cunningly devised in the penetralia of Law and Order, and the chances are that he will conclude that he himself is the author of his misfortune, or that the cause could neither be forseen nor controlled by anyone. Anyway, neither against Shylock nor Shylock's infernal system is any healthy resentment evoked. Indeed, Shylock's system is frequently secretly ap- proved of by those who suffer from it most. Unlike the ^* King business," that of Shylock is not a close affair of 462 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. birth or privilege. It is open to every designing rascal who aspires to reach a plane on which he, too, may be able to live in affluence by the sweat of his neighbour's brow. It is this fact which has converted this beautiful world, inviting on all hands to brotherly love, into an arena in which, like wild beasts, man, made in the image of God, struggles to devour his fellow man. It is this fact which fills the world with endless contention, and necessitates strong government with its vampire hosts of lawyers, soldiers, and policemen, all engaged in "keeping the peace" — a peace which holds the workers in apathy while the Money-Power rifles their pockets and devastates the country. But, like Caesar, Shylock will have his day. Just as royal and baronial despotism attained its zenith in the days of Louis XIV., so has that of the Rothschilds, Goulds, and Vanderbilts in ours. It cannot much farther go, and it cannot stand still. It must, therefore, decline, and with the downfall of Caesarism and Shylock- ism the end of the economic struggle for existence will have come. Will Shylockism, like Caesarism with its French Nemesis of 1789, require a frightful World- Revolution of " blood and iron " to give it its death- wound ? Who would venture to prophesy ? It was not a little comical by the way, in the Armenian Atrocity Agitation, to hear our Great Assassin of London calling the *' Great Assassin " of Constantinople names ; for, assuredly, at the door of the landlord class, typified in his ** Grace's " person, ** atrocities" may every day be laid involving far greater aggregate suffering, though silently borne, than any recorded Armenian horrors. We have heard the Duke on the Sultan, but not the Sultan on the Duke. If ** Abdul the Damned " had but briefed me, I think I could have got up a pretty effective case of " you're another " for him. But let us pass from Landlord Westminster and the robbers by Rent to Lendlord Rothschild and the robbers by Usury. Here again the State — the whole body of the people — notoriously exists for the behoof of a very THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 463 scurvy part. It creates a "legal tender" or State Money ; but, instead of effectually controlling said State money or medium of exchange in the interest of all, it per- mits, nay, encourages, in every way, a few of its most unscrupulous and rapacious members to manipulate it in such a way as to plunder both producer and consumer, whenever an exchange of commodities is effected. The use of money is supposed to be to facilitate exchanges and stimulate trade ; but to all intents this object has been almost completely frustrated. Its chief function at present is to hamper trade on every hand by the creation of an infamous tribe of usurers and millionaires — the highwaymen of commerce. The swovd in the past was potent to enslave the masses of mankind, and to it in the main is traceable the origin of landlordism and serfdom. But in our day money is the great enslaver. Thirty years ago, that is to say before the great Civil War of 1860-64, the people of the United States were a nation of home-owners and yeomen; to-day, through the crafty manipulation of themedium of exchange by bankers and other plotters, seventy per cent of said home-owners have been swept away. They have become a nation of tenants at-will, like ourselves — home- less and landless. The mortgagee is supreme, and Jonathan, if one may judge by the result of the last Presidential Election, loves to have it so. His Roths- child is apparently as dear to him as he is to the British Philistine. He has not the heart or the head to dis- establish and disendow the usurer by taking the whole banking business, with all its beneficent exchange possi- bilities, into his own hands. If Westminster can draw Rent and Rothschild Interest, so assuredly could the State on its own account. But the United States does not exist for Jonathan any more than the United Kingdom exists for John. It is ** run " for landlord and usurer. " Just heavens ! Of what service is the State ? '* Cult of the Golden Calf. — In respect of Money the State is an absolute dog-in-the-manger. It will neither enter into the Kingdom itself nor permit its unhappy thralls to enter. 464 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. Once on a time the Israelites of old demanded a Golden God as the object of their adoration, and Aaron, *' with a graven tool," shaped for them a more or less artistic ** calf." Nor did they escape divine chastise- ment. But in our adoration of the glittering metal we are more irrational by many degrees. With infinite labour, and frequent bloodshed, we extract it from certain holes in the remotest parts of the earth, and then hasten with it over land and sea, in order for the most part, to bury it again in certain other holes or bank-vaults, whence able editors solemnly assure us that it mysteriously controls the destinies of mankind as the ** Standard of Value." Good old ** Standard of Value"! And control them it does in such fashion as to bring on all ** civilised " men and nations calamities compared with which those entailed on the idolatrous Israelities might be regarded as a mere negligible quantity. Is it possible to conceive of a more debasing cult, a more baneful superstition? Nor is that the acme of the *' sound money " delusion. Gold, it is admitted, is almost destitute of ** intrinsic value." Except in dentistry, perhaps, it could readily be dispensed with in the arts. But it \s scarce and being scarce, it is eminently fitted, in the eyes of bankers, financiers, and the whole tribe of Usurers for use as money. Why ? Because it is so easy to ** corner " it. There are, it is calculated, about ;^7oo,ooo,ooo in gold at present in world-circulation, much less than would suffice to pay in cash the interest, not to speak of the principal of the world's indebtedness ! Prate of the ** fatal delights of fiat currency"! Why gold is the most fatal and absurd of fiat currencies. Demonetise this most worthless metal to-morrow and it would at once lose at least 90 per cent, of its value. That is to say, the gold itself is worth £10 per cent., and the " guinea stamp " impressed by the Government is worth £()0 \ In a word, its value is not intrinsic, but extrinsic and fictitious — the result of legislation. There is at present enough gold in stock to supply the demand for use in the arts for the next seventy years at least ! But, though the commodity- value of gold is of little THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 465 or no account, the labour required to raise even an ounce of it is almost fabulous. Del Mar, a very high authority, tells us that the ;^90,ooo,ooo of gold raised in California, from 1848 to 1856 inclusive, cost in labour alone ;^45o,ooo,ooo, or five times its mint value ! " Standards of Value."— Ah, but then are we not admonished that gold is indispensable, inasmuch as it furnishes us with an unvarying " Standard of Value.*' There could hardly be a more ignorant or mendacious assertion. Between the years 1789 and 1809, it fell in purchasing power 46 per cent., and rose again, from 1809 to 1849, 145 per cent. ; while from 1849 to 1874 ^^ fell 20 per cent. And now we have it, on the high authority of Dr. William Smart {Studies in Economics) that '* a sovereign to-day will exchange for 66 per cent, more of things in general than it did some twenty years ago." In Great Britain, at the present moment, full ninety- nine per cent, of all transactions are carried on by credit and only one per cent, in coins. That is to say, the coin amounts to about ;^i 10,000,000 and the credit- forms to ;^io,890, 000,000! Money is the tool of commerce, and becomes useless only when it ceases to circulate, and for that reason gold is demonstrably the worst material for money purposes, because it is the commodity most easy to ** corner." The Gold Standard is, in fact, a diabolical device of the bankers and other usurers for measuring everybody else's corn with their bushel, and thus it comes to pass that all the wealth of the world is measured entirely by its purchasers instead of its pro- ducers, who have no say whatever in the matter. Take, for example, such an astounding situation as this : By recent official returns it appears that the various banks in Scotland are enabled to support ^"92, 000, 000 of banking credits on a gold reserve of ^"4,000,000. Let some unscrupulous clique contrive to ** corner " the ;^4,ooo,ooo in gold, as was done in even less untoward circumstances in the United States on Black Friday, and what becomes of the ;^92,ooo,ooo 466 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. credits ? In truth, the gold debts of the world never, can be redeemed and, therefore, no way to emancipation, if the monetary madness of the present system is persisted in, is at all discernable, except through inevit- able repudiation. The Root Fallacy of Moneytarism. — Whence this frightful impasse? What the root fallacy of Money- tarism ? It lies in this, that gold is not, never was, and never can be a measure of value. Value is a Ratio between Commodities — a mere ** mental affection" — and ratios are not to be measured by metals or anything else. They can only be expressed by members. Thus ; — Bushels of Gallons of Number of Yards of corn. wine. sheep. cloth. 20 20 I 10 That is, twenty bushels of corn exchange for twenty gallons of wine, or one sheep, or ten yards of cloth. Divide their Least Common Multiple by each number respectively, and we find their true exchange rela- tions : — 20 20 I 10 Corn . Wine. Sheep. Cloth. Corn. Wine. Sheep. Cloth. — i i 20 2 Now, take integer one as the unit of purchasing power and print on pieces of durable paper of convenient size — the cent, and dollar system of America could hardly be excelled for the purpose — single units and multiples of units of such purchasing power, and you have an ideal medium of exchange which cannot be " cor- nered," nor be made the subject of usury. Such notes might be issued under the authority of Parish Meetings, District Councils, County Councils, Town Councils, Co- operative Stores, &c., and even by individual mer- chants ; as it would be no more difficult than now to ascertain from the daily market reports the fluctuations in the value of all commodities : — Thus, in the case of the farmer with his assistant, instead of giving him, say 10 per cent, of the crops, or perhaps one thousand bushels of corn for his services, he would, by consulting his table or market report, find corn marked ten units of purchasing power per bushel. THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 467 and then pay him notes to the extent of ten thousand units. Simi- larly the sheep-raiser would give the physician notes to the extent often thousand units, and so on. Reconciliation of Ethics and Economics. — In other words, the solution of the money question is to be found in free exchange — exchange freed above all things from the banking houses licensed by lawmakers and usurers. The simple fact that the ideal, or ratio- value dollar, does not, like the gold or commodity dollar, fluctuate per se, will for the first time in the history of exchange reconcile ethics and economics. Cui bono ? Because I, Orthodox Political Economy is a false and fraudulent system, based on principles utterly fallacious and immoral. 2 The true science of economics is a moral science, dealing with economic conduct. An ideal standard of distribution is, therefore, as important in economics as a moral standard in ethics. 3. Values are ideal creatures, abstract relations, and cannot pos- sibly be " measured,'' nor can they be expressed save by numbers ; hence gold can neither measure nor express values. A " Standard of Value " is, therefore, an absurdity — a nonentity. 4. While there is no such thing as an invariable "unit of value " there may be an absolutely invariable " unit of purchasing power." 5. By instituting a material for an abstract unit of purchasing power economists have placed the industrial world in the merciless grip of speculators whose interest it is alternately to depress and stimulate production. 6. Money can only discharge its proper functions as the Medium of Exchange when it is legally unrestricted and freed from any alliance with " specie." 7. The parent of interest, poverty, involuntary idleness, financial panics, etc., is a Monopolised Currency^ 8. Abolish all laws hampering the issuance of money, and said evils will disappear. Whoever desires to see each and all of these proposi- tions made good will do well to consult Arthur Kitson's Scientific Solution of the Money Question and Alfred B. West- rup's The New Philosophy of Money — recent works of singu- lar merit by American economists of eminence. Under the system of Free Mutual Banking (explained under " Co-oPERATioN : True and False), intrinsically value- less paper-notes are issued against commodities or services pledged for their redemption. There is no 468 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. bank stock and therefore there are no dividends. The mere expense of running the bank is all that has to be provided for, and that has been ascertained to be no more than thne-fourths of one per cent ! Return of the borrowed bank notes at once releases the goods pledged. Man Y. Machine. — Next, let us consider for a moment the Machine or Patent Monopoly which the State creates, in nineteen cases out of twenty, not for the advantage of the inventor, but for that of the Money Power. The inventor is but too often obliged to sell his patent for an old song, and dies in penury, while the purchasing Capitalist Company coins ** dividends" by the thousand and the million out of his ingenuity. The ingenious machine is called **labour-saving," and in a sense it is so. It not infrequently leaves the worker with nothing at all to do. It enrolls him in the miserable army of ** unemployed," nolens volens. But labour- saving is in point of fact wage-saving plant, and the State does its best to make it so. In my opinion there should be neither patent nor copyright, but if such there are to be, then the State, if it existed for the people and not for the aggrandisement of the few, would first take care suitably to reward every discoverer or inventor of any useful contrivance or com- modity, and secondly to secure the benefit for the entire body of the people. But the State has never been known to do what is obviously right, and if we have regard to its base and bloody origin, probably cannot. William Hill's " Socialism and Sense."— However, my esteemed friend, Mr. William Hill of the West- minster Gazette, has a better opinion of the body politic, or at least believes that it might, in this matter of Patents, be induced, like Burns's ** Deil," " to tak* a thocht and men'." In his recent volume, Socialism and Sense (Walter Scott, is.), which most deservedly has attracted and is attracting a large measure of popular recognition, the most important chapter, perhaps, is that which is entitled ** Multitude and Machine." It is no less rich in fact than in suggestion, and it would be THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 469 difficult to name almost any question of greater human interest : — Verily, the Inventor has created a New Continent — the Continent of Machinery ; and though its situation cannot be traced on any map in our atlases, it is destined to have a bigger influence, it may be even disastrously, upon the fortunes of mankind than any dis- covery of a Columbus, a Cook, or a Stanley. . . . There are many men and women who would hail with gladness the advent of a Malthus of Machinery ; and if the conditions should ever grow favourable to revolutionary violence, it would not quite amaze me to find a number of our mechanical geniuses strung up to the lamp- posts of Trafalgar-square, like so many Foulons, with grass in the mouth. Again : — The Machine should not be the master, but the handmaiden of Man ; but there is just perceptible the danger that, unless care is taken now to guide and befriend and bind him to the side of the people for ever, the kind but blind giant may be carried irretrievably captive into slavery by the Monopolists, and man's most powerful and dearest friend may come to be regarded, and reasonably regarded, by millions of people, as their greatest enemy. Enter Machine, Exit Man. — In order to ascertain approximately the extent to which the Man has been superseded by the Machine, we must, as usual, go to the United States for trustworthy statistics. From the First Annual Report of the United States Com- missioner of Labour (1886), such facts as these may be gleaned : — In a Western workshop for the manu- facture of agricultural implements, 600 employees were found doing work that would have required 2,145 in 1870, a displacement of 1,545 workmen. In the manufacture of small arms one man turned out fifty ** stocks " in ten hours, as against one stock in the same time by manual labour — a displacement of forty- nine men in a single operation. One man with the McKay machine could handle 300 pairs of shoes per day, while without the machine his limit was five pairs. In the manufacture of railroad supplies it was found that the displacement amounted to 50 per cent ; in the manufacture of rubber shoes 50 per cent. ; in the silk trade 40 per cent. ; in the soap trade 50 per cent., and so on in relation to many other trades. On the whole, Mr. Hill is amply justified in characterising Mr, 470 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. Commissioner Wright's summary of the situation in the United States in 1886 as "astounding calculations," They are worth quoting : The mechanical industries of the United States are carried on by steam and water power, representing in round numbers, 3,500,000 horse-power, each horse-power equalling the muscular labour of six men ; that is to say, if men were employed to furnish the power to carry on the industries of the country it would require 21,000,000 men, and 21,000,000 representing a population, according to the ratio of the census of 1880, of 105,000,000. The industries are now carried on by 4,000,000 persons in round numbers, representing a population of 20,000,000 only. There are in the United States 28,600 locomotives. To do the work of these locomotives upon the existing common roads of the country, and the equivalent of that which has been done upon the railroads, the past year (1886) would require, in round numbers, 54,000,000 horses and 13,500 men. The work is now done, so far as men are concerned by 250,000, repre- senting a population of 1,250,000 while the population required for the number of men neceessary to do the work with horses would be 67,500,000. To do the work, then, accomplished by power and power machinery in our mechanical industries and upon our rail- roads, would require men representing a population of 172,500,000, in addition to the existing population of the country of 55,000,000, or a total population, with hand processes and with horsepower, of 227,500,000, which population would be obliged to subsist on present means. Who shall own the New Continent of Machinery ? — Who, then, is to possess this stupendous New Con- tinent of Machinery is obviously a question of trans- cendant importance. At the Norman Conquest England was seized by a horde of brigands, and to this day it is in the hopeless grasp of brigand successors. Nor has the fate of the New Continent been very dissimilar. The Machine is none the less the gift of God to Man than is the Land itself andj alas, in the one case as in the other, we have permitted a few men, called Capital- ists, to appropriate the common heritage of all. The Machine has made those few rich to loathing, but, in the process, it is daily and hourly snatching the very bread from the mouths of starving millions. The con- sumer, it is true, benefits, by the cheapening of com- modities ; but the cheapest articles of consumption cannot be bought without some money, and where is the Unemployed One to find any ? THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 47I That is the problem to be considered, and the Hat- field man of broad acres and the Brummagem man of ingenious screws were, at last General Election, com- missioned by our sagacious sons of toil to solve it by means of a Parliamentary Tory majority of 152! These have promised us not ** Socialism " but ** Social Reforms." Let them begin then with a Reformed Machine, and it will suffice for a start. The Machine- tenders demand a new and distinct interest in the Machine. They have got beyond the stage of Luddism, and cry *' halves," at least, in regard to every fruitful in- vention. Land Nationalisation is in the air, but so also ' is the Nationalisation of Ideas. Here is how Mr. Hill would set about securing to the community some tangible stake in Invention : — Hill's Exorcism of the Machine-Frankenstein.— With present light, I would be inclined to make it compulsory on every Inventor to first offer his invention for purchase by the State, the State incur- ring the expense of a trial of the invention whenever a. prima facu case for belief in its value was produced. A delegation of inde- pendent specialists of repute, to be appointed by the Board of Trade, would determine whether an invention was of such im- portance as to make a purchase on the part of the State desirable ; and if th-ere was, in the case of purchase, any difference between the Inventor and the Government officers as to terms, these might be reached by arbitration. The State having become the purchaser of the invention, I would bring into operation the element of fair play, totally lacking under the present system. I would have the State offer the invention for general use, on the payment of a royalty, which might well be fixed on the principle of the sliding scale. No manufacturer could afford to do without an invention which made his rival's machine more efficient than his own machine ; while the amount of the royalty would be fixed by the State with a view to a substantial addition to the coffers of the Nation. For the royalty I would have the State pay it into the credit of a Universal Pension Fund, which might mean the reduction of poors' rates, and would certainly give proof to the Soldiers of Industry that all who have served faithfully and valiantly under the flag would pass into a •• Chelsea Hospital of national recognition, consideratou and care." Well, this, of course, is not exactly" Socialism," but, in these days of small ** Unionist " things, it is undoubted "sense," and a mighty improvement, at all events, either 472 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. on Salisbury's ** Circus " or Chamberlain's ** Five shill- ings a week Old Age Pension " — mostly out of the worker's own pocket — when he shall have reached his sixty-fifth birthday 1 Mr. Hill taps a new and most legitimate source of revenue, and I trust all Ministers and Ex-Ministers will give his suggestion the serious consideration which it unquestionably deserves. It is as statesmanlike a proposal as any that has been made for many a day. Free Travel and Fresh Air.— Mr. Hill, while he was about it, might very well have devoted a chapter to ** Multitude and Locomotive Machine " ; for, next to effective possession of the land by the people, unfettered locomotion is most essential to human well-being. In a little volume (q.v.) Politics for the People (First Series), published now years ago, I dealt, to some extent, with the question of Free Railway Travel and Transport, and have never ceased to feel most strongly on the subject : The principle of Free Travel has already been extensively con- ceded. We have abolished the turnpike gate and the toll-collector, and our highways are "free " in the sense that they are maintained by general assessment. And if the turnpike gate was an odious obstruction to the traveller, how much more obnoxious to him or her is the railway ticket-box ? If John Lauder Macadam's humble invention is to be a common charge on the community for the com- munity's good, why should James Watt's transcendenily more important boon be permitted to exist. primarily for the "profit " of shareholders ? Dividends are no more inherent in railways than in turnpikes. The human trail is succeeded by the bridle-path, the bridle-path by the highway, the highway by the railway, and each in turn has known its footpads, highwaymen, or other blackmailer. To-day the knight of the road calls his booty " dividends " (;^40, 000,000 per annum, think of it !) and so respectable has he become that the travelling public almost regard him as a benefactor. The blessings of free travel are too many and obvious for enumer. ation, but one stands out. It is the only effective means yet suggested of extirpating our vile city slums. At present the sweated must live near their work in the most abominable surroundings. Rent is proportionally higher to the overcrowded poor ; their lodging is costly as it is noisome and squalid. Overcrowding can only be cured out-right by one sovereign remedy — by giving the toiler a home in the country, and free travel THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 473 alone makes this possible. The domestic mountain will not come to our Mohammed of labour, but our Mohammed can be conveyed to it, from his work in town and back again, under a national free travel system. There is no reason why a " docker " should not grow his own vegetables and be his own dairyman at the same time. Free travel would, in a few years, change the whole face of society. The curse of overcrowding would be at an end. and five-sixths of the vices of *• civilisation" be extirpated. Thus only can the " submerged tenth " be made effectively to emerge ; for free railway travel is the one sove- reign remedy for the deplorable *' tenements " which are the dis- grace of nearly every large town. '* Model Dwellings " maybe better than the ''slums," but they are no substitute for the one thing needful — Fresh Air. If the vast toiling population of London were to be housed in palaces instead of East-end rookeries and hovels, its hygienic standpoint would still be determined by the distance any given portion of it is removed from the nearest point where really fresh air is to be obtained. This all-important fact was demonstrated about twenty years ago in a remarkable pamphlet, entitled "Degeneration amongst Lon- doners," by Dr. James Cantlie, late of the Charing Cross Hospital, whose weighty conclusions have not yet received anything like the attention they deserve. To the question. What is fresh air ? Dr. Cantlie, with some hesi- tation, replied, " It is ozone — a gas, a modification of oxygen, to which unsearchable vital powers are ascribed. It is to be found in the open country, at sea — in fact, everywhere where there is not too great an aggregation of human beings to abstract or decompose it." After repeatedly testing the air of London for the presence of this vital gas, Dr. Cantlie arrived at this startUng conclusion : — " From whatever quarter the air is blowing the outer circlet of, say, half a mile of human beings absorbs the fresh air, and not only so, but adds various pollutions to it, so that the air breathed within a given area, centered round, for instance, Charing Cross or the Bank, has not had fresh air supplied to it for, say, 50 or 100 years. Hence we might define London as a district where there is no ozone." In a report lately issued, it is stated that out of every 1,000 children born and bred in the neighbourhood of the Strand, over 300 die for every 100 born and bred in the further suburbs, to go no farther a-field. The infantile death rate under one year, among the Well-to-do •• Classes," is 8 per cent. : among the " Masses" of Lambeth, e.g.y it is 30 per cent. ! Constant City life saps the very marrow in the bones of its inhabitants, rendering them liable to disease, and un- fruitful, so that each family absolutely rots out in two or three generations. The New Agriculture. — Free Railway Travel and Transport are the necessary complement of the HH 474 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. wonderful New or Intensive Agriculture, which, I believe, is destined to constitute, peradventure, the chief glory of the Twentieth Century. Among the many unprecedented marvels of science, which are certain to become accompHshed facts in the Coming Century, not the least astonishing will be those con- nected with the art of Agriculture. Already market- gardeners, French, Flemish, English, and Scottish, as well as the peasants of the Channel Islands, have opened up horizons so large that, as Prince Kropotkin truly observes {Agriculture^ price 2d. : Reeves, Fleet-street) **the mind hesitates to grasp them." If the soil is cultivated, no longer on the old wasteful extensive system but on the new intensive system, the minimum area on which the sustenance of a family can be raised, it is certain, will be almost incredibly small. It is not too much to say that, in this year of grace, 1898, so rapidly nearing its close, agriculture, in nearly every quarter of the world, is but in its infancy. It is now demon- strably possible for a skilled agriculturist to ** make " his own soil ; to defy seasons and climate ; to warm both earth and air around the young plant ; to produce in a word, on one acre what he used to crop on fifty acres, and that without any excessive fatigue, nay, by a great reduction of the total of former toil. So vast indeed are the possibilities of the New Agri- culture, that if every port in the United Kingdom were hermetically closed to imports from all the rest of the world, twice, nay thrice, the present population could be sustained, with comparative ease, in greatly enhanced comfort. We need depend on no alien source of supply for a single bushel of wheat, head of cattle, or basket of fruit or vegetables. Factory y. Farm. — How, then, comes it to pass that we madly scour the whole face of the earth for food supplies which thus lie in ready abundance at our very doors ? Why, simply because the cunning few know full well that any such system of scien- tific agricultural production for use instead of profit would once and for all automatically emancipate the THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 475 many economically, and that their own regime of plunder by Rent, Taxes, and Interest would consequently be at an end. More than four centuries before the Christian era, a wise ** heathen Chinee" — Mencius — foresaw the very dangers into which this country is now so recklessly running. He held that Agriculture must ever consti- tute the ** roots and stem of the great tree of production " in any community in a state of health, and that " all its other industries can at best be but branches." But this obvious wisdom we are ever disregarding more and more. We are grubbing up the ** roots " with the greatest energy, and soon shall have nothing left but sapless withered " branches." In the long run the only healthy man, physically and morally, is the agriculturist, or horticulturist, and our insane policy is to efface both. They are to be banished to the ends of the earth, in the name of the grande commerce and " shent per shent!" Of course it is not contended that all external ex- changes are useless and harmful. But I am satisfied that three-fourths of them, so far as this country is con- cerned, are based on a gross delusion, whose fruits are rapine and conquest abroad and a race of stunted, enervated " machine-minders " at home. In the second generation, or at all events in the third (if haply sterility has not supervened), our factory** hands " are notoriously the merest apologies for men. They are the merest ** waste '' or refuse of the mills in which, though os- tensibly grinding, they themselves have been inhumanly ground. The Devil has wrought with his broom of greed, Sweeping the land, this many a day ; He has heaped the people in cities and towns, Next he will shovel the heaps away. Miracles of Intensive Agriculture. — Let us now look at some of the proved facts of Intensive Agri- culture. Its object is to cultivate a small space, to manure it, to concentrate work on it, and to im- prove it in every way, so as to obtain the largest pos- 476 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. sible crop from it. To do this effectively co-operative labour and the best mechanical appliances are presup- posed. Science becomes the obedient and all-powerful slave of the Commune of Workers. In the island of Guernsey the total acreage is 9,884 — 4,695 acres covered with cereals and kitchen gardens and 5,189 in meadow. The latter feed 1,480 horses, 7,260 cattle, 900 sheep and 4,200 pigs, making three head of cattle per two and a half acres, without reckoning horses, sheep, or pigs. The fertilizers in use are sea- weed and chemical manures. Under the intensive system of pastoral agriculture twenty-five head of horned cattle can readily be fed on the space that the extensive system requires for the support of one. Next for fruit and vegetables. Replantation and a higher temperature than that of the air are the essence of all market-gardening, when once the soil has been artificially made. M. Ponce, of Paris, the author of a treatise on market-gardening, cultivates somewhat less than three acres, from which he raises annually 10 tons of carrots, nearly 10 tons of onions and radishes, 600 heads of cabbage, 300 of cauliflower, 500 baskets of tomatoes, 500 dozen of choice fruit, 154,000 salads — in all 123 tons of vegetables and fruits, on 120 yards long by 109 broad, or more than 44 tons of vegetables to the acre!^- ^ But a man (says Kropotkin) does not eat more than 660 lbs. o f vegetables and fruit a year, and two and-a-half acres of market- garden yield enough vegetables and fruit to richly supply the table of 350 adults during the year. Thus 24 persons employed a whole year in cultivating two-and-a-half acres of land, and only working five hours a day, would produce sufficient vegetables and fruit for 350 adults, which is equivalent at least to 500 individuals. How to "make" soil? They **make" it with old hotbeds of manure that have already served to give necessary warmth to young plants and early fruit. And they "make "it so well that, in recent contracts, the market-gardeners, if they chance to be mere tenants, stipulate to carry away their soil with them, at the close of their tenancy, along with their glass frames. In their THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 477 loam and their glass frames they possess both soil and climate, their most valuable assets. In the North of England, where coal costs 3s. a ton at the pit's mQuth, hothouse grapes have long been cultivated to the greatest advantage. Thirty years ago these grapes, ripe in January, were sold by the grower at 20s. per lb., and resold for Napoleon III.'s table at 40s. per lb. They may now be had from the same source at 2s. 6d. per lb. ! And there is a yet more promising agent — Light — to be experimented with. Concentrated light, natural or artificial, it has been shown, can ripen barley in forty- five days, in the latitude of Yakoutsk. It will rival and, peradventure, outstrip heat in promoting the growth of plants : — A Mouchot of the future will invent a machine to guide the rays of the sun and make them work, so that we shall no longer seek sun-heat stored in coal in the depths of the earth. They will ex- periment irrigation of the soil with the culture of micro-organisms — a rational idea conceived but yesterday — that will permit us to give to the soil those little living beings necessary to feed the rootlets, to decompose and assimilate the component parts of the soil. Give us but the Commune, Intensive Agriculture, and Free Railway Travel and Politicians of every type may be safely left to do their best or worst. Their occupa- tion will practically be gone for good. The people will be free. For what the State Exists. — The State, as now con- stituted, may be said, in essence, to exist for the main- tenance of the four grand Monopolies of Land and Locomotion, Money and Machinery, and for little else, to the infinite detriment of all but the merest handful of the citizens. On me for one it heaps nothing but injury on injury. There is not a foot of soil within the four seas in which I have the remotest interest. The birds of the air have land rights and exercise them, but I and 99 per cent, of my fellows are trespassers, turn to whatever hand we may. His "Grace" of Westminster, indeed, graciously permits us to live in this London of his and to walk its streets, but he charges us a thousand pounds per diem for the privilege, and the State most vigilantly 478 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. enforces his every exaction. It provides the robber — at my expense always — with a whole army of disciplined myrmidons — bailiffs, policemen, soldiers, jailors, judges and hangmen — to overawe and crush me, if I offer the least opposition to the outrage, Nay, if I die, and my friends are so ill-advised as not to have me cremated, he will fine them smartly for a few feet of turf to cover my bones. Without the State at his back, his ** Grace" would be powerless to extract sixpence a day in rent, much less a thousand pounds, but with it he can pursue his defenceless tributaries into their very graves. The Taxation Fraud.— Take finally the Taxation Monopoly. The British State is ** run " at an expense — yours and mine, my reader — of some ;^i 20,000,000 per annum. To this fabulous amount, with almost the single exception of the small fraction spent on education, I, for one, entirely demur. It is mere criminal waste. I require neither Army, Navy, nor Court of Law to defend my property, because I have none to defend — at least, none that, with the aid of four stalwart sons, I cannot reasonably hope to safe- guard. Should the Kaiser and his Uhlans, or the Tsar and his Cossacks, take possession of London to- morrow and ** annex " its ;^i6,ooo,ooo of ground-rents, it would, doubtless, be a bad look-out for the West- minsters, Bedfords, and Portlands, but it could hardly injure me or any other honest toiler with hand or brain. The change might be for the better : it could hardly be for the worse. Nay I think it would most probably be for the better, because sentiment — ** patriotic" sentiment — would al- most certainly be aroused to do for us what reason has never done — we might be stirred up to a righteous hatred, not merely of Landlord, Usurer and Taxer, but of the State itself, from which they derive every element of their maleficent power and sinister authority. The State is the product oi force and frauds an invention of evil men for evil purposes, and just in proportion as the Workers begin to understand it, will they learn to abominate it, THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 479 and cast about for the substitute which will eventually be found in the Voluntary Commune. Consider the manifold significance of the following figures representing the average division of Wealth between Capital and Labour in the States named, in per cents. : — Country. Per Head. Capital. Labour. Italy /loi 51 49* Austria £t-0^ 63-4 366 Switzerland 654 34'6 Spain 674 320 Russia /61 68-8 31*2 France ^"252 679 321 Gewnany /i54 7^6 28*4 Britain ^299 732 26*8 Belgium 745 25-5 United States ;^23i 822 17*8 Australia /250., Canada £1^^,, All Lands /^i55. In the above table, it will be observed, Italy seems to be the Paradise of Labour, and the United States the Gehenna ; but it is in reality not so. In Italy there is no " wealth " to speak of, to divide up, and, if Labour did not get 49 per cent, of what exists there would be no labourers at all or capitalists either. The country has been absolutely ruined by** bloated armaments" and a ''spirited foreign policy." In some of the Provinces the State actually filches over 45 per cent, of the entire earnings of the people. With the United States the case is altogether differ- ent. There you have a land of boundless wealth, but Mr. Mallock's " Men of Ability," Carlyle's " Captains of In- dustry," and Swinburne's " Lords of Land and Princes of the Purse," have succeeded in reducing labour in the Great Republic to 17.8 per cent., and to such sheer des- peration, that even responsible Labour Leaders like Sovereign and Debs, have at times been induced to talk of "guns " as the only resource left to the poverty- stricken, workless and wageless millions. War Y. Education. — Take, next the following table ar d. Q Education, s. d. 2 O II I 9 2 8 A I 6 8 I 5 6 2 2 6 4 i\ 8 5 2 II 3 6 480 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. which, in a great measure, helps to explain the preced- ing. It gives the sum paid per head in the '* civilised '* countries of Europe on War and Education respec- tively : — W s. Belgium 5 Germany 9 Holland 15 Italy 6 Austria 5 Britain 15 Denmark 7 Russia 9 France , 16 Switzerland .. 3 Switzerland, the most democratic nation in the whole world, is the only one in Europe where knowledge is valued more than bloodshed. Russia, the most despotic, spends seventy-two times as much on war as on supplying its units with wisdom. Notice also that it is left to the great commercial nations to present the biggest butcher's bills. The fight for commercial supremacy is more deadly than wars for the aggrandisement of a despot. It v^^ill thus be seen that so far as any real social helpfulness is concerned, our own boasted Britain, the ** Mother of Free Parliaments," is cursed with one of the worst Governments in the world. And how can it be otherwise when we reflect how gross and colossal an imposture is this vaunted *' British Constitution " of ours ? For what is its make-up that we should look to it for Social Salvation ? Examine it closely and you will find that it is little better than a fraudulent farce from top to bottom. Fraud of Monarchy and Peerage.— Take our Mon- archy, ** made in Germany," to begin with. Is it not on the very face of it ** a whited sepulchre," made beautiful outwardly by Movning Posts and Daily Bel/owgraphsy but internally full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness ? The Queen opens and closes Parliament, nearly always **by proxy," with a *' Queen's Speech," not one sentence of which is hers and with nine-tenths of which she, probably enough, cordially disagrees. Her autograph, it is fabled, gives validity to THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 481 Acts of Parliament ; but they might just as well be signed by the door-keeper of the House of Commons, or by Bill Sykes of Dartmoor or Holloway, for any efficacy thereby imparted to them. In a word, the useful func- tions of our ** Westphalian swine," as Walter Savage Landor,with rare discrimination, described our Royalties, are entirely imaginary; it is the useless and noxious that alone are real. And these are very real indeed. For let it not be forgotten that ** The King can make a belted Knight, a Marquis, Duke and a' that." The Queen is, forsooth, the ** fountain of honour," the centre of gravity of the entire fabric of Aristocracy, Plutocracy, Militarism, and Priestcraft, which crushes the luckless toilers of the Nation into the very dust. She can manu- facture Peers of the Realm out of successful distillers, brewers, shoddy-manufacturers, usurers, and other hosUs humani generis, by the score. And these ennobled spawn of Mammon shine by light reflected from the Throne, and they, their sons, and their sons' sons are privileged to mar and mangle our laws, at their sweet will, until inevitable ** degeneration " extinguishes the whole stock. Then Royalty comes on the scene again, and the House of Landlords is recruited by a fresh gang of malefactors, who settle down to the business of henditavy legislaticuj with as much assurance as if their ancestors had indubitably ** come over at the Conquest.'' The ** Upper Chamber," thus constituted, consists of some 550 individuals who arrogate to themselves the ownership of one-fifth of the entire acreage of Great Britain, and, for a very restricted freedom of access to this not inconsiderable fraction of the national soil, it pleases them to exact from the toilers a nnt-trihute of ;^I4, 000,000 per annum ! And not content with this— I remember calculating, at the time when the abolition of the House of Lords was a burning question — our Dukes, Marquises and Earls, with their relations^ alone cost the people ;^3, 000,000 a year in salaries, places and pensions. What hope is there really for a nation, which not merely tamely submits to such unhallowed 482 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. impositions, but which, with all its vast army of Paupers and Unemployed on its hands, yet consents, without a word of effective protest, to pay a single family of ** wee, wee German lairdies " a million (;^i, 000,000) a year, for being the head and front of the whole offending ! What wonder that, in a country so devoted to the worship of Royal German Leeches and Hooley Peers, it should be legislatively reported impos- sible to find so much as a pension 5s. a week, for our veterans of toil over sixty-five years of age ! If we pro- vide so handsomely for the luxuries of those ** who toil not neither do they spin," it stands to reason that we should ignore even the dire necessities of those who do. Fraud of the " Elected Person,'* — And how much better are we off with the Elected Chamber, sometimes ironically called the ** People's House." ? It is currently affirmed that our wage-earners are in a numerical majority on the Voters' Roll, and that, if they chose to exert themselves, they could take posses- sion of St. Stephen's, and be the governing power. But this may be greatly doubted. In no country are the parasitic classes so numerous as with us, and nowhere are they so strongly and cunningly entrenched. The Registration Law fraud alone deprives the Workers of at least two million and a half votes at every General Election, while the *' plural " suffrages of the ** classes " are another good half-million cast into the balance against them. Another enormous make-weight against the Worker as a factor in our political system is the gross numerical inequality of electorates. He resides, as a rule, in the big constituencies and is consequently entitled, say, only to the twenty-thousandth part of a " talker in Par- liament," whereas bourgeois Jones will be found, in some less populous electoral division, with the two- thousandth or even a still more disproportionate part of a Senator all to himself. We sometimes hear of ** One man One vote " as a desideratum ; but how rarely of ** One vote One value," and yet the one is a necessary corollary of the other. THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 483 Besides, the game of politics is an intricate and a costly one to pursue, demanding both leisure and money on the player's part, and of these the toilers have neither the one nor the other. A General Election costs about a million sterling, of which the worker-candidate is ex- pected to find his share, and then, if happily successful, to live as M.P. on nothing per annum ! The ** People's House" is in fact, almost wholly "run" by land-lords, mine-lords, rail-lords, factory-lords, distillery-lords, brewery-lords, usurers, lawyers, profes- sional homicides(army and navy officers),^^ hoc genus omne^ and as for the " Elected Persons," who impudently call themselves '* Labour Leaders," it can hardly be pre- tended that any one of them — if we except John Burns — is fitted by grace, intellect, or inclination to lead Labour anywhere except into the ditch. Moreover, the internal or business organization of the House of Commons is such that, even with a score of efficient Labour Leaders (if so many are to be found in Christendom), it may well be doubted if any really effective headway could be made in the interest of the toilers. If the members of the House, as in the days of the Commonwealth, had the election of the Ministty or Executive Committee of Parliament, it might be some- what different. Democracy at least would have some sort of chance. But as it is, it has none. The Queen " sends for " this or that Party Leader and *' commands, " him to form a Ministry, and this he proceeds to do as seems best to him. He invariably selects as his col- leagues ** safe " men, who can be coerced into almost any policy for the sake of place and power. And the Administration thus once formed is practically omni- potent. The "private member" is reduced to a mere cipher — vox et pr ester ea nihil — and must seemingly so continue. In a vjoxd,the British Legislature is a machine so constructed as to he incapable of any except rotatory motion. Decadence of Representative GoYernment. — But in no two countries does the octopus of Authority present itself under precisely the same aspect. In Russia the Autocrat is 'both Warrior and Priest — a 484 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. pure and simple despotism " tempered by assassination." But for the moral majesty of that prince of Anarchists, Count Tolstoy, more potent in his voluntary poverty than all the bayonets and dungeons of the Czar, Public Opinion in Muscovy lies crushed and bleeding, or seeks refuge in foreign lands. In some respects, in spite of the inestimable blessings of personal freedom enjoyed by us, to an extent else- where unknown, it may well be that in Great Britain the obstacles to complete Social Emancipation will be found more difficult to overcome than even in Holy Russia itself. Here the Priest, the Warrior, and the Pro- prietor have formed an exceedingly cunning conspiracy to perpetuate indefinitely their triune plunder of the ** masses." Nowhere else is ** law-and-order " so de- plorable a fetish in the eyes of those for whose oppres- sion it was devised. When even men of light and leading, like Mr. Sidney Webb, Mr. J. Ramsay Mac- donald, and other enlightened Fabians, cannot divest their minds of the palpable fiction that Democracy and Representative Government are synonymous, one can hardly wonder at the torpidity of the proletarian intel- lect. But not many wise men, not many mighty men, are called when a new revelation or promulgation of any great Emancipatory Truth has to be made to mankind. In this country, all rational progress is, of course, sorely handicapped by the Hereditary Monarchy and Peerage ; but the evil of our Governmental System is far more deeply and bafflingly seated than that. In the Great Republic of the West, for example, our energetic kinsmen, who can " whip creation " in all or most other respects, are quite as hopelessly whipt by Legislatures of wholly ** Elected Persons," as are we ourselves by Queen, Lords, and Commons combined. Here are one or two morceaux from the American Press, which show very clearly how the wind blows in the New World : — The Legislature was incompetent, and its record demonstrates it from beginning to end. Its incapacity prevented measures which the "bosses" would not have objected to, while reforms which THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 485 might have injured Corporations (Companies) or the " bosses " were easily throttled. — Newath Sunday Call (New Jersey). The Legislature is defunct. It was marked by a few virtues and a thousand crimes. The members return home to receive the curses, loud and deep, of their disappointed Constituents. The de- feat of the Douglas Bill, and of every other measure aimed against the Corporations, will be difficult to explain. — The Rejprese7ttdtive (Minneapolis, Minn.). Thank God, they have adjourned, and may the People never again be cursed by a similar aggregation of bold party politicians and jobbers in Legislative Council. — The Tulare County News (California). •• He writes from out of Denver, and the story's mighty short, •• I just can't tell his mother, it'll crush her poor ole heart ; •• And so I reckon, parson, you might break the news to hur— •' BilPs in the Legislatur', but he doesnH say what fur.'* Well, if infinitely resourceful Brother Jonathan, minus king and peer, and with all the **Six Points of the Charter" in full operation, can do nothing better than relieve his feelings by ** curses, loud and deep," what is to be expected of shiftless. Monarchy-ridden, Aristocracy-ridden, Plutocracy-ridden John Bull ? His state and prospects are clearly " parlous " in the extreme. Democratic y. Representative GoYernment. — Is there, then, no remedy ? Undoubtedly there is, and I have no misgiving that, in time, the People will apprehend and apply it. But first, of all, they must be brought to distinguish clearly the radical difference between Democratic and Representative Government. In a Democracy, the citizens themselves (as in Switzer- land and, to an ever increasing extent, in America and, in our own Trade Unions), make the law and superintend its Administration ; in a Representative Government the Citizens empower Legislators and Executive Officers to make the law and to carry it out. Under a Democracy, Sovereignty remains uninterruptedly with the Citizens, or rather an ever changing majority of the Citizens ; under a Representative Government, Sovereignty is surrendered by the Citizens, for stated terms, to officials. In other words. Democracy is Direct Rule by the Majority, while, in a Representative Government, Rule 486 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. is by a succession of quasi-oligarchies, indirectly and remotely responsible to the Majority. The true inwardness of Democracy proper was thus pithily illustrated by the South Dakota Initiative and Re- ferendum League^ in a recent Manifesto. Our Legislators are' our cooks, and now we must not only pay them their salaries but also eat all they cook for us. Ugh ! the nastiness of some of the messes we have been made to swallow. With the Refbrendum, when they set before us some unsavory dish, we say '* No thank you," and pass it by. With the Imitative, when they refuse to cook for us, we make out a bill of fare and have our meals cooked to order. The people have concluded that making law by proxy is even more unsatisfactory than making love by proxy, and are now pro- ceeding to make law as they make love-in person — which is simply the Initiative and Referendum. Uses and Fruits of the Initiative and Referendum. ' — The uses of the Initiative and Referendum have been thus defined : 1. As a club over the Representative's head. 2. As a prevention of Bribery and Corruption. 3. As a measure of routing the Lobbyists. 4. As a quick relief from Misrepresentation. 5. As a rebuke to Partisanship in Lawmaking. 6. As an elimination of the "Spoils System." 7. As a road to Local Self-government. 8. As a Simplifier of Law. 9. As a direct way of enacting the People's Will. 10. As an Educational Force in Government. 11. As a mode of testing the Popularity of Reforms. 12. As conducive to the Economical Administration of Affairs. There is, alas, but one democratic country in the world — Switzerland — and there it is known by its fruits, which are very different from those of Representative Government. Here are some of the reforms already secured to the Swiss people by the Referendum : — 1 . It (the Referendum) has wiped out Plutocratic Rule. 2. It has made it easy for the People to alter at will their Constitution in Commune, Canton, and State. 3. It has simplified Administration. THE ANNALS OF TOL. 487 4. It has changed Public Rulers into Public Servants. 5. It has made the Law so plain that Lawyers are useless. 6. It has abolished Monopolies and reduced Taxation. 7. It has so prospered the People that Emigration has ceased. 8. It has made Three-fourths of the Heads of Families Landholders. 9. It has purified Politics ; reformed the Press ; and made the Ballot truly express the Will of the Voters. Educational Yalue of the Referendum. — The first noticeable feature in Democratic as distinct from Re- presentative Switzerland is that debate uniformly turns not on men but on measures. The reason is plain. Where the Veto is possessed by the People collectively in vain do rogues go to the Legislature. And just as public attention has been diverted from men to measures has the average intelligence of the people been strikingly developed. The Educational Value of the Referendum is beyond calculation. Illiteracy is at a lower percent- age in Switzerland than in any country in the world. Primary Instruction is free and compulsory in all the Cantons, and Patriotism, in it truest sense, is inculcated from cradle to grave. The four Universities employ no fewer than three hundred instructors of eminence, and riches of the mind are more highly esteemed than mere filthy lucre. Jobbery and extravagance are unknown, and politics have ceased to be a trade. The mischievous class of partizan laws, which the Legislatures of other countries are constantly passing and constantly repeal- ing, in Switzerland is not passed at all. Economic Yalue of the Referendum. — Let us next glance at the economic question as affected by the Swiss system of Direct Legislation. The area of Switzerland covers some 16,000,000 square miles. Of these 30 per cent, consist of sterile mountains, glaciers, and waterbeds ; while 18 per cent, are forest lands. Not more than half the country is good for crops or pasture. Consequently the well-being and happiness of the Switzer depend far less on nature than on the 488 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. wisdom of his political arrangements. By these he has placed the monopolies that in other countries are allowed to breed millionaires and mendicants under the Direct Government of the People. In taxation, the tendency everywhere in the Republic is to raise revenue by direct as opposed to indirect taxes, and by progressive taxation according to fortune. In Zurich, for example, there was no direct taxation in the beginning of the century. In 1832 it supplied one-fifth. To-day the Canton raises 32f. per capita by direct tax- ation for every 2f. by indirect, and this change has accompanied the change from Representative to Demo- cratic institutions. We have heard ad nauseam about the great Harcourt Budget of 1894, t>ut it was a mere bagatelle to what has been effected,in the same direction, by the more advanced Cantons of Switzerland. After exemption of a certain minimum, the largest incomes are made to pay a rate five times as heavy as the moderate ones: while in the case of property, the largest fortunes pay double the smallest. In the last thirty years, the tax on inheritances has been increased sixfold. The larger the property and the more distant the relative benefitted, the heavier the rate. It is sometimes as high as twenty per cent. The Federal Debt, in 1890, of ;^2, 500,000 was less than one-half the Federal assets in stocks and lands. Switzerland's trade per head, in spite of countless drawbacks, is greater than that of any Continental Power. Referendum and the Land Question. — Next for the Land Question in the Republic. Nowhere is there so wide a distribution of the soil among the inhabitants. The 5,378,122 acres of agricultural land is divided among no fewer than 258,637 cultivators, the average size of the farms being about twenty-one acres. Two-thirds of the entire population have a direct stake in the soil. Nearly every Commune (^'.^., parish or township) owns public lands. In many Communes, where they are mostly wooded, they are entirely managed by the Local Government ; in others, they are partly leased to individuals ; in others, much of them is THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 489 worked in common by the citizens ; in others they are divided periodically among the citizens. The Canton of Uri has nearly 1,000 cultivated acres, the distribution of which gives about a quarter of an acre to each family entitled to share. Uri has also forest lands worth nearly five million francs, representing a capital for each family of nearly 1,500 francs. Numerous small towns and villages collect no local taxes, and give each citizen an abundance of fuel. In the Canton of Valais communal vineyards and grain fields are cultivated in common. Every member of the corporation who would share in the produce of the land contributes a certain share of work. Part of the revenue thus obtained is expended in the purchase of cheese. The rest of the yield provides banquets, in which all the members take part. In a word, the results of Democratic Legislation com- pare most favourably with Representative, intellectually, morally, and economically, and there is but one moral that self-satisfied, ** free-born Britons" ought to draw from Swiss Government by Initiative and Referendum^ and it is obvious : — Go thou and do likewise, and the sooner the better . Entre Nous.— And now, good reader, you and I have ended a long, toilsome, and be it hoped, not wholly unprofitable journey. For nearly lorty years the sub- ject matter of The Annals of Toil has, at no time, been long absent from my thoughts, nor indeed from my pen, as those who have read such previous chips from the same journalistic workshop as The Old Order and the New^ The Gospel of the Poor, Let there he Light I, The Villagers^ Magna Charta, The New Book of Etngs, Politics for the People, etc., etc., will readily comprehend. All these, I am well aware, are fragmentary and barely worthy of the name of literature ; but a single thread of unswerving democratic purpose will be found to run through them from first to last, and that, perhaps, is there sole title to distinction. If I cannot boast with the moribund Apostle Paul that ** I have fought a good fight," I can at least affirm without boasting that ** I II 49Ct THE ANNALS OF TOIL. have kept the faith," as it was dehvered to me when I had barely entered on my " teens." In season and out of season, I have pressed into the service of the ** Cause," history and biography, economics and philosophy, poetry and religion, as I best knew how, Holding it true, with him that sings To one clear harp in divers tones. That men may rise on stepping stones Of their dead selves to nobler things. But how to find the true ** stepping-stones " is the puzzle. At this hour, what is most wanted is that which is least suspected — an economic Columbus to discover for us the true stepping-stone or just mean between two competing Socialisms, viz.. State Socialism and Anarchist Socialism. The one says : The Land to the State. The Mine to the State. The Tool to the State. The Product to the State. The other says : The Land t© the Cultivator. The Mine to the Miner. The Tool to the Worker. The Product to the Producer. The Annals of Toil does not pretend to delimit the province of each of these Socialisms : but I shall indeed be disappointed if it be not found to go a considerable way to supply indispensable data for such delimitation. Anyhow, we do know for certain that the mighty fortress of privilege and monopoly to be captured by the Toilers stands four-square — Land and Locomotion^ Momy and Machinery — and that the weapons of our warfare are the Initiative and Referendum. And that is no small matter. There is little, alas, to cheer the reader in the chequered Story of the Toilers. On every page " man's inhumanity to man " grimly stares us in the face. And then, ah then, the seemingly abortive lives of so great a multitude of devoted men and women, illustrious many THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 49l of them, who have been ceaselessly sacrificed along the Via Dolorosa of ever attempted, ever baffled Labour- Emancipation ! About twenty years ago I published a volume of biographic sketches, then very popular, of twenty- four Eminent Radicals in and out of Parliament and not a half are alive to-day, though two such vener- able Nestors of Freedom and Progress as George Jacob Holyoake and Edward Truelove still happily inger on this side the bourne. My personal losses, as I may well reckon them, have been very heavy, George Odger, Ashton Dilke, William Morris, James Beal, Henry George, William Saunders, William Alexander Hunter, and Richard Marsden Pankhurst among the better known. Many, also have found the pace of advance too hard for them and have silently fallen out of the ranks, while others, yet more to be commiserated, have gone bodily over to the enemy and the degrading cult of Mammon. In moments of saddened retrospect, the mournful yet confident words (quoted in Prescott's Mexico) of the great reforming Aztec Monarch of Tezcuco, Nezahual coyotl — who, in Ante-Cortes, nay, in Ante-Columbus days {circa 1460), was a devout worshipper of the Un- known God — ever rise up before me in solemn majesty : All things om earth have their term, and, in the most joyous car- eer of their vanity and splendour, their strength fails, and they sink into the dust. All the round earth is but a sepulchre ; and there is nothing which lives on its surface, that shall not be hidden and em- tombed beneath it. Rivers, torrents, and streams move onward to their destination. Not one flows back to its pleasant source. They rush onward, hastening to bury themselves in the deep bosom of the ocean. The things of yesterday are bo more to-day ; and the things of to- day shall cease, perhaps, to-morrow. The cemetery is full of the dust of bodies once quickened by living souls, who occupied thrones, presided over assemblies, marshalled armies, subdued provinces, arrogated to themselves worship, were pufifed up with vain-glorious pomp, and power, and empire. But these glories have all passed away, like the fearful smoke that issues from the throat of Popocatepetl, with no other memorial ot their existence than the record on the page of the chronicler. The great, the wise, the valiant, the beautiful — alas, where are 492 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. th«y now ? They are all mingled with the clod ; and that which has befallen them shall happen to us ; and to those that shall come after us. Yet let us take courage, illustrious nobles and chieftains, true friends aud loyal subjects — let us a^pirt to that heaven where all is •ternal, and cofruption cannot come. The horrors of the tomb are but the cradle of the sun, and the dark shadows of death are brilliant ights for the stars. But some of the Old Democratic Guard, who with myself were on duty long before there was any talk of S.D.F., S.F., or I.L.P. — such,for example, as Alfred Ewen Fletcher, the Master-Builder of the Daily Chronicle, who found a structure of half-baked political brick and left it one of true literary and democratic marble ; William Clarke of the Spectator, a rare Progressist thinker with few compeers ; and Herbert Burrows '* ready, aye ready " to lead the most forlorn of forlorn hopes — are still happily at their posts and vigilant as ever, respon- sive only to the chord so truly struck by Sir Lewis Morris in the solacing lines : — Others I doubt not, if not we, The issue of our toils shall see : Young children gather as their own The harvests that the dead have sown. The dead forgotten and unknown. But I am »o laudator temporis acti^ As there were heroes before Agamemnon, so have there been since, and so will there continue to be still more in the days yet to come. So far as I have been in contact with the younger generation of men and women — particularly the women — enlisted in the New De- mocratic Guard, I can honestly say that they seem to me of a type and temper distinctly superior to any that was prevalent, e.g., in the Sixties or Seventies. Then, for example, we had no two such Sir Galahads of the pen as Robert Blatchford of Merrie England fame, and Alexander M. Thompson, the doughty English Apostle of the Referendum, not to mention other good men and true of the Clarion and Lalour Leader staffs. Neither had we any all-sacrificing Bruce Wallace, THE ANNALS OF TOIL. 493 John C. Kenworthy, or Frank Smith ; nor, among living women, any like unto Mrs. Fyvie Mayo, or unto Mar- garet McMillan — ** our Margaret " the Consecrate — nor, in the Calendar of the Departed, such Saints of the "Cause" as Gertrude Green, Eleanor Marx Aveling (tout compnndre, c'est tout par donner), and Caroline Marty n {Re quiescant in pace /). And it is well that it should be so ; for the pages of The Annals of Toil teach, if they teach anything, that the New Democracy of the English-speaking race is the inheritor and custodian of priceless immuni- ties and franchises, wrung piecemeal from the truculent grasp of the ** Classes," at the cost of an infinite ocean of blood and tears. Democrats of the Twentieth Century, the Future is yours ! Nos Morituri Salutamus / Deus Vobiscum I Hail to the Mighty Spirits, The foremost of our day ; Crown them with deathless laurel, And with immortal bay, Let^them in truest glory Be heralded along, By a rejoicing People, And by the Poet's song. High priests ! that need no tinsel, No mummeries or shows. No sacredotal garments. No miracles impose. No bells from crowding steeples, With clanging tongues acclaim The morning, noon or evening, Or hour when ye proclaim, But the great Press for ever Your great words surges forth To the expectant, listening East, West, South and North. True pioneers and labourers, Up the encumbered way ! With hands that dig for knowledge, And eyes that watch for day ! God's noblest, greatest Workers, Searchers of truths that bo, Wrapptjd in no pomp of offict Like '• totalled Theology" ! 494 THE ANNALS OF TOIL. Lead us, still lead us onward The crowded way of time ; Feeding our souls with knowledge, Teaching us truths sublime ; Opening the gates of Science And pure Philosophy ; Showing the pathways leading To Truth and Deity ! THE END. ^^^ 14 DAY USE RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED LOAN DEPT. This book is due on the last date stamped below, or on the date to which renewed. Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. ^1^5=^^ 17K ■5iO^G7-Q?W 4^ *-iV otc^o^g^^^ R ECEtVEP U >. i L t)0 ''^ n«i LOAN PEPT. MWR %U -fiEfi^tisa? KCC. urn. APR 2 3 11180 LD 2lA-60m-3,'65 (F2336sl0)476B General Library University of California Berkeley ^ClBb880