It is as clear as mathematical demonstration, therefore, that the principles by which the Democratic body are governed, have been proved by experience to be adverse to the interests of the producers of commodities; and that the working classes, seduced and blinded by the flattery of Democratic demagogues, who all resided in, and were actuated by, the interests of towns, have given a fatal ascendency in the Legislature to the very class in the State to whom all their misfortunes have been owing, and whose interests are directly adverse to their own. The operative workmen feel this; they are aware that they have been misled, deceived, betrayed; that amidst the incessant eulogies of the Democrats, they have been constantly getting poorer; amidst a continual fall of prices, have had daily less to eat, and that, as Cobbett well expresses it, just in "proportion as education has been thrust into their heads, their clothes have been slipping from their backs." It is in consequence of the strong, the galling, the heartrending sense of their deception,-it is because the utter worthlessness of all the Democratic projects advanced in the interest of the monied and consuming classes in towns to ameliorate the State, has been fully and universally experienced, that Trades' Unions, with all their attendant starvation, perils, and anarchy, have risen up in the land. But are they the way to remedy the evil? Is a complete stoppage of labour on the part of several hundred thousands, perhaps a million of workmen, a way to ameliorate their condition? Is, to use their own haughty expressions, the "snapping asunder every link in the chain which binds society together, by this inert conspiracy of the poor against the rich," the way to augment the resources of their customers-the rich, without whose wealth to buy their commodities all their labour must go for nothing? Alas! such a convulsion, if it once becomes general, is calculated to inflict a degree of wide-spread misery upon the operatives, compared with which, all they have hitherto experienced would be regarded as the sunshine of prosperity. On this subject, we cannot do better than quote the eloquent words of that stanch 7. Wages paid to the hand-loom weaver for weaving one piece of third 74s. calico. Reformer, Sir D. Sandford, address ed to the Trades' Unions of Glasgow. "In a contest between capital and labour, taking into account the state of matters in this country, capital must ultimately triumph, at the expense of much confusion and much misery. I can see nothing in this opinion to retract or qualify. It will recommend itself, I think, to the acquiescence of all who examine the question with their eyes open, unblinded by the metaphysical definitions of political economy. The capital by which, in conjunction with labour, our manufactures are carried on, must all be classed under the heads of works and machinery, raw materials, and money. By a unanimous refusal to labour, the workmen may throw the capital of the first description into temporary inactivity; or by an insurrectionary movement, they may destroy both it and the stores of raw material now in the kingdom. Thus may they inflict a heavy loss upon the proprietors; sure, however, in the end to bring want and woe upon themselves. But they cannot at one blow destroy the money already accumulated, or that command of money which credit and connexion give. These potent weapons are in the hands of their employers. Let the workmen meditate upon the inevitable consequence. If one party is to try to starve out the other, the longer purses and wealthier connexions of the masters will carry them through the struggle, and their opponents will gain nothing beyond the suffering attendant on a painful and perilous experiment; or mouied capital will take its flight to other lands, where labour assumes a less menacing attitude, and offers the prospect of more secure returns. The labouring classes should remember that capital of this kind, once scared away, is not easily courted back; and they should turn their attention for a moment to certain provinces of Ireland, as a specimen of the condition to which a people may be degraded, chiefly by the absence of capital, arising from the absence of security. Thus I fear that despair at last, if not evil design in the first instance, might drive the working population into the frantic excess of rebellion against law, and attacks on property. But he who holds out hopes of final success to a movement of that character is either a fool or a villain. Even without the aid of a numerous and welldisciplined army, a British insurrection of the labouring classes would assuredly be put down, perhaps with much bloodshed on the field and the scaffold. The holders of property are strong enough to defend themselves, by a general rally of the upper and middle ranks in our cities and our rural districts. I do not apprehend a new edition of the Bristol conflagration. I am pretty confident that on the stage of this country, we shall not behold enacted the dismal scenes of the first French Revolution. And if these tragedies were to be repeated in our days, will any member of the working body point out one result, beneficial to that most important but dependent class, to which they could reasonably be expected to give birth?” These observations are deserving of the most serious consideration, and by none more than the wretched, deluded men, who are now tempted by their democratic leaders to attempt what they term an " inert conspiracy" against the whole capital and wealth of the state. Do they really conceive it possible they can succeed in such a design? Is there any example in the history of mankind of such a conspiracy, how "inert" soever, proving successful? Have they funds to enable them to hold out against the capital and resources of the masters, the accumulations of centuries, supported, as they will be, by the banks, the monied men, the government? The Trades' Unions tell, and we grieve to hear the fact, that there are 50,000 families in and around Glasgow, and as many in and around Manchester and Birmingham, who do not know at night that the bread for their little ones will be baked to-morrow. The Liberator boasts that there were 2000 operatives in Glasgow in January last, who had struck work, whose weekly maintenance cost L.500. At this rate, which is evidently the lowest on which a human being can subsist, (58. a-week,) 200,000 operatives would cost L.50,000 a-week, and a million, L.250,000.* Are they prepared with vast funds of this description to sustain their efforts? And is 78. a-week, the amount, as they tell us, of their present earnings, a likely source from which to derive them? Liberator and Trades' Union Gazette, Jan. 24, 1834. But this is not all.-Such vast assemblages of working-men, thrown out of work simultaneously, will, to the end of time, inevitably generate acts of violence and deeds of blood. Oppression towards their fellow-creatures is the necessary and universal result of the congregation of thirty or forty thousand idle, unrestrained men together-nothing short of military discipline can ever restrain them. Among such vast bodies, there will always be found many daring reckless characters, who will not scruple to perpetrate acts of the greatest atrocity, to forward the purposes of the union. It is not in human nature to sit with its hands across, and see strangers introduced to work at reduced wages, and thus defeat all the purposes of the combination, without taking the short and simple way of knocking them on the head. The rapid growth of the atrocious practice of throwing vitriol in the manufacturing districts, proves how general the operation of these principles has become. It is truly observed in a late publication on this subject "If the working classes could be brought to combine without using violence towards those who do not enter into their views, the evil, how great soever, would be comparatively inconsiderable to what is now presented; but, unfortunately, this never can be the case. Among the thousands and tens of thousands who are combined together to gain these common objects, there always have been, and always will be, found some reckless and worthless characters who will not scruple to exert violence, or even embrue their hands in the blood of such of their fellow-citizens as, by holding out, threaten to defeat the object of their com bination. To the end of time such worthless characters will be found in all large bodies of mankind; they may be calculated upon as a given quantity to the last days of the world; and therefore, violence, intimidation, and bloodshed may be permanently expected to attend such combinations. The trades' unions, therefore, however plausible in theory, become, in practice, the mere association of violence and tyranny, over industry and peace; they are the engine by which the most lawless and reckless of society are enabled securely to exercise a grinding oppression over the more quiet and inoffensive. They subvert the whole objects of society, defeat the chief ends of the social union, and expose the poor to a tyranny the more galling and dangerous, that it is exercised by men of their own rank in society, and supported by the physical strength of vast masses in the state." But suppose that this were not to be the result, and that by a simultaneous strike of several hundred thousand men, over the whole country, the present object of obtaining a deduction of two hours a-day from the period of work is gained What will be the result?-Will wages remain at their present level, low as it is, under such a reduction? Unquestionably not. They will, and must fall, just in proportion to the diminution in the produce of looms; and the condition of the workman will be more miserable than ever. By no human contrivance-by no intimidation or violence, or inert conspiracy," can capitalists and masters be compelled to pay wages, which are a loss to themselves, or abridge materially the present slender rate of profits:-rather than do so, capital will take wings to itself, and emigrate to other and more tranquil lands; and the peopled houses of Britain will be filled with starving millions, deprived by their own suicidal hands of the means of subsistence. The frantic anarchical course which the workmen are now pursuing, therefore, is as little calculated to afford the many effectual relief, as the blind and infatuated support of the democratic faction in towns has been; while it threatens to produce results more immediately ruinous and destructive than even the Reform Bill, that stupendous monument of general infatuation, is in the course of effecting. The one is a burning delirium, which will at once prostrate the patriot; the other a low fever, which will gradually, but certainly, exhaust his strength. An extensive struggle has lately broke out in the west of Scot Thoughts on the Reformed Ministry and the Reformed Parliament.-P. 37. Stillies. Edinburgh. 1834, land, in consequence of a resolution of the masters to employ no calicoprinters who were members of the Trades' Unions, and bringing down new hands to supply the place of those who refused to abandon these pernicious associations. The result has been just what might have been anticipated. Where the military were in sufficient force to protect the new workmen from the violence of the associated trades, the masters have proved victorious, and the fresh hands are going on; where they were not, the associated operatives succeeded in expelling them. Twelve delinquents, apprehended by the Glasgow police, were liberated by the mob: eight unhappy prisoners are securely lodged within the walls of Stirling Castle. The west of Scotland is approaching the condition of Ireland: the authority of law exists, where soldiers stand, or the guns of fortresses protect the prisoners. Where the defence of the industrious is left to themselves, they are compelled to yield to the unionists. Such are the fruits of Whig Government! We insert with pleasure the following just observations of the Glasgow Herald on this subject:-* "Nothing can equal the infatuation of the operative printers in the whole of this business: they had comparatively light work and comparatively high wages; but these very circumstances, along with the notion of more skill being required in their profession, led them to consider themselves superior to the ordinary run of workmen, and their vanity thus exposed them to become easy tools in the hands of the revolutionists. Elated with the brilliant figure which they had made in reform processions, they flattered themselves that they were the pets of Government, and would get their own way in every thing, even when they attempted to enact the part of tyrants over their fellow-labour ers. While they affected the spirit of independence, they basely submitted to live on contributions from others; and those of them who were married had the injustice and inhumanity to deprive their families of more than a half of their usual rate of subsistence. While they were proudly lording it over others to whom they denied the freedom both of judging and of acting, a large portion of them selves were abject slaves, trembling under that very intimidation which they were labouring to inflict on others—at least such is the defence that is resorted to by those who have abandoned the Unions. "Those Trades' Unions, which now cause so much confusion and alarm in the country, originated in the former Political Unions, which were organized under the direction of itinerant orators and agitators, of which apostles of mischief in this part of the country the chief was Mr Joseph Hume, M. P. No merit would have attached to his successful exertions which had existed in England since the to abolish the laws against combinations, time of Edward I., unless they had been followed by practical results, and those results we now see before us." Is, then, the cause of industry and production utterly hopeless? Have the monied classes, the traders, the shop-keepers, succeeded, by the insidious spread of democratical principles, in for ever dividing the produc tive classes, who are the source of all their wealth, but, from want of equal cunning, have been the unhappy victims of their artifice? Are the working classes for ever to follow the red flag of democracy to their own perdition, instead of the old banner of England, under which all classes once throve and were prosperous? Will mankind ever be governed by words, and worship the demon who flatters their passions, regardless of the bread which is vanishing out of their mouths, the furniture which is melting away from their dwellings, the clothes which are slipping from their backs? Such is the force of public delusion, such the astonishing manner in which the productive classes have been arrayed against each other by the arts of the that we much fear their ascendency democratic or consuming faction, will continue, that the situation of the whole industrious classes, both in town and country, under their democratic leaders, will daily become worse, until at length the cup of misery is full, and military despotism closes the scene. But one thing is perfectly clear, that if this deplorable result does take place, it will not be because the means of extrication are utterly lost Glasgow Herald, Feb. 10, 1834. to the nation. By a cordial union with, and support of, the Conservative body; by a junction of the strength of the agricultural and manufacturing producers, they may yet shake off the monstrous load of shopkeepers, money-lenders, and traders who have risen into such fatal preeminence on their distresses. The classes who constitute the ten millions will be too strong, if united in a constitutional struggle, for the five; the producers of four hundred millions a-year of produce must, in the end, if they will only act together, overcome those who produce one. The Reform Bill, indeed, has quadrupled the political power of the urban and monied party, and reduced to less than a half the forces of industry; the manufacturing operatives have to thank themselves for having given this monstrous addition to the forces of their adversaries, and weakened so alarmingly the strength of their friends. Still the case is not utterly hopeless; their own acts are likely to relieve them; the extremity of suffering, which they have brought upon themselves, may perhaps prove the means of dispelling the universal delusions by which they have been blinded. But let us not be misunderstood; it is by constitutional means, and constitutional means alone, that the bat tle must be fought; the Conserva◄ tives never can, and never will, be come Radicals; the Operatives must become Conservatives. We do not say Conservatives, in the false and odious sense in which the falsehood of the urban consumers uses it,-that is, as the supporters of unjust or corrupt power, such as the Democrats falsely assert governed the country before the Reform Bill,-we say Conservatives in the sense in which, and in which alone, we have ever supported it; as the defenders of all the great interests in the State, and especially of the vast bodies of agricultural and manufacturing producers, from whose labours four-fifths of the national income flows; by whose hands all classes are fed and clothed, and lodged. We say Conservatives, not as the enemies of the real and just interests of the consumers and monied men, but of that unjust and oppressive advantage which they have gained by the towndirected legislation of the last fifteen years, and which has brought on the nation the unspeakable calamities of free trade, contracted currency, Democratic Government, and the threatened change in the Corn Laws. We say Conservatives, as the steady friends of the Church, the shield of the poor against infidel attack and city corruption; as the supporters of the national faith against the combined attacks of Radical vio lence and public suffering, and as thoroughly convinced that it is only by doing justice, and protecting equally all interests, and most of all the Funds, the great Savings' Bank of the poor, that the national salvation can be accomplished. We say Conservatives, not as deluded by the idea so lamentably prevalent of late years, that it is by destroying the interests, either of rural or urban producers, by the free and unrequited admission of foreign produce, that the great surplus revenue of the nation, the fountain of prosperity to all classes, can be augmented; but by such protecting measures as will secure to our operatives, whether in town or country, a due return for the fruits of their toil, and cease to grind down the British labourers for the benefit of the city Democrats, or the advantage of foreign states. The views we have now sketched out, explain that gradual, but evidently increasing approximation of the Conservatives and the industrious classes, at which the Whigs so loudly exclaim as a monstrous union of Tories and Radicals. This outcry comes with peculiar consistency and good grace from the correspondents of political unions, from those who bowed to deputations headed by tailors, from the advocates of the brickbat and the bludgeon, and the Journals who, by the open threat of Radical violence, overturned the constitution. The approximation proceeds from no political coalition, from no insidious or designing ambition. It is the result of the experience of common injury; of the instinct which leads men, of whatever opposite opinions, on most subjects, to unite against those by whom they have both suffered wrong. But it must be a very different coalition from that which history will for ever execrate; be attended by no such de |