WORKING-MEN'S CLUBS.

Press, Volume VIII, Issue 930, 31 October 1865, Page 3

WORKING-MEN'S CLUBS.

[From the " Examiner."] No one speaks of and to the working classes so instructively as Lord Stanley. He has brought himself to their level, and sees them as they really are, their means, their wants, their habits, their capabilities, their deficiencies. He does not make the mistake of requiring of the working classes a l; self-denial unpractised by the classes above them. He knows they must have j their social pleasures, and only proposes to turn them into a channel which may lead on to something better. He does not rail against publichouses, and denounce the selfish fellow who prefers to the bosom of his family the gossip of the tap, for he sees that the working classes are like all other classes in their requirements, and that there must be something more iv their lives than the alternations of monotonous toil and monotonous home. It is easy for people who cannot let their minds down to the level of the working classes to ask why they cannot be content with the company of their families after their-day's work, but where is the example of this extreme domesticity to be seen ? Are the evidences to be traced in the gorgeous buildings of Pallmall and St. James' street, and is there a country town of any pretension which has not its club, or some likeness of a club in a subscription room ?. There are indeed many parts of the country, small villages and thinly inhabited districts, where there is no place of meeting above the alehouse, and where persons above that haunt must compulsorily take to their homes when their occupations out of doors are at an end, and we believe that the wives generally are far from satisfied with an excess of their husbands' company, and often express a wish they had something to call them elsewhere. For it is as little good to be always in the same company as to be alone, and men too much at home get trifling habits, and interfere with domestic matters not befitting them, of all which wives are naturally impatient. But that sort of case never occurs in towns. What, then, is a tired man to do in a great manufacturing town when work is over ? What does a professional man in London, or any great city, in the same circumstances ? He goes to his club to divert his mind with conversation on the topics of the day, or to improve it with reading. And why should not working men also have this resource ? Wanting it, the alternative is the public-house, or home before its time, not as comfortable and attractive as it might and should be. We must take men, as Homer says, such as men now are, not as saints would make them ; and such as they are, we know they will have their social gatherings, and will get them, if they cannot be found elsewhere, in the much-denounced publichouse. In fact the public-house is the poor man's club for want of a better, and a better Lord Stanley would supply in the Workmen's Halls just opened at Birkenhead, and thus sensibly recommended : — : "Now, I am not going to say one word on the old hackneyed subject of keeping men away from the public- I house. Artizans are not children, and if they, working hard and earning; largely, choose to spend" their money in that way, they have as much right to do it as anybody else has to do a thing which ia simply foolish. It is a question between their families and themselves, and I think we may leave them to the conjugal eloquence which ; is very likely to be exerted on such j occasions. I have always thought that it was not for those who live more luxuriously to speak of them harshly iv that matter. It is their business more than ours. But what we have a right to say is this, that no man ought to be driven to the pablichouse for

want of any other place to go to. He ought not to be forced to go there '•eeause his club meets there, and he does not like to miss a club meeting, or because there is no other convenient place where he can enjoy friendly talk and a fire on a cold wintry night, or ' simply b-eause he has nowhere else to jgo Of course it maybe asked, why | cannot people stay at home ? Well, imy answer to that is that men in the richer classes, having a great deal more time at their disposal, and having materials for making far more comfortable homes, do not make it a universal rule to pass their evenings with their wives and children. I say nothing of that class—l am bound to speak of them as an unfortunate class —whose home is a lodging, aud who shelter their families whenever they put on their hats, but I say this, that social intercourse —free, friendly, easy talk—is as necessary to men as food, or sleep, or fresh air. A man does not live a healthy life without it, and therefore whatever enables him to enjoy that kiud of intercourse in a comfortable and civilised manner, is not only a pleasure to him, but it is a benefit to him intellectually and morally. And I think, therefore, that place* of meeting like this, which are meant to be real clubs, or places where clubs may mcct —not schools in disguise ; not institutes, although insti-

tutes are very good things in then way ; not lecture-rooms, although this room will no doubt serve that purpose admirably well if it be required ; bui places where talk, and newspapers and refreshments t may be had with a security against disturbance from drunken or rough'-and disorderly persons, —I say that places of this kind ought to exist, and I believe they shortly will exist in every great town in England, and in many of the little towns also." With improved habits, less money spent on drink, and more on housing themselves comfortably and respectably, the working classes would hold a position commanding social and political consideration. And here it may be well to profit by Lord Stanley's explanation of what is properly meant by the words working classes, which in one sense would include too much in the upward direction, and in the other in the downward. " There is a curious fallacy, there is a kind of mental confusion, that arises in the minds of newspaper readers from the use of that very vague, aud indefinite, and unsatisfactory term " the working classes." People think, when that name is mentioned, of laborers in rural districts, and immediately picture to themselves a family whose weekly earnings barely suffice to meet their weekly wants. I need not tell the audience I am now addressing that a skilled artizan in these parts is not only above tho reach of distress, except in such extraordinary circumstances as the breaking out of a war, a cotton famine, or the like; but that he is better off, so far as money goes, than very many of those educated men, who embark upon the honorable perils of professional life. I have lately seen —it was drawn up for me —a statement of the rate of wages hereabouts, and I find that they range (I am speaking, of course, of skilled laborers) from 30s to two guineas weekly, that is allowing for those occasional holydays which we are all of us the better for having, and which I suppose none of us can do without. Allowing for those, it is an income of from £70 to £100 a year— that is, for working in the usual way, for I am told that if a skilful artizan is employed by piece-work he may generally command a higher rate. Now, I do not think I shall be told that men living upon these wages are unable to support a club, and I think they might do much more than support a club. I see no reason why a large proportion of them should not, if they think fit, and supposing that the proper agency of supplying the demand is provided, as I am told it is here —I see no reason why a large proportion of them should not, if they choose it, live in their own freehold houses " Has it never struck those who have a distrust of the people regulated only by fear, and who apprehend that the working classes if enfranchised would act as a separate body held together by separate interests, and aiming at separate objects, that all this is now much in their power if they were so minded ? If they entertained any such views they could now to a very considerable extent act upon them, by giving to house rent what at present they give to unprofitable, not to say pernicious, indulgences. Upon this point hear! Mr. Laird : — ! " I am sorry to say that working men in general, many of them, at any rate, do not take advantage of the opportunities for improvement which are offered to them. If they attended more closely to their work, and, instead of spending their money foolishly invest it in building societies and other institutions established in this neighborhood, they would become thoroughly independent of landlords, they would themselves. be the owners of houses ; and when ortce they had experienced the benefit of having a house of their own, they would persevere in habits of iudustry and economy." " Lord Stanley will not use the word independent, without qualification, for he truly says that in the positive sense nobody is independent but the savage whose hands suffice for all his wants. Herefrom the lowest to the highest all are dependent, the Sovereign herself dependent on Parliament for the choice of Ministers The landowner seems most independent, but he is dependent on his tenants, who are in turn dependent on the seasons and many circumstances. Bad harvests or disease destroying live stock may make tenants defaulters, and then what avails the landlord's broad acres ? It is a property that must come round, and which must always have its value, but while the grass grows the steed starves. But in the comparative sense of the word there is independence, and a blessed state it is: and well says Lord Sta__ej:

=> "We are all dependent upon one ? another—the rich upon tho poor, the » poor upon the rich, and the rich just , as much as the poor. Civilized sot ciety cannot exist otherwise, but I : believe every thinking and feeling em- • player would desire those who work > | under him to feel themselves inde- ■ | pendent in one sense, in tho true sense ,of the word—that is, to feel that ■ they are above the pressure of immediate distress, that they are not living ; from hand to mouth, and that they are not liable to the caprice or the dictation of any single individual. My i belief is that the more you cultivate tlie feeling of self-respect, the more you cultivate independence in that ■ sense among working men the better, the pleasanter, and not more difficult you make the relations between them and their employers.