CHATS WITH THE CHILDREN.

Otago Witness, Issue 1974, 19 September 1889, Page 35

CHATS WITH THE CHILDREN.

Bt Pateb.

In connection with the strike of the dock hands a telegram appeared in the papers stating that it was feared the Socialists had planned a general uprising. One of the papers compared the general discontent now existing among the working masses to the discontent in the reigns of Edward 111 and Richard 11, and which culminated in the

Peasants' Rebellion of Richard IX.

As that rebellion is not described in tha histories in use in schools generally as fully as its importance deserves, I intend to make the event the subject of a few lines.

To understand it fully we must go back to the time when many of the inhabitants of England had become slaves. They might have become slaves to others simply for protection against their enemies ; they might have been taken in war, or driven to cell themselves because of their poverty ; perhaps, aa children, they were Bold by their parents, or they could not pay the fines they had incurred for some offence. The children of these Blaves became slaves too, so that a regular system of slavery had sprung np in England. After the conquest, however, variouß forces worked either to free the slaves or to make their lot less burdensome. The following being the principal : —

1. The Church encouraged owners, to grant freedom, and even refused absolution on deathbeds unless the slaves were first freed.

2. Masters allowed their slaves to purchase their freedom. Likely enough the rlaves received permission to work for other?, giving a part ol their wages to their masters, and with the remainder ia time they purchased their frep< 7 '>ii. 3. When the nobles began ' i extravagantly, they often allowed a rcan to \ ■ .i se his freedom because they were in immedin v ant of money. 4. A law allowed freedom t > 'jscaped slaves who had lived in a chartered town, a year and a day without being discovered. 6. A system of leasing grew up, which the landlords found paid better than tilling with their own slaves.

Through these and other causes slavery had pretty well died out when the " black death," in tbe reigu of Edward 111, swept off, it is said, one half of the population of England. Sixty thousand died in Norwich ; the living in Bristol # were hardly able to bury the dead, and in a' short time 50,000 were buried in one cemetery alone in London. As a consequence labour became scarce, and workers — partly on account of their ignorance, partly because they had been oppressad formerly, and partly because they knew their labour was absolutely necessary—became not only unreasonable in their demands, but lawless.

THE STATUTE OF LABOUBEBS.

Parliament thought to get rid of the difficulty by passing the Statute of Labourers. This act stated that all men or women, able in body, bond or free, under 60 years of age, not living on their own land, or by their own trade, had to accept from any man the wagea given before the plague. They were not allowed, except in certain districts, to leave the district in which they resided. The law was a most absurd one, because the day's wage of a labourer waß hardly sufficient to buy enough wheat for a man's support, and the law expressly stated that no one was to give aline, and strictly forbade more than the ordinary wages being given or received, A clause was added stating that provisions were to be sold at reasonable rates, but ifc was found impossible to enforce the law satis* factorily,

" At last the landlords, at their wits' enda for labour, fell back on thair old and half-for-gotten rights to Blaves," and many were dragged back into slavery who had thought themselves free. Hundreds did what you and I no doubt would have done — ran away. As an attempt to prevent running away, a law was passed which stated that all runaways should be branded oa the forehead with a red hot iron, and all who sheltered serfs should he heavily fined. Naturally the discontented, seething masa organised strikes and became openly rebellious. John Ball, " a mad priest of Kent," perhaps the first English Socialist, was one of their first leaders, and he whipped into a fury the already excited peasantry by such words as, " Why do they hold us in bondage? If we all come from the same father and mother, Adam and Eve, how can they say or prove they are better than we 1 We are covered in rags, they are covered in velvet, in furß, and in ermine ; we have pain and labour, and have oat cakes to eat, water to drink, and straw to lie on, while they have leisure and fine houses, wine, spices, and fair bread. And yet it is of us and of our toil that these men hold their state." With such fiery words he lashed their passions.

Edward 111 died leaving tbe labour difficulty to be settled by his successor. Four years after Richard II ascended the throne the discontent came to a head. The unsuccessful wars againßt France and Spain had made a tax necessary to cover expenses, and a poll or head tax of a groat, or f ourpence, but equal to about 5a of our present money, wasjevied on rioh and poor alike above 15. You all know the rest— that Wat the Tyler refused to pay the tax on his daughter because she was under age ; that tbe tax gatherer behaved insultingly to her ; that tbe father struck him dead, and this caused the rebellion to break out under leaders with such assumed names as Jack Straw, Jack Carter, Jack Baker, and so on. The men then marched to London, and the boy King, on his prancing charger, on meeting them granted them their demands, and kept 30 scribes at work all day writing pardons, Their demands were : —

1 That slavery should bo abolished,

2. That there Bhould be a fixed rate of 4d an acre for land— this was equal to about 5s of our present money, while the land did not average more than about six bushels to the acre.

3. That all should have liberty to buy and sell freely in the market places. 4. That labourers should be allowed to go where they liked, work for whom they liked, and ask what wagea they chose. 5. That all should be pardoned for past offences.

The next day tha King met Wat Tyler at the head of another mob of 30,000. The result of that meeting your books describe. The peasants were dispersed and afterwards treated cruelly. But though Parliament refused to grant what the King had promised, the power of the lord over the labourer was broken.

At the present time the lord or capitalist has, in many cases, tbe labourer directly under his thumb, but tbe labourers place themselves there by competing to an undue extent ameng themselves for the capitalists' work, and the capitalist does only what working men do — he buys at the cheapest rate the labour offered to him

BELGIAN LABOOR.

You read among the telegrams that thousands of Belgians offered to go to England and do the work for lesa than was being paid to English dock labourers. Why was this offer refused by the dock ownara? Were they frightened that blood would be ehed, or that the English nation would not tolerate the introduction of foreign labour ? I don't know, bat I am inclined to think it was because the Belgians are inferior workmen. Low wages

does not always mean cheap work, as the following facts taken from a standard work will show.

1. More factory hands are employed on the Continent than are- employed to do the same work in an English factory. An English weaver does about aa much aa three Belgians, and an operative in an English cotton factory does from two to four time* as much as in most Continental mills.

3. In smelting works 25 Englishmen tarn out as muoh iron as 42 Frenchmen.

3. Mr Brasley, the great contractor, fathor of the present Lord Brawey, had great experience of the working capabilities of workmen all over the world, and he found that in quarryingin Franco ifc was better to pay an Englishman 6s than a Frenchman 3s ; while in nay vying the Englishman was better worth 5s than the Frenchman 3s 6d. In India it cost just as much per mile to build railways with natives at 4Jd to 6d a day aa a similar railway would cost ia England with navvies at English rates.

Mr Brassey published a book containing bis experiences as a contractor, and as bo and bis partners at one time had 80,000 men at work on contraots involving millions of money, his statements may be relied upon. As " wages of workmen ' is such an important subject, and is of great interest to us in these days of strikes and tradea unioni, and promises to ba still more important in the open confliot between capital and labour in the near future— as predicted in an article in the Wit* ness supplement a fortnight ago— 'l do not think I can do better next week than to give you a short papsr on " Real and Nominal Wages," for many talk glibly of wages, and do not know what it meanß.

Correspondence.

Dunbaok.— " The Queen, Her Early Life and Reign," by Valentine, Warne, and 00,, ia published, I think, at 2a; "The Victorian Half-century," by Charlotte Tonge : Maomillan and Co., is published at la 6d. Both (five fairly full accounts of the Queen's life. Try Wise, Gaffin's, Braithwaite's, or Horsburgh's If not successful kindly communicate with me again, sending your name and address, which were not given with your non dt plutiit.

MEANING OF THE WOBD "DONEDIN."

Mr W. J. Ward, of Mandeville, writes that he thinks the real meaning of Dunedin hag not yet been given in this column. Having a thorough knowledge of the Gaelio language, he writes:— I 'lf Edinburgh — i.e., Dunedin, i 8 built on an eminence' 'brown face' is the translation of Dhun Aidhan, but translating it robs it of all the poetry with which the Eiasa language has invested it. I have no doubt that the site of Edinburgh was a sideland covered with heather, which made it look brown, and that Dunoan M'Dougal, or whoever the first Celtic settler was, would, on being asked where he lived, reply, ' Up on that brown face.'"