MR. GLADSTONE ON THE LABOUR QUESTION.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVIII, Issue 12, 18 July 1890, Page 13

MR. GLADSTONE ON THE LABOUR QUESTION.

(From the Llojd's Weekly News.) I shall not here dwell at large on the powerful causes which have brought about a peaceful and happy, if not yet wholly fulfilled, revolution on behalf of the working man. But I make a single evception — I mean his improved means of flecuriug value for the great commodity which it is alike necessary fir him to sell, and for the restof the community to buy. The free sale of his labour, subject to the spontaneous action of supply and demand, has only barn attained by him during the present century. Nor did Mr. Hume ever give a better pioof of that sagacity which so commonly led him straight to the root of the matter, and which enablei him, not being a man of genius, to see whit men of genius often tailed to see, than when he struck at the Combination laws, which onca disgraced the Statute Book of this couitry. There are cases ia which Pailiamen^ may be said to have conferred a kind of boon on tho ma^ees. Sue.i are the franchisa and the b-illot. But in the case of the Combiuation laws it did no more tban remove the galling pressure of a gross injustice—an injustice which amounted to absolute robbery in tbe degree, whatever that may have been, in which it depressed the rate of wages below tbe level which the free and open market woald have determined for it.

A strike is, of course, an indication that something has gone wrong on one side or on both. The involuntary cessation of labour diminishes at once the wage fund, the produce of capital, and the commodities available for the use of the community. But thes^ inconveniences may be, and. to a vast extent have been, the price paid for the avoidance of a greater evil, such as ia depriving thr, labouier of his just hire. Anrl, if s!nke« have on the whole done good, it is probable that the possibility and the fear of strikes hare done much more good.

Duiing the half century, and more, for which strikes have been resorted to from time to time without legal restraint, their history has been characterised by many changes, and all of them, so f&r as I know, in the light direction. Ihey are more rarely marked by violent attempts oE intemperate individuals to coerce the minority who do not join them. They are regarded with more favour by the public outside the area and interests of the dispute, whose testimouy may be considered impartial. Their power has greatly increased, for the working men of different trades and of different countnes are coming into sympathy with each o'her. While power has thus increased, it is used more mercifully, at leaßt in some noteworthy instances, against members of the working class itself. Tbe barbarous usage, no less mean ihan cruel, which once excluded the woman from the bigher employments in the art of porcelain — not with the courageous brutality of v prohibition, but by the CDwardly method of deuying to her tl>e vsi of a•' rest " required to relieve the wrist— has Ion? been falling, and ba?, I hope and believe, now fallen into desuetude. It is necessary for the permanent elevation of the working man that, as he becomes more free and more strong, he should also become more noble.

That disposition of the general public to look on a strike with presumptive favour, to which I have referred, can hardly have been due to any mere prejudice against employers. It has rather indicated a dim sind remote perception that in the continual (and not necessarily unfriendly) competition between lbbour and capital for the division of industrial fruits, capital and not labour has hitherto had the upper hand, and that it is time that the balance should be, not reversed, but redressed.

There may come a time when labour shall be too strong for capital, and may be disposed to use its strength unjustlj. I conceive that in our recent history the judgment of too masses has, upon the whole, been mote get erous and just than the judgment of the leisured classes. Let it not be hastily inferred that, if the fact be so, the meaniug of it is that they have an intiinsic and indefectible moral superiority. It means rather that for them the organisation

of life and thought is simpler, and that temptations to pnd\ gr-ed, and selfishness are greatly less. Were the despotic relation in which employers once stood to labourers to be invertel, and were labourers once to obtain an uncontrolled command, then indeed, while their material condition might be higher, they would be subject to a strain of moral <nal such as they have never yet been called upon to undergo, and such as only the strong restraints of the Gospel could, iv my judgment, enable them auccpsifully to encounter. But such a contingency, though it may bi pissible, is indefinitely remote. It is most unlikely to arise ; *nci the experience of the United States, which has gone nearest to trying the question, witnesses to that unlike'ihood, for there public right has been developed to the uttermost by the action ot public law and by the tona of manners. Yet capital rmißt purely hold its own, since it grows in that country more rapidly than ever. The impaUial citiz -n, then, has oniy to bid the labourers God-specii, an 1 heartily to wish that, by their high standard i,f conduct, their wise choice of calling, and thpjr eqtv*l and liberal respect for the rigb'R of all men, or rather all human beinga, they may be en.iblisl progressively to consulate the position they have gained, and, so far aa justice may recommend, to improve it. Of two thiriL's especially I make bold to expresi my hope — One, that they will more and more regmi, not the terms of their contract only, but also excellence of work, considered in itself and for its own sakti, as a thing greatly to be desired ani highly fruitful of future advantage. Apart from the. aereemjnt with the employer, each man shojld have a contract with himself, always and in all things, to do the very best he can. And next, and last, that labour and art are not foes, nor strangers, nor rivals, but allies ; that all labour has a beauty of its own, sometimes a very hig^i beauty ; that the love of beauty is a gift, though not the greatest gift, from Gjrt, and both alleviates and adorns the life of man ; that oat of labour fine art baa grown, and ever ought to grow ; and that there is nothing in the composition of our British and Irish race to prevent it from emulating, following, even peihapa overtaking, those other races which have been the foremost among men in the work of beautiful production.