land. We have specified the objects of these commissions, because they afford the most ample justification for the conduct of the Government. The great part are connected with some extensive measures already effected, and were appointed either for the purpose of collecting information necessary for enacting, or, after the enactment, that of carrying into effect the provisions of the law. There is not one of which the subject is not a legitimate object of enquiry; and there are few, if any, which have not been issued at the express instance of Parliament, or in consequence of discussions there.

We do not deny that the present Government has employed this mode of enquiry to a greater extent than any former Government ;—on the contrary, we admit it to their praise. It is the duty of all Governments, it is the principle of a Reforming administration,-to take the lead in improvement and amendment; and can this be done effectually or satisfactorily, without enquiry? How is it to be carried on? By the members of the Government themselves? But can it be expected, considering their official duties and engagements, and their attendance on the House of Commons, and the little interval of leisure which is left them from this continued drudgery, that they should have the means of carrying on extensive enquiry to be conducted on the spot?

We do not underrate enquiring through Committees of the House of Commons, but we would without hesitation estimate the value of both these modes by the result. Take one instance :-Committee after Committee have sat on the subject of the Poor,-Government after Government have pottered about the question. Did any Committee produce one hundredth part of the information which resulted from the Commission on the subject?-or could any Government have carried the Poor Law Bill without the instruction and the effect on the public mind produced by that enquiry? And in point of fact was not the appointment of the Municipal Corporation Commission made at the suggestion of a Committee of the House of Commons, avowedly sensible of its incompetency to undertake the locomotive, complicated, and absorbing duties that attached to the enquiry?'

We shall close this Article with the author's concluding paragraph, in which he makes an appeal that will assuredly receive the wished-for response from all who shall peruse his statements with an unprejudiced and dispassionate mind. We cannot hope that these pages have afforded very agreeable reading; for the exposure of 'falsehood after falsehood is, at least, monotonous: but we ask every impartial reader if that exposure has not been complete ? We ask whether on every subject to which we have adverted, Criminal Law, Finance, Slavery, Poor Law Amendment, and • Creation of Peers, the imputations which the Reviewer, in his ignorance or his malignity, ventured to cast on the Whigs, have not 'been shown to be not realities merely exaggerated or coloured, ⚫ but inventions absolutely and completely false? We ask whether on all these points the Tories do not appear to have been

actually guilty of all the crimes which their retainer ventures 'to attribute to the Whigs?-Whether they are not guilty of 'having degraded the Peerage? of having begun the ruin of the 'old English Poor Laws, by their absurd and mischievous enactments, and consummated it by their still more absurd and mis'chievous mal-administrations? of having resisted to the utmost, 'the abolition of the Slave Trade, and done nothing whatever 'towards the extinction of slavery? and of having wasted the 'national income by the wildest profusion, and the national capital by the most selfish anticipations ?-Such was the natural conduct of a party pushed into power by the intrigues of a Court, and the predilections of a King, and maintained in it by 'bribing the avarice or the vanity of individuals, or by flattering the passions or the prejudices of the uneducated in all condi 'tions of life.'

ART. IX.-Report of the Trial of Thomas Hunter, Peter Hacket, Richard M'Neil, James Gibb, and William M'Lean, Operative Cotton-Spinners in Glasgow, before the High Court of Justiciary, at Edinburgh, on Wednesday, January 3, 1838, and Seven following Days, for the Crimes of Illegal Conspiracy and Murder. By ARCHIBALD SWINTON, Esq. Advocate. 8vo. Edinburgh: 1838.*

SOCIAL

OCIAL questions are more important than political. Although they attract in general much less attention than the more vehement and angry contests of party, yet they are attended with far more enduring and wide-spreading effects; and the worst revolutions which have befallen the human race have arisen from the neglect of the deep-rooted seeds of evil which, unheeded by statesmen,-unnoticed by the common herd of observers, had silently, and for a course of ages, been spreading suffering and immorality among the great body of the people. It was neither the free-thinking philosophers, nor the corruptions of the Court, which brought about the French Revolution, but

*The present Article does not require any detailed account of this very remarkable Trial, as a legal proceeding; but we gladly take the opportunity of recommending this full and faithful account of it, and of expressing our approbation of the care and skill which Mr Swinton has displayed in its compilation.

the multiplied oppressions and general suffering of the poor; which made them rise as one man against the aristocratic classes, whom they had known only by the oppressions which they inflicted all the evils even of English conquest and religious rancour, sink into insignificance in Ireland, compared with the frightful evils arising from the universal poverty and predial vexations of the peasantry; and if the fair fabric of Transatlantic freedom is ever to be overturned, it will, if we may so express ourselves, be by that dark cloud which, originating in the degraded condition and dire oppression of the slaves in the Southern States, bears in its bosom the elements of a tempest which may one day overwhelm half the United States in ruin.

What renders social evils in so peculiar a manner dangerous is, that they originate in inconsiderable, frequently praiseworthy, attempts of individuals, or classes, to better their own condition; and, unattended at first with any pernicious effects,—possibly beneficial in their infant operation,-gradually expand with the growth of society, without attracting any particular notice, until they have acquired such strength that, when their injurious tendency is at last forced upon the public mind, they have arisen to such portentous magnitude, as to be almost beyond the reach of remedy. It was thus that the domestic slavery of the Ancient World, originating in the necessities of infant society, and the experienced impossibility of the indigent and defenceless obtaining either subsistence or protection, was continued unheeded, and, in essential particulars, unmitigated, until by depriving the state of those fountains of vigour and intelligence which spring from the labouring classes of society, they reduced it to such a degree of internal weakness, as to be unable to resist the advancing tide of the northern barbarians. It was thus that the English poor-laws, springing from the multitude of the destitute whom the dissolution of the Monasteries had thrown on society, and founded originally on wise and benevolent principles, grew up at length with the multiplication of the labouring classes, and the natural but unhappy facility of the legal guardians of the poor, into such an enormous burden, that but for the timely remedy applied by the wisdom and firmness of the Government, they would ultimately have proved fatal even to the vast resources and unwearied industry of England. And it was thus that the dreadful evil of negro slavery which unavoidably arose in the West India islands, from the known impossibility of cultivating those fertile and delicious colonies without the aid of compulsory and imported labour, became in the progress of time so overwhelming, that, but for the strenuous and humane exertions of the British people, moderated and tempered by the firmness and prudence of their Government, it must have led in

the end to a convulsion as sanguinary and frightful as that which overwhelmed St Domingo at the commencement of the French Revolution.

An evil of the same kind,-springing from the necessities and laudable ambition of the working classes, and fostered by the liberal spirit and humane interposition of the Legislature,—has for twenty years past been silently growing up in this country in the various Combinations of the Skilled Trades, to secure for themselves what they conceive to be an adequate remuneration for their labour, and a justifiable control over the proceedings of their employers; and these Associations have now become so universal, and are already so thoroughly organized, that their effects, be they for good or for evil, must be of the most extensive kind. We propose in the following pages to trace the origin of these defensive associations; to state the views on which they are supported and reprobated by the classes severally affected by their existence; and to endeavour to trace distinctly the effects which they indisputably have both upon the general interest of the nation and the ultimate welfare of the working classes themselves. No subject can be more important, or more imperiously calls for serious and deliberate attention; and we shall endeavour to treat it in that sober and temperate tone in which alone a desirable impression, either in social or political argument, can be effected; and which is, in an especial manner, called for in any question affecting the interests, or supported by the wishes of the working classes of the community.

The Gothic ages bequeathed to modern Europe a very peculiar organization of the industrious ranks. They were arranged, as all the world knows, over the whole of Europe, into incorporations or Guilds, which were erected into legal incorporations by Royal Charters, and were invested with a large proportion of the political power conceded in those times to the Burghs of the kingdom. Out of the political influence thus acquired, there naturally arose the spirit of commercial or industrial monopoly, which has gradually given way in this country at least, since the days of Dr Smith, to the great principle of the freedom of trade. It is unnecessary to say any thing, either in support or in condemnation of such monopolies. Every one now admits, that however expedient they may have been in barbarous times, when such defensive associations were necessary to secure even a tolerable share of legal protection to the humble burghers; and however proper as a necessary protection to the infant nurseries of industry, they became, not merely unnecessary, but hurtful, when the increasing ascendency of law had secured protection without combination, and the maturity and perfection of art had

enabled it to dispense with the safeguards of its earlier years; and they are now accordingly universally reprobated, and in a great degree in desuetude, except in a few professions, such as medicine and law, where the vital interests at stake, and the difficulty of the employers correctly appreciating the skill of the employed, has rendered it necessary to continue them as a general protection to the community.

But with the gradual decay of the incorporated trades, the progressive curtailing of their exclusive privileges, and the total merging of their political influence, by the Reform Act, in the more general representation of the community, another species of combination has grown up among the working classes, likely to be attended with still more important effects, both in a political, and a social point of view. These are the TRADES' UNIONS, or combinations of workmen in particular branches of skilled industry, to secure for themselves what they consider an adequate reward for their labour, and also what they deem, a proper control over the proceedings of their employers. These Trades' Unions have now existed in this country for a great many years; and it is a mistake to suppose that they bear date only from Mr Hume's Act, passed in 1824, which first gave them the sanction of law. On the contrary, it was distinctly proved before the Committee of the House of Commons, which sat in that year on the subject of combinations, and upon whose Report Mr Hume's Act was founded, both that combinations and combination violence had risen to a very great height, and that these associations were nearly universal over the kingdom, before the laws against them were repealed. The following abstract of the evidence adduced before the Committee, and of the principles on which the repeal of the combination laws was afterwards founded, places this matter in a very clear point of view: The evidence adduced before this Committee proved that the combination laws had been 'inefficient in repressing those associations of workmen, which had so often dictated to their masters the rate of wages, the 'hours and manner of working. There was hardly a trade in the three kingdoms (the type-founders in London excepted), in which the journeymen were not regularly organized, and were not prepared to assist with money, to a great extent, any body of workmen who chose to stand out against their employers. Of these, the tailors were the best organized. appeared that the whole body of journeymen tailors is divided into two classes, denominated flints and dungs; the former work by the day, and receive all equal wages; the latter work gene' rally by the piece. There are a number of houses of call for the flints, each of which elects a delegate; the delegates again

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