strikes is that, during which the particular trade is most prosperous. Thus the spinners, the highest paid, are always the strikers, and at the time when they struck at Manchester, in the year 1829, there was not one of them who did not earn from 30s. to 35s. When fifty-two mills and 30,000 persons were out of employ at Ashton and its neighbourhood, in the year 1830, by the turning out of only the tenth part, the spinners, whose proportion to the whole number of the cotton mills we have already estimated, it was proved that the leaders of the strike, could earn weekly, from 28s. to 31s. clear. In the woollen districts, the weavers, who always are most forward in the turning-out, get from 16s. to 20s., a very respectable average remuneration, with which many clever operatives are perfectly well satisfied.

The two facts just noticed, that the highly remunerated workmen are the greatest patrons of turn outs, and that the briskest season of the given trade, is that selected for the strike, these two facts we repeat, may easily be accounted for in the following manner as to the latter phenomenon, it is evident that in the calculations of the operatives, the thought would arise that the master would feel the dereliction of his men more acutely when his orders were more numerous than during a comparatively stagnant period; so, that in order that the orders should not go into the hands of his rivals, and, as at the same time, the higher profits will give a sort of impunity, or rather compensation for increasing the wages to him, the crisis is usually seized with true instinctive penetration by the man. There is another reason too, operating on the strikers, because if they fail in obtaining an increase of wages, their brethren of the Union are better able to afford them support, for they must be benefited by the general briskness of trade.

With respect to the relation which these Unions bear to politics and religion, it is a very remarkable circumstance, that they are influenced, to no perceptible extent, by either of these very common sources of influence. The idea is altogether therefore erroneous, which supposes that the Unions have been stimulated by the late French revolution, and by the concessions contained in the Reform Bill. Nothing whatever, said or done by the Unions gives the slightest pretence for a foundation for these assertions. The whole of their religion, politics, prejudices, and feelings, have been concentrated in the grand end of raising wages. There appears, on the contrary, amongst the operatives of every shade, a disposition to avoid any interference in religion, and in politics as well, and even in some Unions this disposition has assumed the determined form of strong injunctions, as thus in the Yorkshire Unions, where the following regulation is enforced :

"Brethren, you are cautiously to avoid all religious disputes, as quarrels from this source have ever been found prejudicial, and often destructive to society; let every brother freely enjoy his own opinion, but not lord it

over another, nor introduce any particular intricate wranglings in the Lodge. Political disputes, having an equal tendency to inflame the passions and sour the temper, are therefore with equal propriety excluded from our Lodges; you are enjoined to pay a due obedience to the laws, and respect to the Government of our country, and to live as peaceable subjects, but never to disturb or embroil the Lodge with your particular opinion of state affairs.' By a rule of the Union of the Seamen of the Tyne and Wear, a fine of 5s. was imposed on any member, who should 'speak contemptuously of the present King and Constitution;' and the regulations of the Coal-miners' combinations given in the Appendix, enact that if any member speak disrespectfully of the State and laws of the nation, his Majesty, or either of the Houses of Parliament, or any magistrate, he shall forfeit 2s. 6d. for every such offence.'"-pp. 90, 91.

In connexion with this religious view of the Unions, we perceive some very remarkable phenomena. At the grand meeting of the delegates which took place in 1829, at the Isle of Man, it happened that the Scotch members made a proposal to the effect that no business should be transacted on the Sunday, and consequently, that the meeting should adjourn from Saturday to Monday. But the English delegates would not stand such a delay as this, as being a source of expense and loss of time, which, in their opinion it would be quite superfluous to incur. The Scotch persevered; they positively declared that their constituents, when once they knew that the Sabbath-day was desecrated by the delegates, would instantly withdraw as from an accursed system, and they thus gained their point. But in one respect this fact is remarkable, for it forms, according to the writer of the present pamphlet "a curious commentary

on the atrocious violence by which in Scotland, above all other places, the proceedings of this Union have been marked. The rigid austerity with which Sunday is every where observed in the North, leads to the conclusion, that the countrymen of Knox were not misrepresented on this occasion. But do they inconsistently suppose that the end will sometimes sanctify the means? At any events, it stands as a psychological curiosity, that men, who do not hesitate to put and take oaths binding to murder, and to act with a ferocity proportionate to such conduct, can consider it a pollution of the Sabbath, to discuss on that day what concerns (in their opinion) the saving of themselves and families from poverty, degradation, and crime.'"-p. 92.

·

In the bold and uncompromising hostility of the Unions to taskwork, we see at once the taint of the doctrine which is peculiar to Owen and the St. Simonians. They now hold in common with the latter sectarians that all the skill of man which waited to be brought forth hitherto by mere rivalship, will henceforth be the produce of that philanthropy, that mutual disinterested love of mankind which is forthwith to be the system of the whole human community.

The great mistake and that which proves most fertile in fatal

consequences to the unhappy member of the Union societies is this, that wages are subject to the common laws which operate on all sorts of revenue derived from produce. There are seasons when wants, tastes, and even caprices, are to be supplied become modified which are requiring less or more in the quantity they require. The materials for supply are not therefore so extensively called for; the value of these materials cannot be considered as so great as when these articles were in the fullest demand The proprietor and owner of the materials is therefore prejudiced, and it is only fair to expect that the practical producers of the commodity should share in the unfavourable changes. But the Unionists never consider this, and their doctrine, without any exception is, that the amount of the wages is always that which is fixed merely by the caprice of the proprietor.

But we have to thank Providence that the glimpse of a remedy for all these horrors has at length dawned upon this our darkened horizon. There is scarcely an evil, such as this, in our present social system, which may not, like this, be referred to ignorance, to complete want of education, for "could the working classes" as this able writer says, be instructed

"in the laws, which regulate their wages, combinations from that moment would cease to exist. They would learn that wages are not dependent on the will of those who pay them, and that they can only be altered by changing the proportion between the number of labourers and the funds set apart for their maintenance. They would then see, that they might as well attempt to turn the sun from its course, as to extract from their employers the same wages as at present, and to give a third less of their labour in return. Could they be taught something of the nature and constitution of society, they would see that those, who are above them in station, whom they not unfrequently imagine to be their enemies, would be inattentive to their own interests, did they wish for aught but the prosperity and advancement of the labouring population. They would not be deceived by the ridiculously false assertion, that two idlers exist and are supported for each working man in the country, and they would understand and act upon the moral of the fable of Menenius Agrippa, without the dreadful necessity of its practical enforcement. Would they turn their attention to the inseparable connexion between causes and effects, as well as to the actual history of combinations, they might be persuaded that strikes may lower but cannot raise wages, and would perhaps shudder at the thought of being entangled in the commission of the crimes we have recounted, prompted as those crimes have been by the very societies, to which they now look as opening the era of their regeneration."-pp. 105, 106.

We have now arrived at the second and shortest section of the work, that which relates to the effects of combinations, which are produced on the introduction and the improvement of machinery. The result of what is said on this department is this, that from the forced attention, which the conduct of the men has directed on the

part of employers, to the facilities derivable from machinery, the time must necessarily arrive very soon, when there will not be room for a single wool-comber or cotton-spinner throughout the land, so perfect and so much preferable will the substituted machinery be. At the same time let us guard against the inferences to which these statements might give rise. We do not, we could not, with our eyes open, pretend that an improvement in machinery in manufacturing establishments, could be hurtful in its ultimate effect. No such thing; it does not limit the demand for labour, as is proved by an example, which stands up as a beacon to the whole globe in Manchester, where, within a radius

"of forty miles, more human beings are collected together, and substitutes for labour more extensively used, than on any other spot on earth, and where, in addition, wages are for the most part enormously high. It undoubtedly is productive of transient injury by the displacement, which it causes of manual labour in those operations to which it is applied. But this evil is trivial if the displacement be slow, and is formidable only when it is pushed on, as in the cases above-mentioned, with sudden violence. We might view these inventions with unmixed pleasure, on account of their use to society, and even-considering the force of example-without much regret for the retribution they inflict on the offenders, were it possible to put out of sight some of the evils which may for a season follow their introduction. The community certainly gains by such mechanical improvements, which, since they spring from hostility to combinations, may be considered an indirect effect of them, and form, as far as we are aware, the only benefits those bodies have bestowed upon their country, in return for the violence and oppressions of which they have been guilty. p. 114.

We need not notice the proposals for correcting the state of the law, which fill the remainder of the pamphlet. We only have room for expressing our admiration of the zeal of the writer, for his success in the inquiry, and for his luminous representation of gigantic abuses, the very sight of which, under his graphic powers, will astound and produce, no doubt, a most salutary error in the whole British community.

ART. XI.-Excursions to the North of Europe through parts of Russia. Finland, Sweden, Denmark, and Norway, in the years 1830 and 1833. By JOHN BARROW, Jun. London: Murray, 1834.

THIS is the production of one of the family who performed the tour through Holland, Belgium, and on the Rhine, which we duly noticed at the period of its publication.

Mr. Barrow, after an initiatory eulogy on the properties of steam in its application to navigation, informs us, that on the 26th of June, 1830, he embarked with his friend Mr. Rousse in the steam vessel, the William Jolliffe, which, in the usual time transported

them to Hamburgh. Good descriptions of this city and of Lubeck are given by the author, who proceeded from this latter place by the Baltic to St. Petersburgh. The author is much pleased with all he saw in this city, and notices some of the sights at considerable length. There is, however, nothing in the way of novelty in his description of St. Petersburgh which can detain us. Whilst residing there, Mr. Barrow and his friend made it a point to mix as much as they could with the Russian gentry, at least with the military and the employés. For this purpose they dined every day at the principal table d'hote in the city, where in general between forty and fifty sat down. Many of the guests were officers in regimentals. The price of dinner was about six francs a head, which included a bottle of excellent claret. It was the general custom for each person to take a glass of liqueur and a mouthful of bread and cheese before sitting down to dinner. Each dish was served up separately, beginning with soup, a plateful of which was brought to each person by one of the waiters; but all the other dishes were handed round by them, and every one helped himself to what he liked. A large supply of ice was placed on the table, and the general mode of using it was to put a lump of it into a tumbler of wine. Dinner being over, a glass of spirits was served to each guest, with a cup of coffee and a cigar. The whole was included in the six rubles. The smoking then commenced, and the apartment became perfectly intolerable to the Englishmen, who quitted the table usually at the first signal of the cigars. Mr. Barrow says that most of the wellbred Russians whom he met at this table, either spoke or understood the English language, but for the life of him he cannot tell what becomes of this gentry in the day. The great proportion do not appear, and those who are abroad, are mostly occupied in driving their droskies and racing with each other at a part of the city called Newski perspective. With respect to the drosky, Mr. Barrow does not agree with most travellers, who pronounce this sort of vehicle to be safe and convenient; on the contrary, they are described by him to be both unpleasant and dangerous; the jolts they give the unhappy passenger, who for the first time enters them, are quite fearful, particularly in crossing over planks or logs of wood, which happen to lie across the street wherever any new buildings are going on. In such cases, if there should be two persons sitting in a drosky, one of them must remain sideways, and is obliged to sit close to the driver, who is, in the first place, constantly swaying_back every time the drosky passes over a stone or rut in the road, and who, in the next place is the filthiest of creatures. Mr. Barrow says,

"The drosky is a very low four-wheeled carriage, the body of which is so near the ground, that the lower part of one's dress is either enveloped in dust or besmeared with mud. It is, in fact, nothing more than a narrow bench, at the hinder part of which is a small back, about as high as