Czytaj książkę: «Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 424», strona 6

EMPLOYEES AND EMPLOYED

The Westminster Review for January, in an able and temperate article, entitled Employers and Employed, delineates the progress of the working power from the original condition of serfdom, through that of vassalage, which prevailed in the middle ages, to the system of simple contract in which we now find it in France and America. This the writer regards as part of a universal progress towards a more and more equalised condition of the various orders of men—'an equality, not perhaps of wealth, or of mind, or of inherent power, but of social condition, and of individual rights and freedom.' In England, however, we are only in a state of transition from that relation of protection on the one hand, and respect or loyalty on the other, which constituted the system of vassalage, to the true democratic relation which assumes a perfect equality and independence in the contracting parties. 'The master cannot divest himself of the idea, that in virtue of his rank he is entitled to deference and submission; and the workman conceives that, in virtue of his comparative poverty, he is entitled to assistance in difficulty, and to protection from the consequences of his own folly and improvidence. Each party expects from the other something more than is expressed or implied in the covenant between them. The workman, asserting his equality and independence, claims from his employer services which only inferiority can legitimately demand; the master, tacitly and in his heart denying this equality and independence, repudiates claims which only the validity of this plea of equality and independence can effectually nonsuit or liquidate.'

Arguing that 'the reciprocal duties of employers and employed, as such, are comprised within the limits of their covenant,' the writer goes on to say, that nevertheless there remains a relation of 'fellow-citizenship and of Christian neighbourhood,' by virtue of which the employer owes service to his work-people, seeing that 'every man owes service to every man whom he is in a position to serve.' Let not the Pharisaic fundholder and lazy mortgagee suppose that the great employers of labour are thus under a peculiar obligation from which they are exempt. The obligation is assumed to be equal upon all who have power and means; and it only lies with special weight at the door of the employer of multitudes, in as far as he is in a situation to exercise influence over their character and conduct, and usually has greater means of rendering aid suited to their particular necessities.

Before proceeding to expound the various duties thus imposed upon the employer, the writer lays down a primary duty as essential to the due performance of the rest—namely, he must see to making his business succeed; and for this end he must possess a sufficient capital at starting; and he must not, for any reasons of vanity or benevolence, or through laxness, pay higher wages than the state of the labour-market and the prospects of trade require. Of the secondary duties which next come in course—and which, be it remembered, arise not from the mastership, but from the neighbourship—the first is that of 'making his factory, and the processes carried on there, as healthy as care and sanitary science can render them.' 'This is the more incumbent upon him, as it is little likely to be thought of or demanded by his workmen. It is a topic on which his cultivated intelligence is almost sure to place him far ahead of them; and out of the superiority, as we have seen, springs the obligation.' Our reviewer adds the remark, that, 'in the minor workshops, and especially in the work-rooms of tailors and seamstresses, the employers are still, for the most part, unawakened to the importance and imperativeness of this class of obligations. The health of thousands is sacrificed from pure ignorance and want of thought.'

One mode of serving those who work for him, which the circumstances render appropriate, is to provide them with decent and comfortable dwellings. Much has been done in this way. 'In almost all country establishments, and in most of those in the smaller towns, the employers have been careful to surround their mills with substantial and well-built cottages, often with gardens attached to them, containing four rooms—kitchen, scullery, and two bedrooms: cottages which are let for rents which at once remunerate the owner and are easy for the occupier.' Even in large towns, where there are great local difficulties, something has been done by the building of Model Lodging-houses, and by the efforts of Societies for improving the Dwellings of the Poor. The writer specifies one of the greatest difficulties as existing in the working-people themselves: when provided with a variety of rooms for the separation of the various members of their families, they are very apt to defeat the whole plan by taking in lodgers, and contenting themselves with the filthy and depraving huddlement out of which their benevolent superiors endeavoured to rescue them. But it may be hoped that, by promoting only a few of the more intelligent and better-disposed to such improved dwellings, and thus setting up good examples, the multitude might in time be trained to an appreciation of the decency and comfort of ampler accommodation. Another wide field of usefulness is open to the employers in the establishment of schools, reading-rooms, baths, wash-houses, and the like.

It strikes us that the writer of this article is not true to his own principle in his view of the duties of the employer. We readily grant the duty of making his business prosperous and his workshops healthy. To fail in the latter particular especially, were not merely to fail in a duty, but to incur a heavy positive blame. But we cannot see how it is incumbent on the employer to provide houses for the persons who enter into the labour-contract with him, any more than to see that they get their four-pound loaf of a certain quality or price. It may be a graceful thing, a piece of noble benevolence, to enter into these building schemes, but it is also to go back into that system of vassalage out of which it is assumed that the relation of employer and employed is passing. Either the new buildings will pay as speculations, or they will not. If they are sure to pay, ordinary speculators will be as ready to furnish them as bakers are to sell bread. If the contrary be the case, why burden with the actual or probable loss the party in a simple contract which involves no such obligation? Clearly, there must be no great reason to expect a fair return for capital laid out in this way, or we should see building schemes for the working-classes taken up extensively by ordinary speculators. For employers, then, to enter into such plans, must in some degree be the result of benevolent feelings towards their men; and, so far, we must hold there is an acknowledgment on both sides that the system of vassalage is not yet extinct amongst us, and that the time for its extinction is not yet come.

If we look, however, at the entire condition of the working-people of England, we shall see that it acknowledges the same truth in some of its broadest features. When a time of depression comes, and factories do not require half of their usual number of hands, or even so many, it is never expected, on any hand, that the superfluous labourers are to maintain themselves till better times return. The employer is expected to keep them in his service, at least on short time, and at a reduced remuneration, although at a ruinous loss to himself. The workmen, though well aware of the contingency, make little or no provision against it, but calmly trust to the funds of their employers, or the contributions of the class to which these belong. Now, while such a practice exists, the relation of employer and employed is not that of independent contractors, but so far that of the feudal baron and his villeins, or of a chieftain and his 'following.' It is, in effect, a voluntarily maintained slavery on the part of the operatives—a habit as incompatible with political liberty as with moral dignity and progress, and therefore a sore evil in our state. Obviously, to perfect the system of independent contract, the workmen would need to redeem themselves from that condition of utter unprovidedness in which the great bulk of them are for the present content to live. Instead of what we see so prevalent now—a sort of hopelessness as to the benefits of saving—a dread to let it be known or imagined of them that they possess any store, lest it lead to a reduction of their wages (a foolish fallacy), or deprive them of a claim on their employer's consideration in the event of a period of depression (a mean and unworthy fear), we must see a dignified sense of independence, resting on the possession of some kind of property, before we can expect that even this stage in the Progress of Labour shall be truly reached.

But is it not just one of the essential disadvantages attending the contract system, or may we rather call it the system of weekly hire, that while it prompts the employer to frugality, by the obvious benefits to him of constant accumulation, it leaves the employed, as a mass, without a sufficient motive to the same virtue, and thus insures their being retained in that unprovidedness which forbids independence and true social dignity? On this point, were we a workman, we should be sorry to rest in an affirmative, or to allow it to slacken our exertions or sap our self-denial; because if there is a higher development of the labouring state in store for society, it can only be attained by the more speedy perfection of the contract state in the entire independence of the workman. The writer from whom we have quoted thinks, and with his sentiments we entirely concur, that 'society, in its progress towards an ideal state, may have to undergo modifications, compared with which all previous ones will seem trifling and superficial. Of one thing only can we feel secure—namely, that the loyal and punctual discharge of all the obligations arising out of existing social relations will best hallow, beautify, and elevate those relations, if they are destined to be permanent; and will best prepare a peaceful and beneficent advent for their successors, if, like so much that in its day seemed eternal, they too are doomed to pass away.'

ANECDOTE OF THE FIELD OF SHERRIFMUIR

My grandfather, William Wilson, was born in the farmhouse of Drumbrae, on the estate of Airthrey, at no great distance from the field of Sherrifmuir. At the rebellion of 1715, he was a lad of fifteen years of age, and learning that the rebels under the Earl of Mar had met with the royal forces under the Duke of Argyle in the neighbourhood, on the morning of Sunday the 12th November, while it was still dusk, he went to the top of a neighbouring hill named Glentye, from which the whole of the moor was discernible, and on which a number of country people were stationed, attracted to the spot, like himself, by curiosity. Being at no great distance from both armies, he could see them distinctly. The Highlanders, who observed no regular order, he compared to a large, dark, formless cloud, forming a striking contrast to the regular lines and disciplined appearance of the royal army. After observing them for some space of time, an orderly dragoon, sent by the Duke of Argyle, rode up to the spot where the spectators stood, warning them to remove from a position in which they were in as great danger as the combatants themselves. My grandfather accordingly returned home, listening with awe to the sharp report of musketry, intermixed with the booming of cannon, which now informed him that the battle had commenced. He had not been long in the house when a dismounted dragoon made his appearance, requesting to have his left wrist bandaged, so as to stop the blood. The hand had been cut off, and his horse killed under him, and he was on his way to Stirling to seek surgical aid. While his wishes were being complied with, he occupied himself in taking some refreshment, till one of the farm-servants came in and warned him that four armed Highlanders were coming down the hill in the direction of the house. The soldier, who had no doubt been taught at the Marlborough school, and served perhaps at Ramillies and Blenheim, immediately went out to the front of the house, which concealed him from his enemies. Presently, he heard by the footsteps that one was near, when he instantly presented himself at the gable, and shot the foremost Highlander with his carbine; then, seeing that the others came on in Indian file, with short distances between, he advanced to meet them, dropped the second with a bullet from his pistol, and cut down the third with his sword. The fourth, seeing the fate of his comrades, took to flight. After this wholesale execution, the dragoon, with perfect coolness, returned to the house, finished his repast, tranquilly said his thanks and adieus, and went off in the direction of Stirling. The next morning the country people were summoned to bury the dead. The ground was thickly covered with cranreuch, and life still remained in numbers of both armies, who begged earnestly for water. But what struck my grandfather particularly was, that the heads and bodies of a great many of the slain royalists were horribly mutilated by the claymores of the Highlanders; while on those of the Highlanders themselves nothing was observed but the wound which had caused their death.—Communicated by Mr Alexander Wilson, shoemaker, Stirling.

THINNESS OF A SOAP-BUBBLE

A soap-bubble as it floats in the light of the sun reflects to the eye an endless variety of the most gorgeous tints of colour. Newton shewed, that to each of these tints corresponds a certain thickness of the substance forming the bubble; in fact, he shewed, in general, that all transparent substances, when reduced to a certain degree of tenuity, would reflect these colours. Near the highest point of the bubble, just before it bursts, is always observed a spot which reflects no colour and appears black. Newton shewed that the thickness of the bubble at this black point was the 2,500,000th part of an inch! Now, as the bubble at this point possesses the properties of water as essentially as does the Atlantic Ocean, it follows that the ultimate molecules forming water must have less dimensions than this thickness.—Lardner's Handbook.