346 THE OPKRATIVKS" 1 PARLIAMENT. 



must have a certain rate of wages, coute qui coule. No matter to them 

 who suffers ; the incompetency of manufacturers to compete with the 

 foreigner does not disturb their calculations; they have but one end and 

 aim in view, selfish and short-sighted though it be the maintenance of 

 high wages ; and whether ruin ensue to the manufacturer, whether 

 capital be directed into other channels, and trade decay, appears to be 

 a matter of indifference to their silly policy ; but, with the notorious 

 improvidence of their class, so long as they provide for the day, they 

 care not who provides for the morrow. In order, therefore, that their 

 objects may be fully carried into practice, no workman must presume 

 to think for himself; he must not be satisfied with the wages which 

 the trade affords ; his opinions upon the expediency of suffering tem- 

 porary inconvenience for ultimate good must be relinquished ; he is 

 obliged by these law-givers to refuse his employ, and accept their pit- 

 tance, without any security for its continuance, as experience has but 

 too often proved. This is a most iniquitous feature in the code of the 

 Unionist; for however, upon the broad principle of individual right, a 

 man may, if he pleases, starve himself rather than work under a cer- 

 tain sum, upon no principle of law or justice shall he dictate the same 

 terms to his neighbour. Of all the forms of combination, this is by 

 far the worst and most unprincipled. Men may be misguided as to 

 the correctness of the general principles of their system ; but no man 

 can pretend to justify to himself the tyrannical and unprincipled 

 nature of a regulation which obliges every one to rule his house- 

 hold by that of his neighbour. 



If we consider combination in its simplest form, viz. that of a num- 

 ber of workmen calling a meeting upon any particular emergency re- 

 lative to a proposed alteration of their wages, and the sense of that meet- 

 ing being taken upon it for the benefit of the whole, we see nothing im- 

 proper in it. Neither do we see with what propriety the law could 

 interfere, did they proceed another step, and effect a permanent club 

 or confederacy, having funds at their disposal in furtherance of any 

 common resolution. The case, however, becomes widely different when 

 these bodies cease to be simply passive ; but endeavour, by threats 

 and intimidation, to coerce others to pursue the same measures as 

 themselves. This is the point where the law ought to interfere, as 

 the liberty of the subject is violated, and as no man under such 

 circumstances can call himself his own master. But that the system 

 of intimidation may be more clearly understood, we will quote the 

 manner of piqueting a mill, as it is practised about Manchester : 



" When a strike has taken place in any factory, men are always sta- 

 tioned to keep watch on the building-, and also on every avenue leading to 

 it, whose business it is to prevent fresh workmen being engaged in the 

 place of those who have turned out. Every labouring man who appears 

 to be seeking employment in the direction of the factory, or, having- ac- 

 cepted employment in it, is returning from it, is stopt and interrogated, 

 and should he prove refractory, is threatened or maltreated. This system 

 of piqueting mills has been carried to the greatest extent in Manchester, 

 where the obnoxious factory is always watched by five or six men, un- 

 known in the immediate neighbourhood, and who, on a given signal, can be 

 reinforced to the extent of three hundred. These picquets are regularly 

 relieved, by night and by day, with as much order and method as is ob- 



