266 



T]ic Country Gcntlcnmjfs Magar:inc 



wish to co-operate upon the Board of the an old saying, and if the foregoing commis- 



Commission, and he hopes that in the en- sion effect its object, as I beheve it will — 



suing week all the necessary preliminaries will the utilization of our vast peat bogs — we need 



be matured for carrying out the objects of not be very sorry for the strikes among the 



the commission. English coUiers. 



*"Tis an ill v/ind blows nobody good," is Shamrocic. 



EARL DERBY ON LABOUR AND WAGES. 



LORD DERBY presided at the annual 

 dinner of the Bury Agricultural Society, 

 held at Manchester, on Thursday evening, and 

 in giving the toast of" Prosperity to the Society,' 

 he said : — He supposed the whole industrial 

 community of the country were now in a posi- 

 tion which had hardly any precedent, at least in 

 recent history. We were burdened and incon- 

 venienced by a superabundance of prosperity. 

 Make as niany deductions as we pleased for the 

 depreciated value of money, still he apprehended 

 that there was nothing in our recent history like 

 the growth of trade, of manufacture, and of 

 industry in all departments, and the consequent 

 increase of public and private wealth which had 

 taken place during the last six years. It was 

 dangerous to prophesy in the face of the crisis 

 of July, 1866, when lamentations were heard that 

 our trade was ruined, and our industry would 

 decline ; yet our imports in 1871 were 330 mil- 

 lions against 271 millions in 1865, and our 

 exports had increased in even a greater propor- 

 tion ; and, whereas, when he was a boy people 

 were writing books on the duty of employing 

 the redundant population, we were now in ex- 

 actly a contrary position. Two masters were 

 after one man, and, as a natural consequence, 

 in all departments of industry there had been 

 a general rise in wages, which was one of the 

 most remarkable industrial facts of our time. 

 It was a matter which we must look at in a 

 perfectly dispassionate manner. It was agreed 

 by all in theory that employers had a right to 

 get labour as cheaply as possible,, and, on the 

 other hand, it was admitted in theory that the 

 employed had a right to sell their labour as 

 dearly as possible — both one class and the other 

 had a perfectly legal and moral right to do 

 this, and to combine for that purpose, pro- 

 viding they did not molest any one who did 

 not join. He would say more than that. If 



any set of men saw their way to an extra 

 two, three, or four shillings a week in wages, 

 or, what was the same thing, a reduction 

 of hours without a reduction of wages, 

 it was not reasonable to expect them to 

 give up their chance of securing this simply 

 from speculative considerations, or because 

 they were going to ruin trade in the long run, 

 or industry in general. They would naturally 

 do the best for themselves, and so would the 

 masters in their place. But then came the 

 question, was it cjuite certain that the power of 

 the man would always thus continue ? It was 

 doubtful, to say the least, whether this almost 

 unprecedented demand for labour would always 

 continue at its present rate. He spoke with 

 great diffidence, as his knowledge was mainly 

 second-hand, but he believed practical men 

 engaged in any kind of business would say it 

 could not last, that with such a run of prosperity 

 as during the last three or four years a reaction 

 must follow as surely as day succeeds night, 

 and we may be thankful if it only comes upon 

 us slowly, and not with the ruin and the crash 

 of 1866. We had to bear in mind, too, that in 

 all branches of industry where we competed 

 with foreign nations, and that was pretty 

 nearly in every branch of industry, as things 

 were in the present time we were giving them 

 a chance which they never had before. We 

 used to say that whatever other advantages we 

 might lose there were three that could not fail 

 us all, that we should still have our cheap 

 coal, cheap iron, and skilled labour, which in 

 quality and abundance could not be equalled 

 elsewhere. Coal and iron were as plentiful now 

 as ever, but they were certainly not cheap, nor 

 were they likely to be for some time. And as 

 for our skilled labour, we must not conceal from 

 ourselves that in that respect we were being 

 ri\allcd by foreign countries to a very much 



