Human Physiology. 455 



despising theft, prizing honour and uprightness more than gold, 

 cannot go far amiss. And the rule is the same in respect to 

 wages. The employer knows what is the value to him of each 

 man's labour knows the share in the proceeds of labour which 

 each man receives. The labourer often cannot know this. He 

 knows only his own necessity. The lash is over his back; wife 

 and children to feed are so many strands ; it is work or starve 

 work for what the employer chooses to give, or combine to- 

 gether for a wages war. The right to use force against force, 

 constraint against constraint, is conceded by public opinion 

 and the government; and both stand by, idle spectators of the 

 fight when they ought to interfere at once for justice and peace. 

 It is more necessary than military efficiency or naval supremacy, 

 on which such vast sums are expended. The government 

 gathers and publishes information of increase of population, or 

 the prevalence of diseases in men and animals, of the mortality 

 of towns and rural districts, marriages and births, all the statis- 

 tics of revenue and commerce ; would it be much to add the 

 rate of wages in different employments, from skilled artisans to 

 needlewomen, in every district in England, with the cost of 

 living in each ? Would it be much to establish, in connection 

 with the Post-Office, perhaps, a National Labour Exchange, 

 by which the demand for labour and its price in every dis- 

 trict might be known in every other? Would it be much to 

 give also the same information with respect to colonies, with 

 the cost of getting to every point where land is cheap and 

 labour well paid ? People as heavily taxed as Englishmen are, 

 might have, at least, any information which would possibly 

 enable them to better their condition, according to the selfish 

 rule of demand and supply, and the diabolic rule of free com- 

 petition, or devil take the hindmost. 



But we want something better than this better than a more 

 intelligent fight better than facilities for getting by force what 

 should be instantly conceded as a matter of simple right of 



