TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 177 



future, not as any ground for rest. This is not the place or the time to dilate upon 

 what labourers can do for themselves ; and all I would say on that matter is that 

 when any of us are advised or speak against what we may think to be the besetting 

 sins of the labouring class, we ought never to forget what are the besetting sins of 

 our own class. We must also recollect that in the present state of civilization we 

 must make a great distinction between crime and vice — remembering that crime 

 and vice cannot be attacked in like manner. We must continue to punish crime, 

 to bring force to bear upon it ; but as regards vice (and I include in it that gi-eat 

 and terrible vice of di'imkenness) I believe we shall be obliged to admit that 

 the time has long passed (indeed I doubt when it ever existed) in which we can 

 attack vice with success by force, or by any means but persuasion. As regards, 

 however, what can be done by others, by such a Section as this, by the Legislature, 

 for the condition of the manual labourers, I believe that, notwithstanding what has 

 been done, very much more may be done. 



I alluded to what appears to be, speaking generally, the improved condition of 

 the labourer — that is to say, by the help of scientific discoveries man fights nature 

 with less suffering to himself There are many of us who can detail the beneficent 

 results of scientific discovery in one case after another. All I will say is that I 

 belie\ e these conquests over nature are but the prelude to futm-e triumphs, and that 

 I look forward to these great and beneficent results being still more apparent in the 

 futiu-e than thej' have been in the past, from the thought and experiments of scientific 

 men — that they will enable the products of natm-e to be realized for the good of 

 men with less sutieriug to the individual worker. Take, again, the advantages of 

 free trade ; and what, after all, is free trade but the simple carrying out of scientific 

 laws? It means nothing else. There was a dispute in old time as to whether the 

 manual labourer would gain by free trade. No one would now raise that dispute 

 for a moment. Not only English labourers have gained, but, from our having learnt 

 the lesson and having adopted the principles of free trade, even the labourers of 

 other countries where they have not learnt these principles have shared in the 

 advantages of free trade, which we in these great centres of commerce have made 

 our own. I do trust we may now see grounds for supposing that other nations are 

 learning from om- example ; and as their working men have gained by what we have 

 done, so our working men may gain by what they will do. I can hardly avoid 

 making one allusion to an event of the past year — ^to the very encouraging support 

 of free trade shown by the action of the French Government. To the Emperor 

 Napoleon we have all been grateful for using his power for the encouragement of 

 free trade, and we have to acknowledge his patriotism and his fidelity to knowledge, 

 and to truthful political philosophy, in establishing some encouraging principles of 

 free trade in France ; but we know that they were forced upon the French people, and 

 we did not know what they might do when they had freedom. But in that matter 

 they have had freedom to do as they thought best, but in conditions of disadvantage 

 to free trade. The Government (though they had a great statesman who was not 

 himself convinced upon the matter, and who "had great infiuence) in the past year 

 declared themselves decidedly in favour of free trade. I cannot doubt that that 

 fact will have taken hold upon men both in the United States and elsewhere. 

 But economic science does not apply merely to the interchange of commodities 

 between nations, but to the interchange of all matters of value. I think we feel 

 that its principles must be enforced and cai-ried out both with regard to land and 

 to labour. There should be nothing in law whatever which should prevent the 

 most entire freedom in selling and bu}dng land ; this principle can hardly be dis- 

 puted, and its mere statement is almost sufficient to encourage us in the reforms that 

 will be necessary to carry it out. The same principle applies to labom- ; there must 

 be freedom to sell it and freedom to buy it. Then, again, I suppose sanitary im- 

 provements must be considered to come within the range of our Section. Well, 

 there is much, very much, to do in that matter. I think our aims in this direction 

 are higher (and I take comfort from the fact) than they used to be. We are 

 aiming not only at preventing death, but at making life better worth living, by 

 making it more healthy ; and we no longer forget that in fighting our battle against 

 disease it is not those only who are killed that are to De considered, but also 

 the wounded. In the terrible inflictions of preventible disease throughout the 



