180 KEPORT— 1873. 



of the law to protect the Queen's subjects against bodily harm and physical 

 violence, but it is no use attempting to protect men against persuasion or even 

 against moral iutimidation. They can only protect themselves. And if the law- 

 attempts or strives to do that it will surely faU, and probably lead those against 

 whom the attempts are exercised to think that there is a desire to interfere by 

 recom-se to the law with their reasonable freedom. And I think, in dealing with 

 this^ question of the law, we should not have recourse to exceptional legislation. 

 To illustrate that I may say that very few things have been done by the House of 

 Commons that I so much regi-et as the way in which we dealt with trades unions 

 at Sheffield. I think the law we passed (in order to get at iufonnatiou with re- 

 gard to trades imions at Sheffield) to obtain an available blue book as to what had 

 been done at Sheffield was one much to be regretted. We issued a Commission, 

 and we .stated that eveiy man, whatever he had done, might come before that 

 Commission and give evidence perfectly fi-ee from any of the consequences of the 

 crime he had committed. What was the result ? That we had men who had 

 been engaged in the plotting and planning of deliberate murder, who came forward 

 and stated what they had been guilty of, and then there was the declaration of the 

 law which saved them from the consequences of their crime. That did not apply 

 merely to the case of King's evidence, where the least guilty would be saved, and 

 the more guilty punished ; but it was a paltering with the law, applying as it did to 

 all who were giiilty, aflbrdiug as it did protection to the murderer, and that in 

 order that we might acquire information on which to found exceptional legislation. 

 Such a step will, I hope, never be repeated. Our real hope in this matter must be 

 that which has caused wliat I conceive to be the progress that has been made, 

 namely, the effect of public opinion and education — the slow result of the pro- 

 clamation of truth as to the relations of labour and capital. By these means alone 

 we can hope to solve the difficulties which exist ; and I cannot but think that such a 

 Section aa this wUl be a most useful aid in this important work. I may be told that 

 this hope is rash when we see the extraordinary ideas which are propagated in Con- 

 gresses, and reported day by day in the newspapers. Well, I have read with great 

 interest what lias been said in Geneva at both these Congresses, and I have observed 

 this encouraging fact, that hardly any Englishmen have taken part in them ; and 

 that, when they did, it was on the side oif good sense, and to denounce wild and 

 impracticable ideas. But this is not the first time that we have had these notions 

 declared before us. 



My noble friend Lord Houghton and myself, in 1848, were in Paris, where we 

 amused and interested ourselves by trying to learn what we could of French notions 

 at that time about the relations of society, especially of labour and capital ; and I am 

 sure the ideas which we now think strange were then stated with even more ex- 

 travagance, and I think with much more agreement among the general public than 

 at this moment. The Commune of Paris may be quoted ; but I do not think it is 

 a fair illustration. The Commune had its sad crimes ; of that I fear there can be no 

 doubt ; but these crimes and its very existence were not so much the eff'ect of 

 French notions with regard to Communism. They were rather a reaction against 

 the central and severe despotism which had prevailed in France, destroying, as it 

 were, all local powers and trving to crush out local life. I believe that a vastly 

 larger number of working men are admitting now what we consider to be the 

 fundamental facts of political economy than was formerly the case. We find they 

 will now generally acknowledge that there are after all only three ways by which 

 labour can be better remunerated. The first is by the increase of capital — of the 

 wages fund. The second is by the diminution of labourers, either by emigration 

 or by a diminution of population, and that not simply by the diminution of labourers 

 in a special trade : that is a mistake which they still sometimes fall into ; it may 

 appear to relieve a trade for a time, but it only does so by drivins- more labourers 

 into some other trade — making that trade unremunerative or less remunerative 

 to the labourer, and thus bringing him back to the trade which is more so. The 

 only way in which they can hope for a remedy under the second head is by a 

 diminution of labourers generally. The third way in which the conditions of 

 labour may be improved is that by which the labourer may himself become a 

 capitalist. Our recent progress has been made almost entirely in consequence of 



