183 REPORT— 1873. 



after all, be acknowledged by any person however much opposed to the movement. 

 The progress we have made is shown in Mr. Arch's meetings and Mr. Arch's 

 speeches : what a progress compared with the rick-burning in the southern 

 counties wlien I was a boy, some forty years ago ! I cannot enter into the 

 question now ; but I confess I am not sorry that there is a movement amongst 

 the agricultural population. I do not in the slightest degi-ee, in making these 

 remarks, blame their employers. I believe they have acted as other employers 

 would have done, and in some cases better, for they have been brought more 

 into contact with their people ; but I do think the fact of it being supposed that 

 no agiicultural labourer could combine with his fellow labourers did do some- 

 thing towards making their wages lower than those of other classes of the 

 community. 



But in watching this movement I think we who, by our position, are not much 

 interested in it, should watch it with very great sympathy for both sides. The condi- 

 tion of the agricultural labourer is in many cases that which ought to excite our 

 sympathy ; but the position of the farmer also is a very dilftcult one. His profit 

 is not of that nature that he can make a large increase of money payment without 

 a good deal of difficulty ; and I therefore think it is a favourable feature in this 

 movement that there is a third class somewhat connected with it (the landlords) 

 who are in a position which enable them to act as moderators on both sides, 

 and whose interests are to some extent involved in the matter. May I just throw 

 out a hint to the Section, that I think it would be a very good thing if a paper 

 could be produced before it really bringing the laws of political economy to the 

 solution of this question — how far the rent that is paid for land affects the question 

 of the wages of the agricultural labourer ? 



There are only two other remarks that I would make on this matter before I 

 leave it, which concerns not so much the condition of England as what has 

 happened outside of England, but which cannot but have an effect upon Eng- 

 land ; and, first, it is this, that if there was an attempt to describe progress in 

 economical well-being for the last thirty or forty j'ears, there would be one great 

 fact which would be preeminent before all others— the abolition of slavery in the 

 United States. I am not now entering into the moral evils of slavery ; but it may 

 not be out of place in me to allude to what would have been the consequences to 

 economic science if the slave power of the South had succeeded, and in that great 

 country, the United States, compulsory rather than free labour had been acknow- 

 ledged to be the corner stone of the social system. I believe that historians will 

 hereafter admit that the failure of that bold and v.'ell-planned attempt to seize hold 

 of power in the United States in order to promote slavery was almost the greatest 

 escape which civilization ever had. But however much we may rejoice over that 

 escape, we must not forget that the spirit of slavery still exists. ^Ve hope we 

 may have struck some blow against slavery this year on the East Coast of Africa ; 

 but I am made more sorrowful than hopeful from what I have seen of the matter 

 during the last year or two. The efforts made by men of our own tongue, and, 

 I fear, by men of our own race, to carry on what is practicall}' a slave trade in the 

 Pacific Islands, are most dispiriting, and demand our earnest endeavours to check 

 them in every way we can. I will onlj' just allude to the attempt which is being 

 made in many western countries, in which there is a demand for labour, to forcibly 

 import Chinese coolies wherever it is possible to do so. I have, however, some hope 

 in regard to both these matters. I believe the moral sense of England has deter- 

 mined that her name shall not be shamed by the slave trade in the Pacific, and I 

 hope we shall do our duty in regard to this Eastern traffic. I entertain this hope 

 because the inhabitants of Eastern nations are becoming more and more able to 

 take care of themselves. 



This brings me to the other fact which, I think, we ought not to forget, and that 

 is the remarkable intellectual movement which is now taking place among Eastern 

 nations — a change which must result in great material advancement. I may allude 

 to the wonderful reforms in Japan, which have so far appeared to have been carried 

 out in real substance and with vitality of action, and which would seem to show that 

 this country is waking up from the dead sleep of ages — a fact which will, I think, be 

 hereafter acknowledged as the most extraordinary phenomenon of the last two or 



