420 General Results of a Gardening Tour. 



ruder than the rudest ever seen in Scotland, to spin with ; 

 and when the spinning season is over, these wheels are returned 

 to her, and kept in safe custody in a large room at the 

 Abbey. In the neighbourhood of all the large manufacturing 

 towns there is a number of small manufacturers, who effect 

 by manual labour what large capitalists effect by machinery; 

 just as there were in Scotland, thirty years ago, a few starving 

 small farmers among the large farmers. It is a fact that can- 

 not be denied, that the servants who attend the machinery of 

 the capitalists are better off thto the small masters ; and the 

 same was the case in Scotland, with respect to the condition of 

 the servants of large farmers, as compared with that of those 

 who farmed small holdings on their own account. Thus it is 

 that there appears to be a tendency in the present state of 

 society to separate producers into only two classes ; capitalists 

 and labourers. The labourers, therefore, must necessarily 

 be more or less at the mercy of the capitalists ; whether 

 the latter be the possessors of land, money, or machinery. 

 We say nothing here of the operation on monopolies by 

 legislative measures either in progress or in contemplation. 

 There appears to us only one way in which the monopoly 

 on the part of the employers of labour is to be met by the 

 labourers, with a view to prevent it from being injurious to 

 them, and that is, by a counter- monopoly on their part, in 

 the form of combinations to support the price of labour. We 

 shall not here go into the subject farther than to observe that 

 this is not likely to be done to any good purpose, till the 

 labouring classes are better educated, and rendered fit to 

 comprehend and cooperate for their true interests. Were 

 that the case, there would be an understood combination 

 among all of them, as there is at present among some parti- 

 cular classes of mechanics and manufacturers. Even among 

 gardeners this tacit combination exists, and there is not one 

 of them about London, who ranks beyond what is considered 

 in the profession a gardener's labourer, who would accept a 

 situation as master at less than 50/. a year, with a free house 

 or lodging, and vegetables.* When other labouring classes 

 become as enlightened, and as communicative with each other, 

 as the gardeners, they will follow their example. It is acknow- 

 ledged by all political economists that high wages are much 

 better for the employer, as well as the employed, than low 

 wages. 



* This is less than the hire of a good footman, but it is honourable to 

 gardeners, and to human nature, that it should be so ; and we think they 

 should rather be proud of it than otherwise. The time will come when 

 professions of learning and leisure will be worse paid than those of severe 

 bodily labour, watching, and fatigue. 



