to secure to themselves what they deem their fair claims upon society, have led them into combinations and strikes, which only render their sufferings ultimately more acute. This inclination to resort to violent means of remedying their distress, which is however by no means peculiar to our age, or to this country, affords the strongest proof of the ignorance prevailing on subjects the most important for the well-being of society—an ignorance which, it is much to be lamented, is by no means confined to the lowest ranks. A frightful picture

is drawn of the excesses to which the workmen proceed in what they consider self-defence.

66

"Mr. Alison was examined at great length respecting the "combination of 1837, mentioned by Mr. Houldsworth and "Mr. Todd, which terminated by the murder of J. Smith, and "the arrest of three persons charged with forming the secret "select committee of the combination, and of having, in that capacity, directed the murder. On the trial the prisoners "were convicted of violence, but on the charge of murder a "verdict of non proven was found. It was resolved not to ask "Mr. Alison any questions on matters respecting which he had 'given evidence on the trial. But we have thought that the "following portion of his examination ought to be inserted."

"1896. Have you any reason to know, without referring to the trial itself, whether any secret select committee was appointed by the cotton-spinners at any time?-The statement I am now to give was not brought forward at the trial at all; it was given by witnesses who were arrested by me in connexion with that violence, but they were not brought forward at the trial; they did not appear in the evidence laid before the jury.

"1899. What was the statement made to you?—I received information, in the beginning, on the very day on which the trial was first put up, that was the 10th of November, that there were witnesses in Glasgow, who had come forward at the eleventh hour, who could give important information in regard to the trial; and it was in consequence of that that the trial was put off. When I returned to Glasgow, on the 12th of November, I immediately sent for those witnesses. I found that they laboured under the most dreadful apprehensions; they refused to meet me.

"1900. Apprehensions of what?-Apprehensions of death.

"1901. From whom?-From the associated cotton-spinners. They refused at once to come to the Sheriff's office; then I said that I would meet them at any public-house they chose to appoint, in the suburbs of Glasgow, but they would not come; they said if they were seen going into the same public-house with me, their lives would be immediately in danger. At last I agreed to meet them in the evening, in a tavern in Glasgow.

"1902. Was it your judgment that that was a feigned terror or a real terror operating upon the minds of the people?—I saw at once that it was a real terror, because they had no object to gain by it; they had no claim to any part of the reward; and the consequences to which they subjected themselves were immediate imprisonment for several months. I had no means of protecting them but by sending them to prison; and they got not a shilling of money by it.

"1903. What was the substance of the information?-I met them in the evening. They came in by one road into the tavern; I came in by another; and we separated in the same way, each going a different way in the night, so as to elude observation.

"1901. Do you mean that you met in a dark room?—No, the room was light; but it was ten o'clock at night. They told me that they had received information from two of the members of the committee as to the mode in which the secret select committee was appointed. They were examined separately, and anxiously examined by me upon the subject, and the result of their information was this: they said that a slip of paper was sent to all the thirty-eight cotton factories of Glasgow, desiring them to send in a delegate forthwith to decide upon important matters connected with the strike. They exhibited some of those slips to me, which I could exhibit to the committee; but the slip was merely to say, that they were requested to send a delegate to deliberate upon important matters. The thirty-eight delegates accordingly met in the committee-rooms. Those thirty-eight delegates chose a select committee, consisting of twelve. The select committee of twelve were chosen openly, without concealment, by the whole thirty-eight; and it was perfectly understood by all the trade, when this notification was sent, that the object of this was to appoint a secret select committee for the purpose of perpetrating violence; but it was not expressed either in the notification or in the debate upon the subject. After the thirty-eight had appointed twelve, which they did openly in the rooms, the twelve had then a secret meeting, which was in a dark room. The secretary of the association then took the names; every person brought a name, written down by himself, of one of the twelve whom he recommended to form the secret select committee. The names in the dark room were put into a hat, and delivered to the secretary, who took them out of the room and read the names in the light: the three names then which had the majority of the voices were those which he selected; the three that were at the head of the list; and those three formed the secret select committee.

"1905. Do you mean that he read them out?-He read them to himself in the light, apart from the other twelve, and, having read the whole twelve, he selected the three which had the greatest number of votes, and immediately threw the whole of the tickets into the fire. He then returned into the dark room and broke up the meeting without saying anything; and he then sent, in a subsequent part of the day, an intimation to the three upon whom the votes had fallen that they formed the secret select committee, who afterwards met and deliberated upon the subject entrusted to them, so that no person, even of the secret select committer, knew the three, except the secretary.

"1906. What object was to be entrusted to those three?—The objects to be entrusted to those three were the perpetration of acts of violence, assassination, fire-raising, and assault. The secret select committee was not appointed, in general, until other methods had failed. The first method used by the cotton-spinners always was to appoint guards round the mills, which was done openly, the instructions to the guards being to oppose the nobs by all means; if they could, by fair means; if not, by foul; and then if the guards could not effect their object, and if the guards were put down by the authorities, then the secret select committee was resorted to as the last re

source.

"1928. Did they state to you what the powers of that secret select committee were?-The duties of the secret select committee were to organize means of putting people to death, or of setting fire to the mills of refractory masters, or where there were refractory workmen, but particularly punishing nobs by breaking their legs, and other acts of violence."

The case of the suffering classes is, in these statements, so strongly put, and the dependence of effects upon their causes is so forcibly pointed out, that although not ignorant of the difficulty of arresting the attention of the classes exempted from such sufferings, still we willingly give ear to the hope that they have not been written in vain. We do trust that these statements will be productive of some more good than merely adding to the store of knowledge of the politician, or supplying a new set of figures to the orator. It is cheering, on the other hand, to find, in comparing the condition of the working classes in these islands with the same classes on the continent, that hard as the pressure is to which our poor countrymen have submitted, their sufferings are not so great as those of labourers abroad. The researches of M. Villermé, on the condition of the working classes in France, prove that, under a much less accumulation of population, there is a greater amount of suffering in that country, notwithstanding the mildness of the climate and the cheapness of some kinds of provisions. We are not aware that materials have been collected in England for furnishing an authentic table of the kind which that author gives, showing the comparative probable longevity of infants at their birth in the different trades ; but the picture which it shows of the condition of the manufacturing labourers at Mühlhausen is indeed a fearful one. The chances of life at the birth are stated to be

We say that this statement affords consolation, because it proves that the distress which exists with us is not the result of any peculiar inclemency of climate, or other natural disadvantage which it might be difficult to remedy. There can also be no doubt, that the greater share of comforts now accessible for our labourers have been produced by a wise application of capital and knowledge on all sides; and this conviction should only stimulate to further exertion.

Of the two modes of relieving distress amongst the poor, the encouragement of emigration, with a view to thinning their numbers, has engrossed of late years perhaps an undue share of public attention. We have, by the establishment of boards and societies, shown the greatest possible anxiety to get rid of our superfluous labour; and, with the exception of the labourers themselves, no class of the community seems to have suspected that we were exporting a commodity which might be turned to better account; still less does it appear to have been imagined, that we were actually robbing ourselves to fill the pockets of others.

The disregard of the effect which the growth and prosperity of the rising American states must ultimately have upon the nations of Europe, is not the less singular that it is so general. Those who affect a monopoly of political influence on the strength of landed possessions in a rude climate, and where the soil is notoriously unproductive, seem to be totally forgetful of the effect which must be produced by the increasing accessibility of lands like Guiana and Trinidad in our own colonies, or like Java and Sumatra in those of our neighbours, to say nothing of the boundless pampas and savannahs of America. Let anybody read the evidence respecting Guiana

and Trinidad, in the reports submitted to Parliament on the state of the West Indies, and then say if, when freedom and the luxuries of life are to be found on soils and under climates like those described in the reports, men of common intelligence will continue to waste their labour on lands where food can only be raised by dint of artificial manures, unless some other inducements are held out to them than a measure of labour which degrades man to the condition of the beast of burden. The removal of the impediments to emigration, which long discouraged adventurers, is dwelt upon by the reporters.

"During the latter portion of the last century, and the first thirty years of this century, our colonies scarcely afforded any relief to the surplus population of the labouring classes. As neither the general government, nor any local authorities, had the power to raise funds towards the expense of transit and outfit, emigration was confined to those who could supply that expense themselves, and who belonged, therefore, rather to the middle than to the labouring classes, and to those much fewer in number who were sent out by private liberality. Improvident sales, improvident grants, and improvident reserves of the unappropriated lands in most of the colonies, retarded their settlement and improvement; and those which were least affected by these calamities were avoided by many honest and industrious settlers as the habitations of slaves or of convicts.

"During the last ten years all these obstacles have been removed. Slavery no longer exists in any British colony; the transportation of convicts is confined to one small penal settlement, and when the inconvenience and expense of establishing our principal prison in the antipodes is better understood, must terminate altogether. The Poor-law Amendment Act in England, and the Act of 1838 establishing a poor-law in Ireland, authorize the local authorities to raise funds to defray the expense of emigration. The extravagant or corrupt grants, the inconsiderate sales, and the absurd reserves of former colonial administrations, have ceased, and, we trust, can never be repeated. They have been superseded by a system under which the wild lands are sold, and the produce is, in most cases, employed in the transport of labourers to aid in their cultivation; and a Colonial Land and Emigration Board has been established for the purpose of obtaining and circulating information, and enabling the resources of the state and of individuals to be employed in the most beneficial manner.

"The result has been a singularly rapid growth of our colonial empire." -Report, p. 119.

While inducements to emigrate are thus multiplying, and the pressure of want thus seconds the impulse which they awaken, is the other side of the question to be utterly kept out of view? Is it wise to shrink from a consideration of the possibility of giving such a direction to industry as would