Now, all England--shopkeepers,
workmen, all manner of competing labourers--awaken as with an unspoken
but heartfelt prayer to Beelzebub,--'Oh, help us, thou great Lord of
Shoddy, Adulteration, and Malfeasance, to do our work with the maximum
of sluriness, swiftness, profit, and mendacity, for the devil's sake.
Amen.'"
Fortunately, there is not a great deal of truth in this letter, nor in
the "heartfelt prayer" to Shoddy. The Right Hon. Mr. Forster ought to
know something of labour and capital, and at a recent meeting of the
Cobden Club he stated that "they were often told that they had a war
within their borders between labour and capital; but as an employer of
labour ever since he came to manhood, he would only say that he never
knew a time in which employer and employed were on better terms."
The late Sir Francis Crossley observed that there was a good deal of
unreasonable feeling abroad. It was held by some that it was wrong for
working men to sell their labour at the best price; but it must be
remembered that their labour was the only thing they had to sell; and
the best thing to do was to leave those matters to take their natural
course. It was a great mistake, on the part of employers, to suppose
that the lowest-priced labour was always the cheapest. If there was not
so much desire to run down the price of labour, and the masters showed a
more conciliatory spirit, there would be fewer strikes and outrages.
Pages:
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311