The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1885-05-09 00:00:00

Erie 3touririge (Observer,
SATURDAY, MAY 903, 1885.
-
Taz WORKING MAN AND HIS
FRIENDS.

Ti British workman—uuder which widely
comprehensive head we here include the
vast army of industrial day-labourers, skilled.
and unskilled of our land—cannot with any
IlSow of truth complain that his twelfare is
not a Matter of national interest. His social
• status, his rights and his wrongs, his recrea-.
tion, his
.improvement, mental, moral, and
religions, his struggles and trials when times
are hard, in fact everything concerning his
prOgreaa through life, from boyhood to old
ago, furnish perennial themes for the speeches
of the philosopher and the philauthrophist,
and unceasingly exercise the thought and
action Of those of the beneficent who are
fortunate possessors of a larger share of
worldly gear than the toiler's chances in the
lottery of life.have brought him. A very
considerable proportion of the legislation of
rodent Parliaments has also been pointedly
directed towards few:ling in Labour against
the encroachments of. Capital, or otherwise
aimed at adding to the comfort of those who
live by the "sweat of the brow." Apart
from the legal safeguards against the oppres-
sion of the poor, which in this favoured age
and Empire are, it may with certainty be
Claimed, more far-reaching and firmly estab-
lished than they have ever been, there seems
to be at this present an especially widespread
and setive. sympathy with the worker. Men
- and women, of the "larger heart and kind-
lier baud" in public and private life vie with
each other in good deeds and good endea-
yoors for the amelioration of the condi-
tion of the working classes ;" until the fear
is that honest independence of the toiler
lairretelf may be endangered by too much
patronage and petting, and his self-reliance
imperilled by the knowledge of easily acces-
sible assistance. Wisdom should suggest
the golden mean between neglect and injuri-
ous oterrelief. Not that the worthy work-
. . ing-man bits any desire for sympathy that
issannaes a charitable form. He would much
:rather stiffer want than accept alms. Bot,
unfortunately, for the industrious, there are
Mazy drones in the great human hive. The
indolence. and improvidence of three is the
'chief efias, "1 t,"liaalor and poTery which
:nets e);ch 'slot on our !treat towns and
eitiost nt:y little or n7ll`lng towards
t.lke h(,ney of an..l are, in fact,
workint (oily in appeerlii,!i., and a dis-
grace to the commun:ty io which, under a
false pretence, they oOtain shelter and some
sort of subsistence. With such as them we
have nothing here to do. Help to those who
.have ot the manliness to help themselves
iaworse than ;Tasked. Poverty of this kind
•.. . .
is-a'ertne, CM .1 5 lloulci be treated as such;
• the real workere will forward their own
canoe and greatly improve their own condi-
tion by elbowing all the lazy drones out of
the hive. The sham workman is the bane
of the' toiling class; the Jonah that sets the
induitrielahio in danger. of sinking.
.• Let
those:who will not work want. Few who
are willing to work, and not prevented from
so doing by affliction, need long be without
employments; - happily, now-a-days Charity
Will step .i.rt to fulfil it high and holy mission
where affliction exists; and here only it is
Viet the geol., rest of t I.e Heaven-born Sisters
has 'legitimate occupation. Benevolent
1 philanthropy has a wide field. for. useful
• --nrititatiti helping those of lowly life to so-
- eoettplish their heart's desire who wait but
the opportnuiW to help themselves. The
struggling workman who is et rnestly wish-
ful to better his lot and willing to exert him-
self to the utmost of his ability to do so, has
lithe friends to guard against. rhere is the
showy plailanthrophist who gives a good
?bead sure for vainglory and for the purpose
of securing a worldly reputation for benevo-
kmoe. He does not inquire into the uHlity
ef tha fund- to which he is an ostentatious
donor, his object being gained by the inclu-
sien name in a prominent charity list.
.141*.imbicrintion thus given by the hand and
intst the heart seldom does any good to the
uonsiriel LoeneoioTosrs, and often harm ; and not
infrecrontly .finde its way into the pockets
of sehetairriedveriturers and sham professors
of pover#. Then there is the careless alms-
giskao- ivltee thosgh his money donation or
personal' service rnay not, like that of the
eleeo last oeoitioned, be paraded for the ap-
plaioe' of men, it is yet offered without in-
vestigation, as a mere (linty. lic.ro the hear;;.
witheit the head, acts, and hence what might
be'valuable.helP, were only care exercised,
is too-often, we fear, Misapplied. The worst
friend of the working man. however, is the
hoalow, insincere individual who purports to.
spring. from. his-own. ranks. Gifted with a
specious and plausible dow of speech, he
seeks to set he class, of which he is a
coonterfeit meniber, in alit he is invariably
an arrant dr::nc. at all other sections of
the consomnity. Himlf long a stranger to
heoest toil, and an agitator by profession, he
generally preaches loudly of the nobility of
labonO, end t.oueders forth invective against
what Le glibly calls the iniquitous gted of
Capital. lie wilitalk for tine hour of equal-
ity and the birthright of all men in the soil;
wboreas his ow* prin,!iples are utterly the
opposite of his sounding theOriea. Were
thrift and industry dominant, his occupation
would ha gone; and that is by no means the
goal of ambition.. The working man
should .shun the tenchin gof all such false
prophets its the demagognee, who abound so
thickly; and listen only to those leaders of
borieet. prirpoee. Whose utterances; and life
aeeion send forth no uncertain sound. The
insineere among so-celled labour champions
sue but drones- whose noisy and unprofitable
buzzing is -even more offensive to the induet-
Tione bee thee the inaction of those who are
too lazy to do more than listlessly lie in wait
for what they can filch without effort from .
the workers' store. Despite ocecaeional
cloiAs of trade depression, against which
prudent pre paretionand foresight can usually
provide, there pever was a time nor place
sonce elle world began in which the working
_nit" hid a botter chance of conifortable and
htppy livelihr than he has now in this
• fre, kn.; of ours if he w ill hut be industrious
.thrift, tho!..i4llt fal. There are
lir6e.ri; important induA,riesi are overstocked
easilr applicable in ,
with skilled labour not
Other dirtstiom, through the sapenthundant '
814fl1WiMC investment of capital at heated
t'43Nl of production ; and from these sine
L'rtaiiist- the laws of 1;c-A i tical
_economy 'suffer,
ht,3 instiod, and (List rcs cven now obtains..
11" ''se-ro.,)uteep of out state :19 I
c.f j,, s:„ us to
ootieeol queP.tioos
oi t!t.1..1 IC11'1; it'll
Ttli( tiern•
'';fr..l*“2" .11 m7.ter tn tine t
vorkillc the t.) t.tke toads
guerdon from the fruitf earth. they will be
scivaneing the "good t
.coniiu.;," when
right and Jaatice will rnl, an i jut,- done
king its due reward.