The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1878-11-16 00:00:00

MR. GL&DSTONE AT BLICKLEY.

The Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone fulfilled a long
standing engagement on Monday evening by address-
ing a large audience at Buckley, near Hawarden, in
aid of the find for the support of the local institute.
The right hon. gentleman, who was accompanied by
Mrs. Gladstone, the Rev. S. E. Gladstone, and the
Hon. and Rey. A. V. Lyttelton, was heartily cheered
'on entering the room. The Rev. W. F. W. Torre,
President of the Instittte, occupied the chair and
having made a few observations, Mr. P. B. D. I Cooke,
J.P. moved, and the Rev. J. Cromtou, Primitive
Methodist, seconded, a proposition to the effect that
the Educational Institute and meeting room was de-
serving of general support, as affording an opportunity
for self-improvement and pleasant occupation for the
winter evenings. , _ .

Mr. Gladstone, iesupporting tho rezoiution, pro,
ceeded to speak of the various kinds of combination in
vogue at the present day. Of friendly societies he
observed that they should be based upon principles of
sound economical calculations, and of trades unions
that it was essential that those who entered them
should respect the liberty of those who did not join
them.—We give the following extracts from Mr.
Gladstone's speech :

Combinations for good purposes formed among the masses
of the community are in some degree a novelty among us.
There are now, unhappily, other countries where combina-
tion of the masses of the people has become a miserable
necessity for escape from grievances and oppression. There
are now in other countries, though happily not in our own,
such things as widely extended secret societies, formed
among the labouring populations of those countries, which
represent the hostility and enmity that prevail between
them and the laws and institutions under which they
live. That, I rejoice to think, is not our case. In
our country we have no such things as secret
societies, for there are only societies with a little
harmless eccentric secrecy to tickle people's curiosity
and to make them imagine something very great and
very interesting of the wonderful knowledge which they
will obtain if they are admitted. (Laughter.) I do not antici-
pate much mischief from that sort of secret society, but we
have among ourselves agreat number of these forms of com-
binations, all for some good purpose. First of all, we;have
got the friendly societies, benefit societies, which are very
noble societies in every way. They are self-supporting in-
stitutions, enabling the labouring population of the country
to realize that idea of independence and self-support which,
desirable as ills for us all, is most of all honourable
and even noble in those who have to depend on their
daily labour for their daily bread. (Applause.) The
only thing to be desired and very jealously watched for
in these societies is that they shall be based on prin-
ciples of such sound ecor-rmical calculation as that these
things shall not occur which have unfortunately happened
from want of skill in the formation of these societies in
certain cases ; that it shall not be that members shall pay
their subscriptions in time of youth and maturity, and
then when old age comes find that all the funds have
disappeared through want of calculation. (Applause.)
Then we have what are called co-operative stores, which
are very remarkable combinations of the working classes,
and do in many cases a vast deal of good. Ido not know
whether it is necessary that they should be permanent
portions of our organization, because I sometimes hope
that in proportion as the mail dealers of the country come
to understand more and more the beat mode of carrying
on their business—that is, working it on ready money
principles instead of long credits—they will be able
to compete advantageously with these co-operative
societies, and I only refer to them as one of these
modes of combleation. In some parts of the country
there are actually societies of the same kind for manufac-
turing products, and some for the carrying on of farms
These are difficult to work, and if they succeed I think
they will have attained a very good object, because they
help to give to the working classes the ideas of the capi-
talist. Labouring mess by entering into societies of that
kind get to a certain extent Into the position of a capital-
ist; and it therefore tends to promote good relations be-
tween labour andcapital when there are persons who form a
kind of link between the two. Then there are trade unions,
and with regard to these we hear a good deal for and against
them It is a curious thing that the very beat work written
on trade unions, so far as I know, is not the work of an
Englishman, but cf a Frenchman, the Comte de Paris, who,
if the Orleans dynasty had continued, would have been King
of France at this moment, and would have filled any position
which he might have been called upon to occupy with credit
and honour. He 'rote a most interesting book on the subject
of strikes and trades unions, with a most luminous and im-
partial view of the whole matter. Some people think that
trades unions iacrease wages and some people think
that they do ncA. I do not presume to give a positive
opinion one way or the other. What I believe is that
trades unions are in the main institutions which seem to
represent the same honourable desire for self-support and
independence that we find in the friendly societies. What
I would always desire in trades unions, and what I look
at as essential to their full snuport, is this, that those
who enter into these combinations shall fully and absolutely
respect the liberty of those who do not want to enter into
them. (Applause). And further, I think, they should adopt
large and liberal principles with regard to points that
touch them in the exercise of their profession, such ques-
tions as the employment of women or boys or young men,
and that in the whole of these questions they should get rid
of narrow and selfish views and adopt sound ones. I
am bound to say that I think they are very often lectured
as to the avoidance of these narrow and selfish views
by peop' e in higher stations of society who are
very apt to act upon narrow and selfish views them-
selves. (Hear, hear) Bat that is not the question. It
is best for themselves, I am convinced, that they should be
large and liberal in all their views with regard to the
employment of labour; for, after all, when men choose to
put any unnatural or unnecessary restriction upon the em-
ployment of women and children, what is that but putting
it on the members or their families, for these women and
children are persons in intimate association with them? Of
course it is a very deserving object to prevent what tends
to draw the woman out of her maternal position as head of
the family and keeper of the house. But in other respects,
in the case of girls and single women, it is not right to
place artificial restrictions on the labour of such persons by
various combinations among men.

One of the features of the new Institute led Mr. Gladstone
to speak of the advantages derived from the practice of de-
bating in such associations, "We do not want every one"
(he said) "to become a public speaker, and the world has
great difficulty in bearing with those whom it has got,
(laughter and applause); but it is desirable that every one
should acquire, in one way or another, the method of giving
free and natural vent to his thoughts in the language which
Is most proper for conveying them to the minds of others."
Mr. Gladstone then proceeded to speak of the introduc-
tion of machinery, and the tendency it had to reduce
man to a mere machine. He said:—

Among the changes which are going forward there is one
which most portions oi the labouring population, and espe-
cially those who are engaged in the great trades of
the country, require to bring home to their minds and
their reflections. I ask you to consider with me for a
moment the fact of the introduction of machinery. I am not
now speaking of agricultural machinery, for that is so
different from manufacturing machinery that ip would
not fall within the scope of the obtervations I am about
to make. But what I ana going to say is this—the wide
application and continual improvement of the machinery
which has become so great a characteristic of modern
manufacture undoubtedly has an effect in the long run
of increasing considerably the emoluments of the classes of
artisans who are engaged in it, but it has not the same
beneficial effect upon the mental discipline which they
derive from their employment. Depend upon it, hanu
labour is much bettor qualified in many ways to give a varied
exercise to the mind, and, therefore, development to the
understanding, than machine lablur. (Hear, hear.) Machine
labour may be, and is, far more effective for the purpose of
production. It may be far more beneficial by increasing
greatly the wages of the labouribg man and of his family;
but it tends in a certain degree naturally to—you will under-
stand me—make a man himself a machine, and leaves com-
paratively little chance for the development of the many
faculties such as those which the hand labourer is continually
stimulated to deveiope in the course of his business, and the
effect of this must be to impoverish the mind. I think
I need not illustrate what I have said by any particular
instance, necause you are all very well aware of it. Take
a man like a carpenter or a gardener These must have in
the details of their business continually to exercise their
minds and to make a choice between one alternative and
another by something to be performed in the nature
of construction, of putting things together for the attain-
mento
capital
is
exercise
fomseusot bccueptt
princi-
pally concerned with machinery do not possess; therefore
thoefir aminds, certain
whichend;
those
e thisw whose
the labouring population are in danger when the work is
greatly dependent on machinery of losing some of the dis-
cipline which their profession in earlier and less artificial
forms was calculated to secure to them. Ido not knew with
regard to the mining industry, but I should think that it
would be most delightful for a man who works in a mine
during all his labourine occupation to have an opportunity
of refreshing and enlarging his mind by occupations that are
of a more cheering description. Even if it is a well-paid occupa-
tion in good times, I am afraid it is not too well paid now, and
I hope the time may be when it will be well paid again, for I
must say I think it is an occupation which should be welipaid.
The man who goes down in the dark into a pit and who,
perhaps, gets half choked with the dust, and begrimed
with what proceeds from the material on which he is work-
ing, has an occupation which in all justice ought to be paid
for with high wages. But take it as you will, such an
occupation must have a tendency to impoverish the mind,
and the proper method of counteracting that tendency is
to seek ideas which I think you can get
.from institutions
such as these.

The right hon. gentleman then alluded to the increased
facilities for mental improvement and culture which exists
now-a-days in the shape of a cheapened price in standard
literature, and in proof of this argument he instanced that
whereas when he was a boy he had to pay £2 16s, for his
first copy of Shakespeare, and it was almost impossible to
get one for less than £l, • now an xcellent edition by
Macmillan could be obtained for 3s. ed , and there was
a yet cheaper edition by Routledge which was published
at is. He also alluded to Mr. Dowden's Primer on
Shakespeare and to Leslie Stephen's " Life of Dr. John-
son," of both of which works he spoke in high terms.
Mr. Gladstone then went on :—Well. I do not know whether
I should detain you longer about books of that kind,
but what I wish you to understand is that these books,
which are now conqtantly being placed within the reach of
the population at large, are books by writers of a very high
stamp, and are on subjects of the greatest interest; and
I would advise you to read and study these instead
of that cheap literature which is so secondary in its
quality, and to go straight into the very heart, if
I may say so, of the sanctury of the Temple of
Literature, and becomes acquainted with the greatest
and best men and the greatest and best works which your
country has ever produced. (Applause.) It is a most
attractivp field ; it is not required that you should go into
the severest and harshest studies, and unless in rare cases
it is not to be expected that a man should after a hard
day's labour take down the propositions of Euclid and
study them. That is not to be supposed or desired,
unless in case of any special gift; but what is to be
desired is that some efforts should be made by men of all
classes—and perhaps it is not more necessary among the
labouring classes than it is among many of the higher
classes—to make themselves acquainted with things of
real interest, real beauty, and real knowledge. (Applause)
This is a state of facts which appears to me to argue strongly
for your cultivating institutions of this kind. They offer
the greatest opportunities. Great things are done by labour-
ing men—l do not say by all labouring men, but by the happy
and favoured members of the classes. But also are those
happy and favoured members? They are not so frequently
men endowed with extraordinary qualities by nature as they
are men who endeavour to make the best of the qualities and
opportunities they have got. Dfpend upon it true man-
hood, courage, a strong sense of duty, resolution to over-
come difficulties, are the powers which in the main lead to
distinction and to excellence.

After giving several extraordinary instances in history of
labouring men who had risen to eminence and fame—Mr.
Gladstone proceeded :

Do not be satisfied with doing anything less than your
very best. As every workman should desire to be a
good workman_ when he is handling the implements of
his trade, so you should apply the same principles to
the action of your minds. What working men have done
before they can do again. It you say it is difficult, and
you do not feel that you are able to undertake such things,
let me tell you this—you can never know till you try ; it is
by trying—and if you fail it is by again trying, and only in
that way, until you are sure that you have exhausted all
your most honourable exertions—it is only in that way that
you can take the true measure of the faculties, be they small
or great.
Itemarking that the working men of this country are
becoming a great political power in the land, as they form
the larger part of those constituencies which return to Par- i
liament men whose votes have the greatest influence in the
government of this mighty Empire, Mr. Gladstone thus
concluded his speech :
Depend upon it, it would be a mistake to look at the
future of England, or any other country, but of this
country especially, and to say,—" Mankind are divided
Into two great classes; one of those who are doomed UP
labour, and the other of those who are allowed to culti-
vate their minds, and a great gulf separates one from the
other. On the side of those who have leisure for mental
cultivation, there will be every possible advantage and en-
joyment; but on the side of labour one must not look for
mental cultivation." That would be a gross error. The
opening out to mental cultivation is already wide, and your

ehildren will grow up with a still better preparation for it
than you have had yourselves, and you yourselves hare bad
a far better preparation for it than your fathers had. Ton
are called upon to enter into a rich and noble inheritance,
and the labouring population et this country, stirring up
the fires—l do not say of vulgar ambition, but of a noble
desire for truth, for knowledge, for usefulness, for excel-
lence within them, should be encouraged by the example of
those who have gone before as well as by the facilities which
are so largely and liberally spread around them, and should
make their best endeavour to enter into and claim a share
of not only the material but the moral life of this country
and the mental life of this country. (Applause.) There
is no reason why they should not claim that share;
there is no reason why they should not obtain it.
It Is to be done not by a stroka, not by vaunt-
ing words, not by exaggerated or inflamed estimates of
our own ability, but simply by a resolute and patient
endeavour, from day to day, from hour to hour, as opportu-
nity oilers, as the husbandman cultivates the field, so to
cultivate the faculties of our own minds with all the assist-
ance we can get; perfectly sure that it we honourably and
manfully make use of the means which are provid -,•d us we
shall not be doomed to fail of attaining to the end. (Loud
cheers,)

The Times of Wednesday has the following leader
on Mr. Gladstone's speech :

It may be doubted whether any one ever excelled—few
can have equalled—Mr. Gladstone in profusion of utterance.
Lord Brougham had great gifts that way. He could write
and speak, speak and write, without any intermission for
the purpose of thinking. Two, three, or four articles in every
number of the Edinbulgh Review; fugitive contributions
in organs of opinion appearing at more frequent intervals;
speeches in Parliament, in the Law Courts, and at Assizes;
pamphlets and books, attested an apparently unlimited exu-
beran:e of expression. But this outpeuring did not last for ever.
Before he bad reached Mr. Gladstone's years the Edinburgh
Review hai almost ceased to know its former despot; his
speeches in the house of Lords were unfrequent ; elsewhere
he scarcely spoke at all, until at last the time came when he
was content with an annual oration at the Congress of the
Social Science Association. As yet Mr. Gladstone's fer-
tility has shown no sign of diminution; on the con-
trary, it has seemed to increase, until he has now
reached that degree of preparedness that at any moment
he could speak or write at any length on any subject.
It is impossible.that the quality of the performance should
be always the same. The editors of the popular monthly
periodicals, who appear to be content with anything as long
as it is signed by a taking name, may feel little concern
whether a contribution is good or bad, whether a writer
is speaking with authority upon a subject on which he
Is profoundly informed, or whether his hasty and
superficial treatment of it is looked down upon
with silent astonishment by a whole class of better in-
structed persons ; .but the friends of great men cannot
be so careless of their reputation as to view these ill-
considered performances with the same equanimity. When
It is known that a man cannot resist temptation, those who
set temptations in his way are, to say the least of it, not
free from blame. If Mr. Gladstone must write when asked,'
men ought not to tease him to write perpetually. If he
must speak, there should be some forbearance shown in
urging him to speak. It may be said that the newspapers
need not report what he says on every occasion,
and we are free to confess that it would be well if
some convention could be established limiting his
words within the natural sphere of their delivery.
But in the absence of agreement, a friendly com-
pression or exscission of superabundant words is looked
upon as evidence of prejudice, and the height of regard is
supposed to be exhibited when the poor orator is not allowed
to make a friendly speech at a wedding beeaklaat without a
reporter at the side-table to convey his words to the world.
Mr. Gladstone made a lengthened address on Monday
night at Buckley, which appears to be a village near Hewer-
den, in aid of the fund for the support of a local educa-
tional institute. The delivery of such a speech is a duty many
men have been called upon to perform, and they have
discharged it with varying ability. Mr. Gladstone is a
neighbour of the people of Buckley, and it was only natural
that they should ask him to speak to them, and it was also
natural that he should comply. But when the question is
asked what kind of speech Mr. Gladstone delivered to his
friends, we feelconstrained to reply that it was one of those
the fame of which might usefully be restricted within the
local area where it was delivered. It was much longer than
similar addresses usually are, and it was, tio doubt, some-
what above the average of them, but there is no distinct
superiority calling for especial approbation, and in the
particular parts where, as we read, we believe we are on the
point of receiving some authoritative decision of a disputed
question we find the speaker openly avoiding the task that
lies before him. He was, perhaps, right in this, if we con-
skier the speech as one intended for strictly local consump-
tion; but the larger audience to whom it is carried are
excusably disappointed, since it fails just where they would
like it to be useful. Every one will agree with Mr.
Gladstone when he tells the people of Buckley that
their institute should be self-supporting. It should
be worked by the people and for the people. "Work
it for yourselves," he says, "and again pay your
"way." All this is excellent, but we pass from it to his
observations on popular combinations, lie touches first on
Friendly Societies, and remarks that their benefits should be
based on sound economical calculations. We listen with
interest as this subject is approached, but we find he quits it
at once without throwing any light on its practical difficulties.
Co-operative stores are next touched upon; but Mr. Gladstone
declines to enquire whether they are to be permanent portions
of our organizattion or will be superseded by reformed maxims
of business on the part of retailers. Co-operative mills and
co-operate farms are next mentioned, and here a most in-
teresting subject arises for discussion. Not long since
many social refoimers thought that the struggles between
capitalists and workmen would be brought to an end by the
spread of co-operative production, but in point of fact mill-
hands are striking against co-operative mills in Lancashire
just as they are striking against private millowners ; and
shareholders are striking as workmen against the companies
in which they are shareholders. Mr. Gladstone jumps away
from this subject to Trades' Unions, and, after a fitting re-
ference to the book of the Comte de Paris, makes the follow-
ing characteristic observations :--" Srme people thought
that Trades' Unions increased wages, and some people
thought they dto not. Ido not presume to give a positive
opinion one way or the other." There could not be a more signal
illustration of the failure to attempt the solution of a pro-
blem which is raised to provoke an interest and then dis-
missed. Mr. Gladstone proceeds to insist upon the respect
that should be paid by Trades' Unions to individual liberty;
bathe does not discuss the most important question in a way
that will satisfy Trades' Unionists that he has examined
It on all sides and in all its bearings. After this Mr. Glad-
stone deals with the subject more immediately before him—
the advantages of educational institutes, with their discus-
sion classes, reading rooms, and libraries —and his observa-
tions do not provoke remark, because they are just what any
sensible man would say under the same circumstances.
A digression in which be indulges, on the comparative
mental effects of hand labour and machine labour, is
indeed, of doubtful accuracy. The comparison has,
often been made before, and, indeed, it finds a
place in all the annotations that have been printed
on Adam Smith's explanation of the advantages of the divi-
sion of labour. The balance of plausibility is entirely on Mr.
Gladstone s side, anti if we could decide the matter on
d priori grounds, we should say that the travelling tinker
who is own carpenter, smith, horsekeeper, poacher, cook,
housekeeper, and tailor must have richer and more vigorous
mental powers than a man whose daily work is to watch the
action of a subordinate part of a machine; but it is at least
doubtful whether experience corroborates this independent
conclusion.

We do not find fault with Mr. Gladstone for delivering a
long speech to his friends at Buckley. They are pleased with
it, and he is pleased to give them pleasure. But this par-
ticular oration is a very strong example of an evil under
which we are all suffering, and that threatens to increase.
Things are not allowed to happen and be done with. People
demand that whatever is spoken by a great man should he
taken down and sent about the world; the great man him-
self seems to expect it; and, in addition to the masses of print
that accumulate daily, it is believed that innumerable men
and women are keeping dairies and making memoranda
for the edification of succeeding generations. This cannot
go on. There will be flat rebellion some day. Our un-
fortunate descendants will have the lives crushed out of
them by the memorials of the people that have gone before,
or rather this would happen if the instinct of vitality did
not compel them to disregard altogether rubbish that ought
not to have been preserved. They will thus escape suffoca-
tion, but we ought to do something to spare our-
selves. Mr. Gladstone himself might do something
to spare us. Not the least luminous sentence of
his speech on Monday was the following We do not
want every one to become a public speaker, and the world
has great difficulty in bearing with those whom it has got."
This is strictly true, and, as Mr. Gladstone recognizes the
burden, he might help to relieve the world ot some of it by
taking precautions that what is provincial and local shall
remain provincial and local, instead of being added to the
weight thrown upon all of us. ,