The Express.
London, England, 1853-10-22 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

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111011 WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
TINS 149—Ilontibs, 4b. Os_ Afters." Zb. Is.
71.41103/hOW—llorsaag. >► is Aftetbuts, A. 395.

LONDOX, SATCRD.4I', OCTOBER 22.

AT this moment the Strikes of workmen at home
are even more interesting and important to us than
the struggles of nations abroad; and one point in re-
lation to them cannot be too seriously considered.
It is—How are strikes to be rendered less frequent
with advanta,,;e to both: parties—to muter' and to
seen ? Have we any laws that tend to check the free
operations of the labour market? Have we any
:regulations, which, by tendin 4 to introduce complexi-
ties between the seller of labour and the buyer of
labour, between the workman and the capitalist,
tend to array them one against the other? Have
we any laws which put an almost impassable barrier
between the employing class and the working class,
and so tend to array the one against the other?
The prosperity, tranquillity, and progress of
the nation since the Corn Laws were abolished
teach • most important lemon. To increase the
security of property ; to keep the multitude hopeful,
industrious, anti oitlerly ; to provide an ample pro-
vision for the State, and opulence ungrudged for the '
Church ; to give adequate wages to labour, and io- ,
creasing profit to capital, every ex'sting artificial
impediment to the progress of wealth should be as
speedily as possible removed. Because the increase
of wealth which began with the removal of the
Core Laws, and fur • season artiafied capital
with its rate of profit, and labour with
its rate of wages, has not continued to be
&efficiently great to satisfy both, the general tran-
quillity is now disturbed by disputes betwixt capL
talists and labourers—by combinations and striker—
by schisms and strife where there ought to be only
harmony and mutual assistance. The abolition of
the Corn Laws has not been followed up fast enough
by the removal of other artificial impediments to en-
terprise. Whatever may be the ultimate limits to
the increase of wealth, the immediate checks to the
increase are in all eases--artificial regulations. The

fact is so certain and clear, but it must be constantly
impressed on statesmen, because it shows that such
regulations are responsible for the inadequate rewards
of industry, and for the manifold evils,—including the
disputes between employers and employed,—which
flow from the insufficiency of wealth.
To permit artificial impediments to exist to the
growth of national opulence is really a public della-
qaency, and we beg to call attention to one very
generally comp'airied of, which no man seems to
have an interest in maintaining, and which has its
origin exclusively in the law. Naturally and ante.
adept to all law, men had a right to enter into any
contracts they pleased which were not immoral; and
when the State was constituted it became its duty
to enforce the observance of such contracts, not
to proscribe them. If man (or woman) may dispose
of himself for life by contracting marriage, he may
surely enter into any contracts he pleases as to his
property. If he may contract with another man to
embark the whole of his property in any business, he
may surely contract to embark a portion of his pro-
perty in that business. Every man has clearly the
right to limit and define the extent to which be is
wiUiog to make himself or his property responsible,
This limitation he should make public, but when he
has done that, the State is not justified in making
him responsible any further. When he is ostemsibly
the manager of a business and holds himself out to the
world as fully embarked in it,—and yet has a keret
arrangement with partners to exonerate him,
he tries: to deceive, and should be held respon-
sible to the extent he has visibly pledged himself.
But every man has a right to limit his liability
as he has a right to engage his whole fortune, and
when he does so and makes the limitation known, it
is oppressive and unjust, it is absurd and cruel, in the
State to declare that he shall be liable beyond what
he has himself declared. The law, without any dis-
crimination, commits this wrong.
An individual can of his own accord, without ask-
ing leave or license, except in a few particular cases,'
set up any kind of business; and what an individual
may do, half-a-dozen or more might do, with that
limitation of the responsibility of each which is every
free agent's right. Nationally and socially, every
man has a right to engage in any kind of business
which is not immoral, with such a liability as he
chooses to take and to avow. But this right is re-
stricted by the law—not the law made after
discussion in Parliament, and probably ap-
proved of by the public, but by the com-
mon law—by judge-made law—by the deduction
of lawyers from cases originally decided probably
without regard to principle, and certainly in igno-
rance of our present condition and wants. This j edge-
made law is set aside by Parliament whenever it
panes an act to incorporate a railway or any other
company, and the Crown sets it aside whenever it
grants a charter to trade with limited liability; and
the necessity for these numerous exemptions estab-
lishes the impropriety of the law founded in igno-
rance, conceit, or nieundsrataading. To obtain such
an exemption from the law requires the expenditure
of a great sum of mosey or some commanding influ-
ence. The latter can be only possessed by a few, and
there are not many undertakings which will hearths
former.

Oaf luau, as the law mammas, cassot now help
another with a few pounds to costume an old busi-
ness or establish a new one, taking as his reamers-
tion a part oldie proilts,without involving his whole
swank and thus help—essential and important
holp—to be given by ons man to another, is forbid.
den by the law. Such a restriction breaks up old
benineases, and prevents the establishing of new ones.
So hampered, it is strange, se a writer in ths West.
osissater Review states, that our nation should have
readied each a height of material prosperity, but
rho indomitable spirit of enterprise which enabled it
to outlive a virtual prohibition to buy food has also
enabled it to get on in spite of imposing unlimited
liability on individuals when they desire to limit their
liability.

Nothing can be more preposterous in this trading
country than that two or three, or half-down, or
more intelligent persons cannot units and subscribe
1001. or 1,0001. each to run omnibus', set up retail
shops, or weave cloth, without an Act of Parliament,
or a charter from the Board of Trade. Nothing more
monstrous is to be found in any of the de-

spotically-governed countries of the Continent
finch a law is injurious to all classes,
especially the working classes, though they
may not know in this cue, u in many others,
what hand it is that knocks them down and chains
them to the earth. In particular, as Mr. J. S.
shows, they are injured by being unable to make a
beneficial use of their savings, by forming smock-
tons to carry on their own business, and to engage
in retail trade. Because they do not complain from
want of knowledge, that is no reason why an evil
that stfects others, and of which they do complain,
should not be done away. DI Ptftemow who Wait.