The Sun.
London, England, 1834-03-17 00:00:00

how little of the substance of civil freedom can
be left in the hands of men acquainted with its
exercise, instead of how it can be most benefi-
cially increased, the attempt, we can predict, will
end like one to restore the reign of rotten
boroughs in England ; and we warn the so-
called " statesmen" of the allied monarchies to
be cautious what they are about. There is
no barrier between France and Prussia but Bel-
gium ; there is none hetween France and Aus-
tria but Baden, \Virtemberg, and Bavaria. Let
France, therefore, watch the proceedings at
Vienna, and see that the commonwealth of
Europe suffers no mortal injury.—Times.

TRADES' UNIONS.

(From the Morning Chronicle.)

We hold it to be quite impossible that any sys-
tem of combination can be effectual in raising wages.
Wages and profits are not arbitrary, and as the
profits of the master are determined by circumstances
over which he has no control, in like manner the
wages of the men must be such as the master's pro-
fits will allow him to give. There may be trades,
dependent on particular places, in which wages may
be kept up by monopoly. Builders, for instance, in
contracting to erect a house, may be obliged to raise
the wages of the men, because a house cannot be
made in Edinburgh, or Glasgow, to be set up in
London, and the workmen, aware of that, may, by
way of intimidation, open or secret, deter strangers
from taking the work at lower terms. The master,
in bargaining with any individual, must just raise
or lower his terms according to the power of the
men to impose such and such terms on him. He
is in no danger of suffering from competition, be-
cause all builders are, in respect of wages, on the
same footing. The check on ►he men is the want
of employment, caused by the inab lity of the mas-
ters to obtain persons disposed to contract with
them at such high prices. A., in making clothes,
the fashion is much, there will always be a number
of gentlemen unwilling to strip pegs, and thus
tailors may, in some sort, also establish a mono-
poly. Shoemakers cannot, however, so easily do
this, for ready-made shoes pour into the metropolis
from all the towns of the island where labour is
cheap, and there is no limit to the taking of ap-
prentices. With a few exceptions, unions must
be inoperative, especially when the masters do not
secretly encourage the combinations, when their own
warehouses are full and they wish to stop, and do
not choose to be undersold by rivals availing them-
selves of a fall in wages. It may in some cases be
politic its employers to contribute something to the
support of a strike rather than suffer the loss
which the continued supply of a market already
full would occasion. But though we are ready to
admit that wages cannot be permanently raised, we
are equally ready to admit that individuals may be
subjected to great inconvenience, and even to loss
by strikes. The masters must always beat the men
in the long run, and they often gain materially by
strikes, which allow consumption to overtake pro-
duction. A few trials might go far to satisfy the
men that they really cannot compel the masters to
pay more than their profits will allow them to pay,
and that when trade is favourable, the love of gain
will induce the masters to outbid each other, to
avail themselves of the favourable occasion. But
while the workmen are acquiring this experience,
the fortunes of individuals are often wrecked. Upon
the whole, however, it is better perhaps that com-
binations should be open than secret, and we doubt
much whether interfering with so delicate a matter
would not be productive of more evil than good.
The instruction of the working classes is all proper.
But the effect of instruction is distant. We believe,
however, that in all the great manufactures there
are leaders, by whom the herd of workmen are
guided. At present these men either entertain, or
affect to entertain, the wildest notions about profits
and labour. The best proof is that Mr. Robert
Owen was able to persuade the working classes that
by working one half less than they do at present,
they might double their wages. We are no friends
of Trades' Unions ; but we do not well see how
they can he interfered with to any effect.

(From the Times.)
The question of combinations among journeymen,
brought forward on Thursday night by Mr. Hume,
is one of great, increasing, and alarming interest. It
is curious how little is sometimes gained towards
the satisfactory settlement of a practical question by
the fullest apparent acquiesence in the same general
principles, while the facts on either side remain in
dispute. Mr. Hume's motion, above referred to,
was for the correspondence which had passed between
the Lords of the Admiralty and certain master
coopers, touching the combination of the working
coopers, and the distress to which their employers
had been thereby reduced. We have considerable
distrust of commonplaces as rules for determining
the right or wrong of particular examples of public
or private conduct, and therefore shall not enlarge
upon the maxim laid down with such a waste of
emphasis by Mr. Joseph Hume, and acquiesced in
by Sir J. Graham, viz., that a "journeyman's la-
bour is his property, and ought not to be interfered
with in its free disposal." To be sure it ought not
—to be sure such interference amounts to an into-
lerable tyranny over the poor man's rights. But by
what power is such a despotism exercised or at-
tempted in this country ? Not certainly by the law,
which leaves every class of workmen, as a body,
undisputed sovereign of its own proceeding=. Not
by the masters in any line of business, who have,
since the act of 1821.1825, been placed at the
mercy of their journeymen. No—the tyrants over
the working classesare members of their own body,
the ends of whose combinations against their masters
for high wages are invariably rendered effectual by
extending the conspiracy against all journeymen
who are unwilling to combine, and who strive to
gain a subsistence for their families by working for
what they themselves deem an adequate remunera-
tion of their own labour, though it be less than the
sum for which the confederates stand out. This is
the real and substantial grievance which Mr. Hume
and other professors of attachment to the liberty of
the subject ought,in our opinion, to exclaim against,
and which the Legislature if it values the rights of
the industrious, will instantly labour to redress.
What was the case disclosed to the House of Com-
mons by the First Lord of the Admiralty last T tiurs-
day—a case which bore the marks of truth in every
part of it, and against which Messrs. Flume, Att-
wood, O'Connell, and the rest of that worthy
partnership, vaguely and unsuccessfully floun-
dered? It was this,—that when the journey-
men coopers were receiving as good average wages
(viz., 21. Gs. Id. per week) at any time these
ten years,—receiving these comfortable wages,
moreover, the whole year round—at a time when,
and, indeed, because of the very circumstance, a
pressing deroand existed for articles of cooperage,
for the use of our foreign trade—the men com-
bined and struck for higher wages—and lio.v did
they manage to subdue the masters to their pur-
poses ? Was it by fair means? Was it by a
simple refusal of their own labour, leaving the
masters at liberty to suit themselves where they
could ? No such thing. They had began by re-
straining the masters from the employment of any
greater number of apprentices than they (the con-
federates) had prescribed. After a strike of some
continuance, they refused to recommence their
work but on condition of being previously paid for
the whole time during which they had thought
proper to be idle. They further demanded that
the master should beg pardon of his journeymen !
Ay, they kicked him down, and then punished him
for falling. Next, for another of the practices
which met the countenance, or at least the sym-
pathy, of Messrs. Hume and Co. They sent spies
upon the master's houses, dogged them whither-
' lover they stirred, overawed, embarrassed, bullied,
) and tormented them, by constant though undo-
• finable intermeddling with all their transactions—
set spies moreover upon the new men who had