Year: 1870

J~os s~um pcrSOuBs WIN W0fue Oh encourage
ment thst'ao me good, and ! hope others
also!''


The Social Future of the Working Glass.


LEorURE


Delivered to meeting Of Che London Trades Unionsss


By EDwAAD srsson RsesL1, Professor Of History In


University College, London


We live in day when social questions
are for the first time centesting precedence
with political questions. In the first French
revolution the distinction was apparent ut
all events il was not recognized even by
sharpsighted observers, though We, looking
back to those times, can detect the signs q
it. During the reign af Louis Phillips
from 1880, that 10, to 1848-the distinction
became every year more marked. 1t 10 the
fashion to speak Of the revolution Of l848
as small affair-as feeble imitation of
the old revolution. If looked at from q
political point Of view, in the narowsst
sense of that term, ii certainly was much
smaller affair than the old revolution. But
10 those who have realised in heir minds that
there has been in truth but one revolution,
y}iah beem n 17De and has bssr sqsing ON
g. snsss eaatA k4hayew 1&&& anrls in
transition from the purely political to the
social phrase,-to such persons, I say, the
last epoch will seem even more momentous
than the first The attempt of 1848 was
failure, no doubt. But the history of the
French revolution was not closed in 1848,
as most Of us here present will live to see.


In England we have travelled the same
path, though hereto without such violent
shocks. We are all Of us French, and
EDglish alike, moving rapidly towards the
most fundamental revolution Europe has yet
undergone revolution in comparison with
which the great political changes in the
time Of our grandfsthers, and even the great
religious changes three centuries ago, were,
had almost said, magnificent. will not
pretend to say how far workmen may have
clearly realised to themselves this prospect
| am inclined to think that not many Of
them h.ve more than vague conception Of
it, althoughO they are instinctively working
towards it. But the middle class have no
conception of it at all. / am not speaking
Of the stupidity ignorant part Of that body
but Of its more enlightened and active mem
bers They sincerely believe that the series
Of political changes which they commenced
in England forty years ago 10 nearly com.
pleted. When they shall have abolished
the State Church, reduced taxation some
what, obtained the ballot and equal elect
orial districts or something like Il, they
think reform will be completed, and thaa
England will enter upon q sort of golden
age. They Do not contemplate any serious
change, either political or industrial Po-
itically, we are still 10 be governed by
Parliament. In industry we are to have
the reign of unlimited competition.


Now we can all of us understand that
some men, either from education or mental
constitution, do not believe in progress at
all They think that all change is for the
worse, unless il is change backwards and
they are convinced that nothing but frmness
is wanting to resist change. There always
have been such men, and We can under
stand them. But what is less easy 70 ua-
de. stand is that there should be men who
believe heartily in progress, and yet shut
their eyes deliberately to the goal whittier
we are tending. The truth is that their be-
lief in progress does not rest in any reason
able basis It is nothing better than
superstitious optimism, lazy semi-religiops
idea that the world must have q natural
tendency to get better. As for what getting
better means that they settle by their own
like. and dislikes. Consequently the middle
class man interprits it to remain reign of
unlimited competition and individual free
dom while the workingman understands it
t be q more equal division Of the products
of industry. Although the workingman's
circumstances have led him to truer con-
ception Of progress, perhaps be has not ar
rived at it on much more reasonable grounds
than those on which the middle-class man
has arrived at his. For, after all, it does
not follow because We long for q certain state
Of society that therefore we are tending to-
wards it.


The lot Of the poor is q hard lot there
is no denying that With a very large
number Of them life is absolute misery from
birth to death. Though they may not actu-
ally starve, they are more or less hungry
from one weeks end to another their dull
round Of toll occupies the whole day their
homes are squalid and frightful, seldom free
from disease, and the heartrending incidents
Of disease when aggravated by po 'erty. For
them life is joyless, cbaDgeless, hopeless
" They wait for death, but it cometh not; ;
they rejoice exceedingly and are glad when
they can find the grave" Those who have
mixed with the very poor, and have been


startled with the strange calmness with