MARKREE LIBRARY. 
 
 Shelf. 
 
 
 Block 
 
 Re-arranged in 1913 by BRYAN COOPER 
 
 Ex Libris 
 C. K. OGDEN
 
 on caxjv iiBRr r EDS
 
 BRITAIN'S DRAWBACKS: 
 
 A BRIEF REVIEW 
 
 THE CHIEF OF THOSE NATIONAL ERRORS WHICH 
 RETARD THE PROSPERITY OF OUR COUNTRY. 
 
 BY 
 
 REV. PROFESSOR KIRK, 
 
 EDINBURGH. 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 GLASGOW: 
 CHRISTIAN NEWS OFFICE, 142 TRONGATE. 
 
 EDINBURGH: A. MUIR, COCKBURN STREET. 
 MANCHESTER: UNITED KINGDOM ALLIANCE OFFICES, 
 
 41 JOHN D ALT ON STREET. 
 
 1868. 
 
 PEICE FOURPENCE.
 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 Thsfollowiny pages are published at the request of some able and influential 
 public men, and will, it is hoped, lead to sound thoughts on some momentous 
 subjects. 
 
 OLASOOW : PRINTED BY H. NISBET, TRONGATE.
 
 BRITAIN'S DRAWBACKS, 
 
 IT cannot fail to be both interesting and profitable for a people 
 to consider those matters that retard, or that render all but null 
 and void, their efforts to reach lasting prosperity. By doing so 
 they may hope, not merely to regret, but to remove the evils 
 which so seriously affect their progress. 
 
 We propose in this Paper to look somewhat carefully at Jive 
 different aspects of that incubus of error by which British enter- 
 prise is affected. Our country seems to go backward ; if it does 
 not really do so, it sadly fails to go forward ; and it appears to us 
 that there are five great lines of popular belief, along which we 
 are declining as a people. 
 
 The first of these aspects of mistaken faith which at least 
 hold us in check presents itself in the position of labour, as at 
 present represented by the great organisations of working men. 
 Every one knows that, naturally, the end of labour is production 
 that is, the great natural aim of all labour, strictly so-called, is 
 to produce that which is necessary to the sustenance and comfort 
 of mankind. It can scarcely escape notice by the most unob- 
 servant that the produce of labour is exclusively the substar.ce of 
 material wealth. Man has nothing earthly worth having which is 
 not the result of labour. Capital, which may or may not be 
 represented by money, is only a name for the gathered produce 
 of toil. 
 
 For illustration, let us imagine an island having, say, sixty 
 
 1C9JL296
 
 inhabitants men, women, and children. Only a very limited 
 number of these can be productive labourers, in the proper sense 
 of the word. Thirty at least will be children, or old persons 
 equally with the children incapable of such labour. Ten more 
 ought to be wives and mothers, totally occupied with the care of 
 the young, and old or sickly among such a people. We may lay 
 out at least five more as among the idle or disabled in one way 
 or another. It will be a favourable state of things if, in such a 
 community, we have fifteen really producing labourers, whose 
 toil will feed, clothe, and shelter themselves and all the rest in 
 the island. 
 
 It must be seen at a glance that the more these fifteen produce > 
 consumption being the same, the richer will that people be ; and 
 that the less these produce the poorer they must be. Nothing can 
 be more clear than that, if we regard nature as seeking the greatest 
 good of all, the natural aim of these labourers is to produce as 
 much as they possibly can, consistently with their continued 
 efficiency as labourers. Nor is it less clear that, if they aim at 
 the greatest wellbeing of themselves and their fellow-islanders, 
 they will draw every hand they can rightly enlist into productive 
 labour. The greatest possible wealth of the people, as a whole^ 
 is just the greatest possible accumulation of produce ; and, seek- 
 ing that wealth, these men will do their best every way to increase 
 production. 
 
 It will be well to observe that money may not be required so 
 far as such a community is concerned. There must be labour 
 on the one hand, and produce on the other : nothing more need 
 be considered in connection with the common wealth of the 
 islanders. We select such a case for illustration, because it 
 simplifies our point of view, and sets the one subject of produc- 
 tive labour clearly before us. 
 
 Let us then suppose that these fifteen men take it into their 
 heads that the less they produce the better ! They shorten their 
 hours of toil, and refuse to allow more than a very limited 
 number of young lads to learn to labour ! Their grand aim
 
 becomes, not to increase as far as possible, but to diminish as far 
 as possible, the food, clothing, and shelter provided yearly for the 
 community ! They somehow imagine that in this way they will 
 benefit themselves, their wives, and families ! The less ground 
 tilled, the less sown, the less reaped, the fewer fish caught, the 
 less cloth woven, or flax or wool grown, the less stone quarried, 
 and the fewer houses built in a season, so much the better ! 
 What would be the issue ? 
 
 But suppose that they not only think the less produced 
 the better, but also the more destroyed the better too ! They 
 invent, we shall say, some means by which a very large propor- 
 tion of all the*grain they raise shall be effectually put out of reach 
 as food, and so that the store for common use shall be thus far 
 reduced. In view of this large deduction from their actual wealth, 
 they flatter themselves that somehow their riches are increased ! 
 What must the issue be at length with the community, should 
 such delusion hold its ground ? Famine will be the inevitable 
 result. 
 
 Suppose still further that this destruction of grain is for the 
 sake of a drug which induces laziness and recklessness in those 
 labouring men who use it. It makes them every way less fit for 
 productive toil, and far more wasteful of produce. Will ruti famine 
 come speedily ? This famine will show itself first in the case of the 
 weaker and less cunning of the people. Certain strong and clever 
 individuals will be able for a time to secure a far more than 
 equal share of what is actually produced and spared from 
 destruction in the aggregate of all that is provided for the mass. 
 But certain others will have by that much less than their share. 
 And as the whole produce will be below the mark, even if each 
 had his full share, the poor will be poor indeed. 
 
 Now there will be poverty-stricken children, old persons, sick 
 and otherwise disabled persons, and veiy soon their state will 
 become so serious as to force itself on the attention of their 
 more fortunate brethren. There will be such suffering that the 
 comfort of the more fortunate will be destroyed by the terrible
 
 condition of those below them. Men will be compelled to say 
 to one another that " Something must be done." This is the birth 
 of that terrible scourge of a deluded people, which we style 
 '' pauperism" not the poverty of the naturally poor, but the 
 pauperism nscessccrili/ following the restriction of productive 
 labour, and the destruction of produce. 
 
 But these wise labourers may still think it best to restrict 
 production, and to destroy, or allow to be destroyed, an increasing 
 amount of produce ! They now agree that help for the poor shall 
 ba levied from the islanders at large. As matter of fact, however, 
 this help can come from those only who are in a position to 
 furnish it that is, from the ten or twelve most able producers, 
 who are really all in the community who can have anything to 
 give. With this poor rate the beggared class must be fed and 
 otherwise provided for ! A very powerful and increasing means 
 of limiting production and also of consuming produce is now 
 supplied by this pauperism. This, no doubt, compels all classes to 
 admit the importance of the productive labourer. The " bread- 
 winner" is an object of no mean regard to a starving family. But 
 no amount of such regard will add a loaf to the store. The indus- 
 trious and frugal in such a case must support the profligate till they 
 are helpless to do so. The truth is, that society in such pauperism 
 has begun to eat itself up, not like the serpent, by the head 
 swallowing the tail, but by the tail eating towards the head ! 
 
 But this is only a faint picture of our own land as the anoma- 
 lous position of labour presents it to view. No secret is made of 
 the fact that the great Trades Unions aim at restricting production 
 as far as it is possible to do so. This is the result of a state 
 of mind brought about by s.uch a combination of errors as must 
 ever issue in a similar popular mistake. In that state of mind 
 the abstraction called "labour" has taken the place of the con- 
 crete reality, which exists only as the produce of labour. The 
 vast working class now speak, not of produce, but of labour as 
 merchandise. The " labour market " is the accepted phrase with 
 them not the produce market. They sell labour not produce. 
 It is their interest, situated as they are, to sell their labour at as
 
 high a price as they can have for it ; and in order that they may 
 do so, they must restrict as far as possible the supply of labour in 
 the country. The number of hours for labour must be shortened ; 
 apprentices must be made as few as possible, that there may be a 
 small supply of labour, and hence as urgent a demand for it as 
 may be ! Like any other merchant weighing out his goods for a 
 certain price, the workman must carefully weigh out his toil, and 
 give as little as possible for the money. That means that there 
 shall be as little production in the country as it is possible for 
 the producing classes to secure by means of indefinite restriction. 
 It surely cannot require much skill in thinking for any one to see 
 that this must make the community poor as a whole, and that 
 just the further it is carried out every one in that community 
 must ultimately be the poorer. 
 
 There is, as might be expected, some important utterances on 
 this subject in Mr Gladstone's remarks on Trades Unions, lately 
 addressed to the deputation that waited on him. He says (we 
 think strangely) " With regard to the principle of associations 
 among working men, with a view to the diminution of the amount 
 of labour, and getting the best price for it that it will bring in 
 the market, I can take no exception to that principle." From this 
 sentence, it looks as if Mr Gladstone were quite pleased that 
 working men should combine to diminish labour that is, to 
 restrict production ! But he says again " I own it appears to 
 me as a general rule that regulations in restraint of labour go to 
 diminish the aggregate amount of the fund which constitutes the 
 whole wages of the country." Would he then, in the interest of 
 working ruen and tlieir families, take no exception to a principle 
 of association which goes thus to impoverish the commomcealth ? Is 
 it right for any body of men to combine (even for the purpose of 
 enriching themselves) so as to impoverish the whole commu- 
 nity ? May they do this forcibly and at the cost of their weaker 
 brethren ? We shall suppose a trade into which a certain limited 
 number of apprentices only are admitted, and a considerable 
 number excluded. Have the members of that trade a right to 
 make their own wages unnaturally high, by keeping others from 
 adding to the general store of good, and also from getting any
 
 8 
 
 wages at all ? Or have they a right to limit production in this 
 way and impoverish the community, merely that they may 
 have a larger share of the limited produce than naturally falls to 
 their lot ? 
 
 But it is not necessary to dwell on the right of the case. Is it 
 possible thus to raise wages permanently? All wages, like wealth 
 of every possible material kind, depend upon the amount of pro- 
 duction among a people. It is gross absurdity to imagine that true 
 wages depend upon money. Apart from produce money is worth- 
 less. Place a man on a desert island, and give him a million sove- 
 reigns in gold, and how long will it keep him alive ? Place him 
 where it will require a quarter of a million to buy food for a week, 
 and he will live just four weeks and die the fifth. Make produce 
 scarce and you raise prices ; that is, you make money, whether in 
 the poor man's hand or in that of the rich man, worth so much 
 less. Diminish labour and you diminish production ; thus you 
 make prices rise that is, you lower the value of money. You 
 may use that money as the price of produce, or you may use it 
 as the wages* of labour it must really be used as both ; but 
 when its value is lowered, it is just as truly lowered in the one 
 case as in the other. When you thus succeed in lowering its 
 value, no doubt you make the rich less wealthy, but you make the 
 poor still more poor. The rich have generally real property, such 
 as houses and lands, to fall back upon. They may reserve their 
 money for a time, but the poor are compelled to buy for life. 
 The rich are affected, but the poor are beggared when the value 
 of money is seriously lowered. Does Mr Gladstone take no 
 exception to combinations of men for this express purpose ?- 
 May men raise their own wages by thus forcibly restricting the 
 general good ? Will they do this and escape impoverishment 
 themselves ? They will just as really leap into the fire and not 
 be burned ! 
 
 For the sake of a very clear illustration of this, "we may look 
 to the case of cotton manufacturing machinery in Lancashire at 
 present, as compared with that of Belgium. In England ma- 
 chinery is scarce, and its price high ; elsewhere it is plentiful,
 
 
 
 and its price low. Let us say that a manufacturer has 10,000 
 to lay out in this way. That money is equal to 11,725 if spent 
 in Belgium, though the goods bought have to be transferred to 
 this country. By sending money there for his machinery, the 
 manufacturer makes himself 1725 richer than if he spent it in 
 Lancashire. Englishmen, by restricting labour, and specially by 
 waste of produce, have brought about this anomaly. There is a 
 better way. The landlord of a large temperance hotel told us 
 lately that he had sought in vain for sober waiters till he sent 
 to Germany for them, and now he had a full set perfectly free 
 from the liquor vice. It would not be difficult for British workmen 
 to compete with those of any country if our producers were thus 
 free. 
 
 It is utterly vain to think that we can confine the area of 
 productive labour to our own island by any combination that 
 can possibly be formed, even if the British Government itself 
 should be foolish enough to join in the union. There was a 
 time when owners of land thought to limit the area from which 
 food might be grown for British subjects to these narrow lands, 
 and they succeeded for a season in inflicting untold misery ; 
 but an irresistible force of national growth and necessity broke 
 through the barriers, and stretched the area over the world. 
 What the owners of land could and could not do, is just the 
 same as that which owners of labour can and cannot do by 
 restriction. They can inflict untold misery by a temporary 
 diminution of the country's wealth, but they cannot long confine 
 their fellowmen within bounds beyond which God has deter- 
 mined they shall go. A workman said to us, lately, that, by 
 combination in his trade, they had forced up their wages farthing 
 by farthing in the hour, and he was evidently greatly satisfied 
 with the result. But he forgot that, as they had been so forcing 
 up their wages in Britain, money had been here falling, in its 
 relative power to buy, far faster than their wages had been 
 increasing; and hence that his class, instead of rising in the 
 social scale higher than their fathers, had been coming down. 
 Could the working men be got to unite to save the vast amount 
 of produce now worse than wasted, and to increase the available
 
 10 
 
 wealth of the country as far as possible, so that the wages which 
 they should then receive would purchase double the amount 
 which they purchase now, there would be cause for congratula- 
 tion. Could things be got to that pass, that 100 would purchase 
 as good a house as 200 will do now, even if wages were 
 lowered fifty per cent, the man who needs such a house would 
 be the gainer. 
 
 It is vain to storm at a man who buys in the cheapest market, 
 or at one who sells in the dearest, whether the money he seeks 
 is in the way of wages or of profit. But it is of very great 
 moment indeed that all should keep the real character of the 
 money question in view. It should never be forgotten that 
 it is the relative and not the nominal value of wages which 
 enriches the workman. Their relative value depends upon 
 the amount of produce in the market of the world. If that 
 amount is low, the relative value of money is also low ; if that 
 amount is high, so is the relative value of money. If one 
 shilling will buy as much as a man can consume in a day at one 
 time, and it requires two shillings at another time, money is only 
 half the value at the latter time that it was at the former. A 
 man with one shilling a day is as well off at the one time as he 
 is with two at the other. So if at another time he pays four 
 shillings for that which could be bought formerly for one, he 
 is not a farthing better with four shillings for a wage than he 
 was with one. Now, in so far as men lessen production and 
 diminish the value of money, they raise the nominal but lower 
 the relative value of wages. Is it wise then to combine for this 
 very purpose ? If a bricklayer may do so Avisely, no doubt a 
 farm-labourer may do so likewise. But is it wise in either'? It 
 is neither right nor wise. It is a colitest with the very nature 
 of things, and men may just as well associate to compel yes to be 
 TIO, as they may associate to raise actual wages by the restriction 
 of productive toil. They may please themselves, and others may 
 please them by asserting that they are poor because there is too 
 much produce in the country, and that they will be far better off 
 if they can make it less ; but such absurdity has to be paid for 
 ih hunger and nakedness in the long-run.
 
 11 
 
 It must ever be kept in mind in connection with the limitation 
 of productive labour, that a very serious deduction is made from 
 the amount of it in the country by the vast number of men whose 
 employments are utterly unproductive. The whole army the 
 navy the police the revenue officers with the vast multitude 
 engaged in manufacture and trade of such a nature as adds 
 nothing to the sum of available subsistence these must be 
 added to the great numbers who live to consume only. All these 
 are necessarily subtracted from the productive classes, and yet 
 consume more produce in proportion to their numbers than the 
 producers themselves. Taxes and expenditure on what are called 
 "luxuries" and "amusements" represent a large portion of actual 
 produce which is thus consumed. The nation is poorer by all 
 this consumption, having no compensating production, but could 
 easily bear the loss were not that loss aggravated, as it is by our 
 present system of liquor licence. We might almost dispense 
 with prisons and police were it not for this, and with a vast 
 proportion of othei labour of an unproductive character. 
 
 It should be kept in mind, especially by the working 
 man, that the great mass of unproductive humanity must 
 be fed, clothed, lodged, educated, and made comfortabh^ 
 if he and his should starve ! It must be attended to, come 
 what will to the productive labourer. This is the fault of no 
 man it is a law of society that no human, power can reverse. 
 The labourer does not know as he sits by his fireless hearth in 
 hard times that he and his family are without bread entirely 
 because the non-productive mass is so unnaturally increased. He 
 is unaware even that those who make no additions to the general 
 store are fully supplied, while he has nothing. Ought he not to 
 look into the cause of this anomaly, so as to consider that, were the 
 great drink system put down, the non-producing class would be 
 reduced by nine-tenths ? 
 
 But the labourer is fool enough even to dread this ! 
 He actually thinks it is better that he should work to feed 
 other men, than that they should work for themselves ! ! He 
 imagines that if our vast prison and police force were to find their 
 occupation gone, there would be such competition in the " labour 
 market" that wages must fall ! ! So he prefers to work for the
 
 12 
 
 police and all others rather than let them compete with him for 
 toil ! ! Surely it does not take a great amount of brain to enable 
 one to see through such folly. Half a head might be able to see 
 that, if one man works to feed himself and his own family, with 
 the addition of another man and his family, his position in the 
 nature of things must be worse than if he laboured to sustain 
 himself and his own family only. But no, men do not see it ! 
 They will have it that they are better to have a large non-producing 
 class and a small producing one ! ! " Wages" are their snare. 
 They cannot, or will not, see beyond the mere money ! The less 
 work others do the more is left for them ! I They forget that all 
 must cat, even if only very few labour, and that the labouring 
 few must (in spite of all theories) feed the whole. This is worthy 
 of the most earnest consideration of the rich, as it is of that of 
 the labouring classes. As non-productive millions increase in 
 number, property of every kind in the land must fall in value. 
 These millions consume it, as we have said, in defiance of all law 
 made by man. We can just as easily shake ourselves clear of 
 our own being as we can shake ourselves clear of them. 
 
 A great effort is now being made to diminish non-productive 
 labour by cutting off a proportion of the trading class. Co-opera- 
 tion means nothing more than this as an economical principle. 
 Men resolve to employ their own servants in trade instead of 
 allowing other men to do this for them. So far as they can 
 successfully do this, they shut out the men who have hitherto 
 employed trading hands. In so far as trading talent is called 
 into play among co-operators they will succeed in their enterprise, 
 and this real addition to trading power will be a gain to the 
 general community. In this way they may compel a portion of 
 the trading class to become labourers in this or in other lands, 
 and so they will achieve a limited gain to the general good. 
 They will probably compel a portion of the smallest traders to 
 go on the poor roll, and this will be a deduction from the good. 
 But all the gain thus secured will not sensibly affect the great 
 growing stream of pauperism which is so fast doubling its 
 proportions in society. The profits of co-operation will prove a 
 mere mite in comparison with the gigantic expenditure of the
 
 13 
 
 great drink system. If all trade were made co-operative to-morrow 
 the gain would not touch, far less compress, the vast maw of 
 beggary that is devouring us. 
 
 Before we go further, it may be well to introduce another 
 aspect of error in our country's condition that which is seen in 
 trade. It is not the natural aim of the trader, strictly so-called, 
 to produce, ; it is his to distribute that which has been produced 
 by labour. And here it is well to remember that it is the pro- 
 duce of labour and not labour itself which is the natural 
 merchandise of the trader. Labour, apart from that which it 
 actually produces, is worth nothing. If, for example, a labourer 
 cuts a drain in a field, it is the drain alone which is worth any- 
 thing to any one. It matters not whether this drain is cut in a 
 day, or in a week, or in a month of toil it is the drain that 
 alone is of any value. It is the drain which this labourer 
 actually sells for so much, and which the man who employs 
 him buys at that price. It is not the labour. But the drain is 
 produce, and not merchandise. The payment for it is wages, 
 not profit. The two things are distinct in nature, and should 
 not be confounded in thought. The workman is paid for what 
 he produces, and for that alone the trader is paid for the 
 transfer of that which he brings within reach, though it has 
 been produced by another. 
 
 To illustrate this, we shall say that two of the labourers on our 
 imaginary island are enterprising men, and they build a good 
 vessel, such as may carry them and a cargo safely to another island 
 at some distance from their own. Their own island has excellent 
 timber, admirably fitted for building purposes ; that other island 
 has none, but a great abundance of coal, which is far better 
 fuel than the timber, but is useless for rafters. These men take 
 away a cargo of good trees, and bring back one of good coal. If 
 they produced all the timber, and maintained themselves and 
 families at the same time, then the coal is all their own ; yet the 
 island is wealthier for this transaction. The coal will soon find 
 its way among the people, in exchange for other produce, and 
 increased comfort will be the result. Such is the natural aim of
 
 14 
 
 sound trade. These men produced, it may be, neither the wood 
 from the forest, nor the coal from the mine ; but if they oniy 
 brought these products of labour to the several places where they 
 were required, they increased the available general wealth. That 
 increase of wealth gives them a claim on their fellows, and their 
 reward is represented by their profit on the exchange. 
 
 It will be at once seen that it is only in so far as there is en- 
 riching produce to exchange that there is scope for true trading. 
 If production is restricted and produce destroyed, so must trad- 
 ing, strictly so-called, be restricted. In the same proportion as 
 these islanders curtail produce, in that same proportion will 
 they limit the cargoes, to and fro, of their little ship, and so 
 keep down the wealth of the community. A "strike" of 
 miners, or of iron workers, in this country necessitates the lying 
 idle in port of many noble vessels, and as certainly curtails the 
 national resources. This is lost sight of when labour instead 
 of produce is considered capital ; but the nature of things does 
 not bend to human forgetfulness. Restricted labour, which 
 means restricted production, not only restricts trade, but also 
 the wealth which traders bring. 
 
 And yet there is one way in which restricted labour fosters 
 trade, and in which trade takes the proper place of labour. 
 Traders at present sailing between England and Belgium, go, it 
 may be, with ballast only, and bring back machinery. A small 
 cargo, worth, say, 10,000, gives, as we have seen, a fair profit 
 of something like 1725. In this way the trader supplies the 
 deficiency caused in Lancashire by the restriction of produce ; he, 
 in fact, takes the place of the labourer, who should have produced 
 abundance of machinery on the spot. So far the trader saves the 
 commonwealth from the ruinous efforts of the restrictionist. 
 This is natural trade, but unnaturally called for ! It is in favour 
 of prosperity and not against it, so far as it is considered in itself, 
 but the opening for it arises out of a ruinous state of things. 
 
 Now, we must consider the effect of unnatural trade. We 
 have not in this country to contend with the restriction of pro-
 
 15 
 
 ductive labour only. An almost inconceivable amount of produce 
 is given in exchange for that which is in itself a curse instead of 
 a benefit. Let us suppose that our islanders give their traders a 
 large cargo of substantial food, and get back a cargo of intoxicating 
 liquor. Here is a double evil. The wealth of the island is 
 lessened by the amount of produce sent away ; but it will also 
 be lessened by the amount of hindrance to labour which the 
 liquor will occasion. They have restricted production they now 
 encourage trading which robs them of a large portion of the 
 limited produce, and brings a certain large increase to their pauper 
 class ! And they regard this as a most satisfactory mode of life ! 
 Such procedure will bring great suffering first in the weaker 
 portion of the population ; but then, as we have seen, these soon 
 turn upon the stronger, and the community, as a whole, begins 
 to decline. As we have said before, the tail eats back towards 
 the head, till the guilty race disappear from God's earth, which 
 their presence dishonours. 
 
 The extent to which productive labour is diminished by the 
 influence of the drink system is incredible. We received a 
 statement from a 'foreman as to the effect on the wages of 
 working men under him. He took a case from the wages book 
 as a fair average specimen, and gave it as follows : During eight 
 weeks before taking a pledge of abstinence, the man's average 
 weekly earnings were 1 6s 9|d ; during eight weeks when 
 keeping the pledge, 1 14s 4d ; during eight weeks after break- 
 ing the pledge, 1 6s 10|d. Here is a loss of wages equal to 
 7s 6d per week ; as near as may be, 20 a year on one man ! If 
 we consider the comparative inefficiency of the man, the loss to 
 society is far greater ; and if we add the sum spent by such a man 
 on the liquor itself, it is not difficult to see how pauperism must 
 soon overtake both him and his. A master, who at the time em- 
 ployed 6000 hands, told us that the lessened amount of labour 
 caused by drinking, was so enormous that he really did not know 
 what could be done with the hands if the license system were 
 put down ! He half thought with Trades Unionists that it 
 would be calamitous if men and women should set their hearts 
 on doing as much good to the world as they easily might accom-
 
 16 
 
 V 
 
 plish ! But when the vast mass now involved in our liquor 
 system proceed on the principle of loss and waste, so rapidly 
 increasing, there are issues coming on society as a whole which 
 will cure such absurdity. 
 
 We may give a vivid illustration of this principle at work. 
 There are about 200,000 inhabitants in Edinburgh, including 
 Leith. It would be a high estimate to say that there are 25,000 
 working men among these. There is one distillery in the city, 
 causing an outlay of above 50,000 a-week. If the weekly 
 produce of the 25,000 men were worth 2 each man, here is an 
 expenditure that swallows up the whole, giving in return only 
 liquor, infinitely worse than worthless ! Give 25,000 men 2 
 a-week each to go about horn idle, and the wealth of the com- 
 munity would be vastly less reduced than it is by this expense ! 
 Such is one great element of trade in relation to labour in this 
 country, and the relation of labour to that trade we have seen. 
 But what is the inevitable issue ? Pauperism. The weaker 
 portion of the community must give way before the pressure of 
 inevitable want, and as our civilisation insists that they shall die 
 only gradually and decently, we are compelled to pass sweeping 
 poor law T s, to build gigantic workhouses, and so to find that poor- 
 rates and misery are increasing in an alarming degree. 
 
 A great effort is now put forth to equalise the burdens of local 
 taxation. This is nothing more than the uneasy burden-bearer 
 shifting his load from one shoulder to another. It eases for a 
 time ; but, as the burden is increasing now, the relief cannot be 
 for long. 
 
 But here, perhaps, it is well to consider that aspect of our 
 national error which takes the form of government. As the 
 natural aim of labour is to produce and the natural aim of 
 trade to distribute production so the natural aim of Government 
 in this relation is to encourage all that tends to the wealth of 
 the nation, and to discourage all that tends to its poverty. We 
 use the words "wealth" and "poverty" in their widest sense, 
 yet as looking chiefly to material riches and their absence.
 
 17 
 
 The ruling class in a nation which seeks its own enrichment, 
 at the expense of the nation's impoverishment, has ceased to be, 
 properly speaking a Government, and has become a trafficking, 
 if not a swindling, concern. If, for example, in our supposed 
 island, one man should be chosen to rule the rest, and he should 
 consider chiefly how he might secure the largest share of produce 
 to himself and his family alone, he would fail to merit the name 
 of ruler, and deserve that of oppressor instead. If a very large 
 share of the gain made by the trader, when bringing liquor 
 instead of good produce to the people, were handed over to the 
 so-called ruler in the name of "revenue" and he were so enriched 
 in proportion as his people were being ruined, he would merit 
 not their reverence, but their curses. If he appeared zealously 
 to punish all that liquor occasioned on the part of the 
 people, yet made his chief wealth out of its sale to them, he 
 would stand convicted before God and man as a hypocrite and a 
 knave. 
 
 It is probably saying that which is only too dreadful to be 
 credited when we direct attention to the position of our rulers 
 in relation to our country's greatest drawback. Of the 50,000 
 a-week laid out on drink in connection with the magnificent 
 distillery already mentioned, not far from 25,000 go to the 
 British Government ! Liquor that can be produced so low in 
 value as to sell at one shilling and threepence a gallon, is charged 
 ten shillings a gallon of Government duty ! ! This is levied on 
 the "proof" gallon, which goes out to be watered and "doctored," 
 so as to bring the liquor trader something like twenty shillings 
 at last ! ! Instead of discouraging the vast outlay, which is more 
 than the entire wages of all the working people in the city, our 
 rulers take about a half of the money ! They compel the erection 
 of workhouses, with the support of a rapidly degenerating and 
 increasing pauper class. They do not lay out one penny of revenue 
 in supporting the pauperism caused by liquor, nor do they give 
 a farthing of it to make good the losses occasioned by the same- 
 They only enrich themselves to the extent of some 12,000,000 
 a-year through the money which is caught from this very class 
 as they are launched into ruin !
 
 18 
 
 Some say that in speaking of the vast average sum of 25,000 
 a-week, we forget the drawback on exported liquor ; but they, 
 too, forget the vastly increased duty paid on that liquor when it 
 is again brought back as bad brandy or rum to this country ! 
 We are not exaggerating the robbery, but putting it in the mildest 
 form at all compatible with truth. 
 
 It is remarkable how easily society as a whole are deceived as 
 to the progress of things in this respect. We constantly hear 
 good easy souls, who are too easy to take the trouble of thinking 
 whether a statement is true or false, saying that matters are 
 greatly improved of late years. In 1856 the police took 2,708 
 persons off the streets of Edinburgh in a state of intoxication. 
 In 1866 matters had improved so much that these officers had 
 to remove 4,123 in the same condition! Is not this improvement 
 with a vengeance ? What must be the blindness which allows 
 men to talk about improvement in such a state of things ? The 
 police touch no man, however drunk, if he is either able to keep 
 his own feet, or can be dragged along by his more capable 
 companions. The cases mounting from 2,768 to 4,123 in ten 
 years, are those of persons utterly incapable of managing them- 
 selves. These are but a small portion of the class whose ruin 
 enriches our governing classes. 
 
 But mark how the matter turns upon them. The successful 
 traders, and especially the successful traders in the robbery of 
 the vast labouring class, hold as their property that which is the 
 produce of the labour of the masses. These masses feel that the 
 produce of their toil cannot now be theirs. It is seen, as if 
 inevitably, to pass into other hands. For example, the houses 
 built by our artizans are not their own the vast produce of 
 their industiy has passed from them they get barely food and 
 drink, with scanty clothing and shelter. They are left with 
 nothing to sell but what they call their "labour." If they pro- 
 duce much, they are not the richer if they produce little, they 
 imagine they can be no worse, but may get more money, and be 
 perhaps better. But do as they will, the liquor shop and 
 enhanced rates of all sorts swallow all up, and leave them with
 
 19 
 
 nothing but this labour to take to market. Their position is a 
 false one. It causes that they have no interest in property, 
 strictly so-called. They are interested in "labour" only. The 
 property, which is the product of labour, passes out of their reach 
 while they are in the act of producing it. It passes, too, with- 
 out bringing anything that can become property in return. 
 
 We had occasion lately to glance into a matter which illustrates 
 this point. We were commissioned to look out for a villa in the 
 suburbs of Edinburgh suitable for the residence of some friends 
 from a distance. Going among the numerous dwellings erected 
 for such residents, we were not a little interested to find the very 
 large proportion of them that belonged to spirit dealers, and the 
 still larger proportion in which they had been erected from the 
 profits of the liquor business. Property worth many many 
 thousands, now rushing up all round the city, can be traced 
 directly to the till of the low liquor vault, at the door of which, 
 if you observe for a few minutes, you see the producing classes 
 going in and out by the dozen. The poor deluded men are going 
 out toil-worn to the suburban districts from their crowded dens 
 in the city, and building palaces for other men, taking the wages 
 they receive back to those very men at their counters ; so that 
 literally they have nothing for their labour in the end but liquor ! 
 The men who successfully play on their gullability have the 
 palaces they have still only their dens ! They are the victims 
 of a system of licence that would be a disgrace to the government 
 of Theodore the grim himself ! 
 
 It is vain to speak of "improvidence" in this labouring class, 
 when licence is given to do the worst that can be done to induce 
 them to be thus improvident. It is known perfectly that if you 
 open a public house in any community whatever, the result will 
 be the " improvidence " of a certain portion of the population. 
 If you open two such places, the "improvidence" will be increased. 
 Our rulers suppress gambling ; and, so far as this is concerned, 
 they " force men to be good." But they licence liquor dealing 
 in return for 12,000,000 a-year, taken from those whose impro- 
 vidence is the direct result of that licence ! What must be the 
 issue with the labouring classes ?
 
 20 
 
 If their wages are high, the liquor vender is profited, but not the 
 labourers. If a time of stagnation comes in trade they are help- 
 less. Their " labour" is then worth nothing, and all it has pro- 
 duced is the property of others. Is it any wonder if they combine 
 in defence of the rights (as they call them) of "labour" ? Their 
 position entails upon them a continually increasing distress. A 
 war expenditure, such as gives them great prosperity, is neces- 
 sarily followed by the collapse which war must ever bring. The 
 restrictions of productive labour by "strike" and kindred means 
 inevitably bring poverty to the classes who possess property, and 
 so make "labour" less in demand. "Hard times" come like death 
 itself to those who have nothing in the world but labour to eat, 
 when labour will not sell. Is it wonderful that the combinations 
 of men so placed become formidable even to the Government 
 itself ? Is it not certain that, with a state of things like the 
 present going on increasing, such combinations will, by-and-bye, 
 prove a source of peril such as will make the stoutest hearted 
 quail ? 
 
 When speaking of government, it is well to remember that the 
 vast and increasing criminal class are a fearful burden on the 
 shoulders of productive labour. The enormous share of national 
 wealth which goes to uphold our judicial and prison system, 
 together with our police and military so far as required by crime, 
 added to the support of the criminals themselves, is all a deduction 
 from that which is produced by the skill and labour of the fruitful 
 classes. In proportion as this vast drain increases, the power of 
 our labouring men to compete with other nations inevitably 
 declines. Government repression, coupled with Government 
 licence in this matter, is rapidly hastening on national ruin. 
 Results will show this soon, as words cannot, 
 
 In the case of Edinburgh, in regard to which we have infor- 
 mation of a reliable character most readily at hand, there are 
 some striking facts which illustrate how repression, such as it is, 
 grows into a huge burden on the community. In 1851, the yearly 
 salary of a superior officer of police was 93 9s it is now 139 
 6s ; that of a sergeant was (weekly) 17s it is now 25s 6d; that
 
 21 
 
 of a constable was (weekly) 12s 8d it is now 20s 6d. From 
 1861, the fines taken in the police court have risen from the 
 yearly average of 2254 to that of 4944 The police cases 
 have risen 120 per cent., and the fines are rising at the rate of 
 1106 a year ! The draft upon the resources of society threatens 
 to swallow up everything. But this is not the worst feature of 
 the case. The repression itself is as near as possible a delusion. 
 A vast proportion of the police force, it is beyond doubt to those 
 who know the real state of the case, are the servants of the 
 liquor sellers rather than of the authorities. They must all be 
 this, so far as the removal of incapable persons are concerned ; 
 but they are this in the way of allowing the law to be system- 
 atically set at defiance. No man need have any difficulty as to 
 the proof of this if he has eyes to see anything, and goes from 
 eleven o'clock at night till two or three in the morning within 
 sight of the places where roaring drunkenness is going on, under 
 the very guardianship of the officers of police. The fines im- 
 posed, large as they are, can be perfectly easily afforded as the 
 share of profit handed to the police for allowing the illicit traffic 
 to go on ! The profits of a few nights, in some cases of one night 5 
 will defray the fine and costs, so that, perhaps, two or three 
 months of sale may proceed unmolested. The vast profits of this 
 traffic are corrupting our "repressers" from the crown of the 
 head to the soles of the feet, just as ignorance and folly are 
 devouring the toiling millions. 
 
 It is humiliating to see how the great bulk of those who are 
 most deeply interested refuse even to look at the greatest of all 
 causes operating against national prosperity. Speaking lately to 
 an intelligent working man of the overwhelming waste of wealth 
 in the liquor business, he jauntily replied, "Oh, tJic money never 
 goes out of the, country" The liquor trader has this consolation, 
 with a very considerable addition. To him the money not only 
 does not go out of the country, but it goes, in the first instance, 
 into his pocket ! The ruling class may also say that the money 
 does not go out of the country, but into pockets from which they 
 know how to extract it ! The farmer and landlord, whose grain 
 is destroyed, console themselves that the money does not go out
 
 22 
 
 of the country, but that a considerable share of it becomes theirs ! 
 But are not all classes deceived when they reason in this way ? 
 Do they not forget that money, as we have already shown, is 
 worthless, except in so far as produce exists, for which it may 
 be exchanged ? Is not the working man specially deceived ? 
 We shall say that the money does not go out of the country 
 (though this is very far from true when that country is becoming 
 actually poorer in produce). We shall only hold that production 
 is restricted, and a vast amount of produce destroyed. Every- 
 thing becomes high in price that is, money is lowered in value. 
 It soon takes twice as much money to buy food for a family as it 
 took before. The half of the money available has not gone out 
 of the country ; but it has virtually disappeared from existence. 
 A loaf that was a penny is twopence, so twopence is worth just 
 what a penny was worth formerly. Unless the rich man now 
 consents to expend his wealth twice as fast as he did before, the 
 poor man must inevitably find that labour is less in demand, and 
 that, too, by the very fact that wages have risen. The money 
 has not gone out of the country, but it has fallen in value from 
 a cause that makes it inevitably evident that the change would 
 have been a far less calamity if the money had gone abroad. That 
 which money brings has become scarce, and no power of man can 
 prevent that the pinchings of want shall be felt somewhere. 
 They must be felt where money is not, and where produce has 
 been consumed as it came to hand ; but they will sooner or later 
 be felt where wealth is greatest. It requires only a sufficient 
 number of hungry stomachs in a country to make even its 
 princes at last suffer want. 
 
 Now it may be well to glance at that aspect of error which is 
 shown in the philanthropic efforts of the nation. It is not 
 possible that so much indescribable misery should abound among 
 any people as abounds among us and no efforts be put forth to 
 mitigate it. So we have an incredible amount of such effort. 
 Perhaps in no part of the wide field are our drawbacks more 
 visible than they are here. If we look to the case of the city of 
 Edinburgh, of the state of whose poor or " lapsed classes" a most 
 able report is on the eve of publication while we write, we
 
 23 
 
 find the number of these set down at the terrible figure of 
 45,030 ! This is only an approximate estimate. From the 
 report it would appear that the number is at least 66,000. As 
 Leith is not taken into the account, and 170,444 is the whole 
 population of Edinburgh, there are above a third of the entire 
 inhabitants of the city that are sunk into something like abject 
 misery ! In 1530 single-room houses, there are from six to 
 fifteen persons living in a single apartment ! This population, 
 too, is increasing at an astounding rate, in defiance of all 
 efforts to mitigate the state of tilings. Is it any wonder that 
 men are becoming alarmed ? Is it not time that they learned 
 the truth that is, that we are no longer concerned with this 
 matter as one of pity for others, but as one of self-preservation ? 
 From the last report of the Board of Supervision, we leam that 
 the amount required for the pauperism of the country was 
 807,631 5s 6 id, or a rate per cent, on real property of 
 8 13s 3id. In 1847 the rate was only 4 13s. Let us observe 
 what this means. A farm, we shall say, lets at a rent of 1500 
 a-year. The pauperism of the country reduces that rent by 130 
 8s 4id ! If this reduction is allowed to go on at its present 
 increasing ratio, it will swallow up the whole wealth of the nation 
 in a comparatively few years. Men may well be alarmed. Since 
 1816 the rate per head of the population has risen from fourpence 
 three farthings to its present rate, which is fi ve shillings per head ! 
 In Edinburgh as much as thirteen shillings a-head is raised for the 
 poor ! In this boasted city every tenth person is a pauper ! 
 Instead of mitigation in the state of the poor from this amazing 
 rise, there is a vastly increased misery. The great thing now 
 with men of property seems to be the desperate effort to saddle 
 as much as possible of this terrible burden on each other. The 
 landlords in the country have pulled down every possible house 
 in which a pauper could lodge, that they might drive the help- 
 less to the towns. Now the great men of the towns are agitating 
 for a law to equalise the rates and make all pay alike ! Mean- 
 time the vast monster grows apace ! 
 
 Our philanthropic agencies and organisations are on a 
 scale truly vast. "City Missions" are to a great extent not so
 
 24 
 
 much religious as simply benevolent in their character. They 
 labour to clothe the naked and to feed the hungry, to cure the 
 sick and to employ those out of work, even to find houses for 
 the houseless. Our ragged schools are not so much for education 
 as for the maintenance of poor children. Our sanitary move- 
 ments, now engaging the energies of our most powerful men, are 
 all of a benevolent character. Our temperance societies are 
 innumerable, and all benevolent. There are multitudes of the 
 indications of an earnest struggle against the misery that so 
 terribly abounds. Yet the most resistless evidence crowds upon 
 us, and demonstrates that all is nearly in vain. Police .and 
 prison expenditure increases ; the poor rate increases. The 
 demand for "refuges," "asylums," and "institutions" in which to 
 accommodate the disabled masses, is constantly increasing. The 
 amount of public beggary seems appallingly to increase. It 
 cannot be otherwise. The devouring monster of our liquor trade 
 swallows up far more than all that charity can provide to meet 
 the constantly increasing want. That which charity provides 
 in the shape of clothing goes almost directly into hands for which 
 it is not intended. It goes at first to the poor wretches that 
 seem so terribly in need, but they cany it to the pawnbroker, 
 and it is sold by him to another class who have money, though 
 not much of it, to buy. A large portion of it is sent to Ireland, 
 where, though the people generally are poor, they are not pauperised 
 as we are. There is one pauper only in 120 in Ireland, but more 
 than one in 10 in Edinburgh. That money which is advanced 
 on the pawned goods goes at once to the liquor seller. It only in- 
 creases the amount of liquor consumed by the destitute. 
 
 All our plans of benevolence have this sad defect they deal 
 with far off symptoms, while they leave powerful causes of 
 misery untouched. As a consequence, they fail to prevent the 
 increase of misery. We are deeply concerned to see the way in 
 which the report already mentioned deals with the great liquor 
 curse. It says "All available and judicious means should be 
 employed to protect the poor from temptations to form habits of 
 drunkenness." Again " Our whole licensing system requires 
 reconsideration, and some principles laid down to guide those
 
 25 
 
 with whom the responsibility of granting licences lies." It is 
 nearly incredible that men with the very slightest notion of the 
 real state of things, should imagine the slightest possibility of 
 improvement in our lapsed masses with a licensed liquor trade 
 kept on among them ! Above 60,000 men, women, and children, 
 mulcted of the last possible penny that pawns and drink can 
 take from them, are to have the liquor sold to them still ; but 
 nevertheless "all available and judicious means" shall be employed 
 to protect them from temptation ! How men will make fools of 
 themselves ! 
 
 A temperance society reclaims perhaps a dozen in a year, say, 
 of intemperate persons, while a single spirit dealer out of thirty 
 in the same district teaches a score to drink and to become 
 rapidly intemperate. The remaining twenty-nine liquor dealers 
 do their full share in providing superabundance of work for the 
 temperance men. When will such benevolence stem the tide of 
 misery ? A Dorcas society clothes, say, fifty poor people ; but a 
 single pawnbroker will gather to his shelves in the same time as 
 much as strips two hundred ! And there are, at least, half-a-dozen 
 pawnshops for every such society ! When will this process 
 banish the rags and nakedness of the poor ? A reformatory 
 gathers up say a hundred young rascals that are caught one way 
 or other in petty thefts ; but one-tenth of the liquor dealers in 
 the field from which the reformatory has its inmates will make 
 more than as many into criminals in the time the reformatory 
 cures half its hundred ! When will this overtake our growing 
 crime ? 
 
 There is an incredible loss which arises out of drunken 
 pauperism of which few comparatively are aware. Certain 
 medical men, and no doubt certain men who have liquor to 
 dispose of, think it necessary to supply our sick poor with 
 enormous quantities of liquor. In two workhouses in Edinburgh 
 as much as 353 12s 5|d was spent in the space of one year in 
 liquor supplied for the paupers ! In the same year, 77 15s 
 were laid out on tobacco and snuff for the inmates of those 
 houses!! In all, 431 7s 5|-d in two out of the three Edinburgh
 
 26 
 
 workhouses ! ! In one month (ending February 14th, 1867,) 96 
 bottles of whisky were supplied to 88 persons and 36 bottles of 
 wine to 41 persons in the City workhouse ! Twenty of the 
 patients so treated died within the month ! In one workhouse 
 clothes were disposed of by the inmates to the amount of 358 
 in the space of fourteen months. Inmates were clothed in new 
 suits scaled the walls went "on the spree" came back naked 
 w r ere clothed again to go again on the same errand were clothed 
 a third time to do the same. After all, they were forced back on 
 the workhouse by Sheriff's order, or by that of "the Board of 
 Supervision ! When these model men had done service to the 
 utmost in this way, they were sent to jail, still to be well fed and 
 clothed at the productive man's expense ! Should not productive 
 labour and w r ealth know that all this has to be paid for, either 
 out of current production or out of the hoarded store ? Every 
 one suffers for this but the successful liquor vendor and a few 
 non-producers. They have the robber's share. Ought men to 
 allow themselves to be hoodwinked to all this by the silly 
 prejudice against " extreme temperance views " ? 
 
 There is an almost incredible amount of philanthropic effort 
 expended on classes on whom the great liquor curse has got no 
 hold. Beginning with " Savings Banks" and going on with a 
 vast number of other similar remedies, certain benevolent persons 
 imagine that they are reforming the poor. We wonder how many 
 of the 60,000 persons in Edinburgh, who live in one room in sixes 
 and even in fifteens, have money in the Savings Bank ? How 
 many of them will ever have a penny in even a " Penny Bank" 
 if the liquor system holds on among them ? We are exhorted to 
 go among these masses to reclaim them, because the frightful 
 increase of assessment for the poor without any mitigation of the 
 evils of poverty, is alarming thoughtful men ; but we are to go 
 on the understanding that the grand, lucrative, respectable traffic 
 in pawns and liquor is to keep its ground ! Can philanthropy be 
 more terribly caricatured ? 
 
 We may look now to that aspect of our country's error which 
 shows itself in matters of religion. The grand element of true
 
 27 
 
 piety is supreme love to God, and love to our neighbour equal 
 with that which we bear to ourselves. The grand motive to this 
 love is the self sacrifice of God in Christ for the guilt of mankind. 
 In view of this religion, nothing can live which conflicts with the 
 interests of any human being. It goes to the very root of all 
 social wrong. 
 
 But how stands the religion, actually professed in this country, 
 in relation to that country's worst and most ruinous wrongs ? 
 It is wedded in the closest of unions with the greatest of all our 
 curses. The most universally acknowledged of our Christian 
 men noblemen, gentlemen, and ministers of the gospel are 
 enriching their families by the liquor traffic. They do so openly, 
 and it does not in the least degree tarnish their Christian fame. 
 It is no disqualification for the highest and holiest offices of 
 religion to owe one's wealth and position in society to successful 
 brewing, distillation, or liquor-selling ! That which is making 
 paupers by the thousand, and eating the heart out of the nation's 
 prosperity, is thus nursed in the warmest part of the bosom, of the 
 Church ! How then can religion help us out of our sad situation ? 
 
 If we look at these drawbacks on our country's prosperity in 
 the aggregate, we cease to wonder that men of thought are 
 becoming puzzled and alarmed at the progress of things. Labour 
 irresistibly combining to keep production low trade labouring 
 to destroy produce and still more reduce production, so as 
 to make prices high Government enriching the ruling classes 
 on the profits of the most ruinous of all traffics benevolence 
 itself playing into the coffers of the pawn-shop and tavern 
 religion, above all, rearing her temples and paying her ministers 
 from the wages of iniquity! Is it astonishing that men who love 
 country and kindred are brought to their wits' end ? 
 
 Where is the remedy for all this ? We reply that no remedy 
 is possible which does not imply that men shall learn to love 
 their neighbours as they love themselves. Every shred of that 
 system principle, if you will which implies that you shall 
 have more if your neighbour should have less, must be torn off
 
 28 
 
 and thrown to the winds, or the people may make up their minds 
 for an earthly perdition. All classes must combine for the 
 benefit of all, or God shall as soon cease to be God as he will 
 either give or allow our deliverance. The ruling power in the 
 nation, whatever that may prove to be, must take hold of the 
 destructive selfishness now in action, and strangle it. St George 
 must slay the dragon again, or the dragon will devour the nation. 
 There must be courage enough found to tell those men who think 
 they have not only a right to be idle themselves, but to order 
 others to be idle also, and who claim to diminish production in 
 order that wages may rise that the right they claim is that of 
 robbery, and must be dealt with as such. There must be pith 
 enough in the moral force of the nation to put the foot of 
 suppression on traffic which is fitted only to degrade and ruin 
 the people; and pith enough, too, to show the formal Government 
 of the day that it must repress instead of fostering the great 
 source of our social misery and degradation. Philanthropy must 
 adopt common-sense and banish sentimentalism. It is infinitely 
 absurd to do as has not unfrequently been done when the 
 collector of a temperance society calls upon the liquor seller for 
 a subscription ! Above all, religion must learn to shake herself 
 clear of her union with human wrong. A great change is before 
 us, and now close at hand, when the legislative and ruling power 
 is to pass into more numerous hands. We must wait to see the 
 result ; but if we are not merely to get deeper into the mire, all 
 classes that have their heads above water must unite to put down 
 the great source of the present state of things, and to build up 
 that barrier of social wealth to which every true son of his 
 country is proud to contribute. 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 The following summary of an admirable lecture, by Councillor 
 David Lewis, of Edinburgh, may form an appropriate addition to 
 the foregoing pages : 
 
 (From tlie Edinburgh Daily HevietcJ 
 
 COUNCILLOR D. LEWIS ON THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF THE COUNTRY. 
 Last night, Councillor David Lewis delivered a lecture to a crowded 
 audience in Brighton Street Chapel, on " The Social Condition of 
 our Country a Source of National Peril." Mr Lewis devoted special 
 attention to the ravages produced by intemperance arid the drink 
 system. Taking our own city, for instance, it was a startling fact 
 that 45,000, or one-fourth of the population of Edinburgh, belonged 
 to the lapsed masses, including the criminal, the abandoned, and
 
 29 
 
 the poverty-stricken. With regard to the first of these classes, out 
 of 9845 persons who passed through the hands of the police during 
 last year, 4123 were under the influence of intemperance ; and in 
 the first month of the present year, 450, out of 650 who passed 
 through the police cells, were taken from the streets in a state of 
 intoxication. Then it was reckoned that there were 1500 unfortu- 
 nate females in the city. Within the last 22 years the pauperism 
 of Edinburgh had increased from 6387, or one in every twenty-one, 
 to 20,607, or one in every ten ; and it could be clearly demonstrated 
 that nine-tenths of the pauperism was directly or indirectly asso- 
 ciated with drink. Twenty-two years ago the entire expenditure for 
 the maintenance of the paupers in this city was 21,172, last year 
 it was 53,561, and evidence went to prove that not only had the 
 people been pauperised by the drink system, but the money given 
 them for maintenance was again expended in liquor, and went 
 directly into the pocket of the liquor vendor. He had been told on 
 the highest authority that the money might as well be transferred 
 in one cheque to the publican, so directly did it go to him ; indeed, 
 the police knew the pay days of the Parochial Boards by the num- 
 ber of paupers in a state of intoxication. Such was the condition 
 of Edinburgh, and it was only a type of the rest of the lai'ge cities 
 in the empire. Thirty years ago there were 79,429 paupers in 
 Scotland now there were 255,580 ; and the consequent expendi- 
 ture had increased from 155,000 to 807,000. Yet we talked of 
 our country being a model of patriotism and philanthropy, while we 
 were spending nearly a million of money annually in the support of 
 pauperism, nine-tenths of which was really and truly preventible. 
 Mr Lewis proceeded to consider who are the parties responsible for 
 this state of matters. He accused the Government of violating one 
 of the fundamental principles of the Constitution, as laid down by 
 Blackstone, in permitting and licensing a calling which was adverse 
 to the interests of the commonwealth ; and he charged the Church 
 with culpable neglect of its duty in being to a great extent silent on 
 this important subject. With things in their present condition, we 
 were as a nation drifting backwards, and our position was one of 
 imminent and terrible peril. The sin of our country in relation to 
 this matter would inevitably be visited with heavy national punish- 
 ment. The drink traffic, legalised by Government and upheld by 
 the Church, stood in the way of every social, moral, and sanitary 
 reform ; and he counselled, as the only true remedy, that all who 
 had their country's welfare at heart should unite in order to sweep 
 the system, in every branch and department of it, from the land. 
 
 We may add to the above an abridged report of a speech by Mi- 
 Lewis in the Council, on the 10th of March of this year. He says 
 
 "Reference had been made to the shebeens, and he would tell the 
 Council that the state of the city in this respect was most appalling 
 and discreditable to us as a civilised and Christian people. The
 
 30 
 
 poor people came to him in dozens, complaining and asking if the 
 Council could do nothing to put down these shebeens. The other 
 day a woman came to him and told him that her husband, who 
 makes 28s or 80s a week, was in the habit of coming home at three 
 o'clock on Sunday morning, and gave her 12s or 14s. Sometimes 
 he went out again, and returned home half-stupified with drink, 
 demanding 5s more ; and last week he had told her that he would 
 have her lieart's blood if she did not give him her last farthing. 
 Another case was that of a man making 25s a-week, who came 
 home at five o'clock on a Sunday morning with 2s 3d in his pocket. 
 The Forbes Mackenzie Act had been grossly misrepresented in 
 Edinburgh. He found that Mr Liuton would not endeavour to get 
 a conviction, unless he could prove an act of sale. This was not 
 right. The Act showed plainly that if they could find drink in one 
 of these shebeens, arid if they could find individuals drunk or 
 drinking, they were entitled to seize not only the drink and the 
 occupants, but also the frequenters of the house. This was not 
 done in Edinburgh, though it was done in Glasgow. Captain Smart, 
 of the Glasgow police, says ' The magistrate does not require proof 
 of sale of spirits on Sunday. Two things are necessary to insure 
 conviction first, that the house is known to be a shebeen ; and, 
 secondly, that persons other than inmates are found there drunk or 
 drinking.' Why not so in Edinburgh ? At the present time the 
 enforcement of the law in Edinburgh was a perfect mockery. There 
 were dozens, he might almost say scores, of public-houses open till 
 twelve o'clock, and some were carrying on a roaring trade at that 
 hour. Why was this ? If there was efficiency in the police staff, 
 why should this go on ? Would any one who saw people reeling 
 out of the public-houses at eleven or half-past eleven o'clock, in a 
 state of gross inebriety, say this was a right thing ? The Council 
 ought to confine this evil within the smallest possible limits, and 
 not allow it to set the law at defiance. What we really wanted was 
 a body of men to supplement the police, to go down into these 
 jungles of sin and immorality the shebeens and to enforce the 
 law ; not men to walk about the streets in a semi-military style, 
 but to give effect to the law, and prevent crime from being developed 
 to such an enormous extent. (Applause.) He thought that the 
 operation of the law in Edinburgh was too much of a repressive and 
 too little of a preventive nature. On Sabbath the 16th of last 
 month, between the hours of one and four o'clock in the morning, 
 no fewer than 45 persons were taken out of four of these shebeens, 
 and carried to the police office. He asked the Council to think of 
 the enormous amount of labour entailed by this means on the police, 
 who had to spend hours in taking these 45 individuals into custody, 
 while the public property they should have been watching was left 
 comparatively defenceless He had, along with the detectives, 
 visited shebeens, and he found in some instances that not only were 
 the doors secured by chains and locks, but they were covered with
 
 31 
 
 solid iron plates outside and inside, and bound with iron bars, and 
 guarded in such a way that it would almost require artillery to carry 
 the place. Were the Council, he asked, to sit still and take no 
 action in the matter ? It was poor economy to talk of the few 
 thousand pounds of fines obtained out of those dens of wretchedness 
 and degradation. When they considered the 4100 people taken 
 from the gutters and put into the cells in a state of drunkenness, in 
 the course of a year, could they fathom the terrible amount of 
 suffering and degradation which this represented?" 
 
 Some most important statements by Thomas Kuox, Esq., one of 
 her Majesty's Justices of the Peace, merit much earnest attention, 
 though published some years ago. We abridge a few of his telling 
 remarks from a lecture of his, delivered on the 29th of April, 1865. 
 Mr Knox says that 
 
 " The first pawnshop known iii Scotland was started in Glasgow 
 in 1806, and proved a dead failure. The sign of the first three balls 
 was as unwelcome to the then careful, forethoughted, and independent 
 Scottish people as would any day be the sight of three devils. 
 Another adventurous one, however, tried the experiment and 
 succeeded, about the same period, and that one has literally become 
 a thousand ; for it is computed that of big pawn and wee pawn 
 establishments, more than a thousand flourish in Scotland, working 
 social and moral havoc unspeakable. It surely is, then, a very 
 ominous fact indeed, that from none or one in 1806, we have reached 
 a thousand in 1865 ! It is still more ominous, when placed along- 
 side of another fact, that the poor-rates of Scotland, from being 
 infiuitesimally small in 1806, are now close on a million pounds 
 sterling in 1865. Such facts are trumpet-tongued ; and I say 
 solemnly and earnestly, he that hath ears to hear let him hear what 
 such facts proclaim of reproof and warning alike to Church and 
 State to Christians and politicians. In Edinburgh we have 33 
 licensed pawnshops, and 219 wee pawns or brokers 252 in all, 
 gnawing into the very vitals of civilization, virtue, and religion. 
 In the 33 licensed pawnshops alone for only with them do I purpose 
 dealing to-night there are effected annually, and admitted by 
 pawnbrokers in the columns of the Mercury, 1,381, 200 pledges, high 
 and low. High pledges and low pledges are a statutory definition 
 of amounts pledged all below 10s being a low, all above 10s a high 
 pledge. The business done monthly in Edinburgh in low pledges, 
 under 10s, is 110,000; high pledges, under 10, 5,000; and deposits 
 above 10, 100. The nature of the pledging is seen by a peep into 
 the interior of an every-day establishment. The list embraces the 
 following articles : Body clothing men's coats, 539 ; vests, 355 ; 
 pairs of trousers, 288 ; hats, 60 total, 1,242. Women's gowns, 
 1,980; petticoats, 540; wrappers, 132; duffles, 123; pelisses, 90 
 total, 2,865. Pairs of stockings, 84; silk handkerchiefs, 240; shirts 
 and shifts, 294 total, 618. Bed clothes bed ticks, 84; pillows. 
 108; pairs of blankets, 262; pairs of sheets, 800; bed covers, 162
 
 32 
 
 total, 916. Miscellaneous table cloths, 86; umbrellas, 48; bibles, 
 102; watches, 204; rings, 216; Waterloo medals, 48 total, 654: 
 sum total, 6,195. If we divide the 1,381,200 of siich pledges in 
 Edinburgh, we will find that each place effects as near as possible 
 41,000 annually, or 3, 5 00 monthly. But some of these establishments 
 transact an almost incredible amount of business. I have it on the 
 best authority that one office in a poor district, betwixt the Castle 
 and Holyrood, effected in one month 11,000 pledges! All the 
 11,000 were low pledges, sums below 10s, with the exception of 30, 
 which were high pledges, above 10s. This surely reveals a social 
 condition among the poor of Edinburgh that needs very special 
 attention and treatment. I have had the most harrowing interviews 
 with working men, almost driven to .despair and madness about 
 their families, in consequence of wives pawning, with ruinous 
 facility, everything during their absence at work. One man told 
 me that his house was stripped of everything, his daughters were 
 unable to cross the door their mother having stolen and pledged 
 their things while they slept, and that unredeemed pledges were 
 lying in the house in ' goupons ! ' I have seen strong men literally 
 broken down with grief and starvation, large wages being consumed 
 by pawnbrokers and publicans. Allow me, also, to give you a brief 
 narrative of other authentic cases a mere sample of hundreds 
 more from the private diary of a gentleman whose extensive 
 intercourse with the poor gives weight to his words. A working 
 man, earning all the year round 18s per week, has a wife and 
 children. His wife is given to intemperance, and takes fearful 
 rounds of drinking. He does everything in his power to keep her 
 from getting drink keeps the money and means oiit of her way 
 pays all the accounts himself, and does everything he can to prevent 
 her drinking ; but all ittterly fails on account of the facility given 
 to such characters by the pawnshops. I have known her three or 
 four times strip the children and herself of clothes, leaving just rags 
 enough to cover them, and empty the house of everything she could 
 carry away the bed clothes, the clock, and pictures from the wall 
 the very pots and pans ; and when all such things are gone, in 
 desperation she breaks open every lock in the house, and leaves 
 nothing. I have known her poor husband, week after week, have 
 to take the shirt from his back, wash and dry it on Sabbath, that 
 he might have it clean to go to his work on Monday. When all in 
 the house is gone, then she goes to the clubman, gets 1 or 2 
 worth of cloth in her husband's name, with the promise to pay it at 
 so much a week. Of course her husband never sees it, it goes 
 straight to the pawnshop ; and the first notice that he gets of it is 
 months after, when his wages are arrested for the payment of it. 
 The husband is kept from church, the children are kept from school 
 they have to sleep without bed-clothes, and live almost without 
 body-clothes ; and for all this the pawnshop is much to blame." 
 All this is going on with aggravations to the present hour.
 
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