same scale can be seen at the same time (which is barely possible), is a very doubtful arrangement. The Committee, however, have not made their scheme public in detail, on the ground that they must have some security that the funds will be forthcoming before they go farther with it. This is surely putting the cart before the horse. They say, in effect, to the public, 'Give us your money, and we will show you what we mean to do with it.' The public will probably reply, Show us your design, and we will tell you if we think it worth the money.'

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One other comment we wish to make, as to what may be termed the theological aspect of the matter. Fortunately weare not called upon to expound the logic of the concluding sentence of Mr. Broome's letter; but we must be permitted to point out that the Committee, in addressing themselves to the general public for aid, are inviting subscriptions for what a large number of those invited will consider a serious anachronism. The scheme of decoration is to include, it seems, a whole cycle of Biblical and ecclesiastical miracles; not to speak of the Six Days' Creation, the nine Orders of Angels, Cherubim 'full of eyes,' medieval Saints with their appropriate symbols, and such other standard pieces of ecclesiastical furniture. If the Committee have any idea of what is going on in the world, they ought to be aware that the majority of thinking persons among us regard these things as historically false and totally irrele

vant to religion, and even to Christianity in its highest aspect. If they look on the Cathedral as the property of Churchmen to do as they please with, that is an intelligible position; but to advertise such a decorative programme as a work recommending itself to no one class or creed' is simply ridiculous. They cannot reasonably expect support for such a scheme from anyone outside the pale of their own communion, nor from many within it. If the Committee wish the decoration of St. Paul's to be taken up as a national work, let them leave illustrating what many regard as mere fables, and turn to the broader and sublimer moral attributes of Christianity, the illustration of which, in various phases and through various actions, might furnish subjects of the highest order to thoughtful and original artists.' We have little hope, we admit, that this hint will be acted upon; the ecclesiastical amateurs, we fear, are too stiff in their own views, the ecclesiastical artists too nearly in the position of the silversmiths of Ephesus,2 to listen to reason on this topic. But if ever the scheme is carried out which is to convert our only Renaissance Cathedral into a great storehouse of ecclesiastical properties,' we shall be able to say that in one quarter at least a protest was raised against the proposition to embody, in an imperishable material, histories and theories, the actual truth and moral relevancy of which are at this very time becoming every day more and more widely questioned.

2 Acts xix. verses 24, 25.

BY THOMAS WRIGHT (THE

significance, and see how wide and important are its bearings, it must be evident that the subject of the condition of the working classes is in this country fast becoming an Aaron's rod among the questions of the day. Its tendency is to swallow up the rest, for the complexion to which most others come at last is-How will they affect the working classes? It is a subject that in one way or another commands a good deal of attention, and gives rise to a considerable amount of theorising, debating, and spasmodic action in the application of supposed panaceas for the remedy or removal of some particular evil, the consequences of which, after being long borne by those first concerned, are at length affecting other classes. But the degree of notice bestowed upon it, great as it undoubtedly is, is by no means commensurate with either its absolute or relative importance, nor is it of that minute and constantly watchful kind necessary to give a thorough understanding of the matter. So far as the constitutional powers that be are concerned, such notice as they give to it is almost invariably forced upon them, and that only after years of urging and when there are symptoms of a dangerous impatience upon the part of those who have had to urge so long in vain. The working classes have been distinctly told in words, as well as by acts, that, at all events, where they are concerned, the function of Government is not paternal. When artisans, who through no fault of their own had been out of work so long that they and their wives and children were starving, petitioned Govern

JOURNEYMAN ENGINEER').

they were told that Government had no money for such a purpose, that it would be unfair to ratepayers to apply any portion of their money in that way. Yet there were items of expenditure in the financial returns of that year which we fancy most ratepayers would have regarded as far less justifiable or judicious than would have been a grant to enable starving workpeople to emigrate to home colonies where there was good reason for believing they could earn a comfortable livelihood. A sensitive mind might easily have imagined that insult was added to injury in the refusal of the assistance asked for. In discussing the matter one noble lord- unconscious, we are quite willing to believe, that he was practically repeating the piece of grim mockery embodied in the saw: 'Live, old horse, and you'll get grass '-said,

Let us keep them [the petitioning workmen] at home; we shall need them when trade revives.'

Though only one voice spoke so openly to this effect, workmen, not only those immediately interested, but the class generally, believe that this was substantially the meaning and motive of the refusal. Trade, they said, in effect, among themselves, and the interests of the 'we's' of the governing and capital possessing classes, are to be considered before our sufferings. We and our wives and children must linger on half starved, and wholly miserable, till the revival of trade, no matter how long that may be, because we shall be wanted when it does come-be wanted to help to keep down wages to the hand-tomouth level that prevents all but a fortunate few among us, those who,

by reason of their good fortune in finding constant employment, stand less in need of it, from making any adequate provision either for tiding over a time of want of work, in something like decency and independence, or removing to countries in which labour is more highly paid, and want of work does not recur with the pauperising frequency and severity that it does in England. Such was the tenor of the remarks of working men upon the words of the noble lord' when they were published in the parliamentary debates. They read, marked, and learned the words at that time, and have since been inwardly digesting them.

In a manufacturing country in which reckless speculation has eliminated the element of steadiness from business, and brought trade to be an alternation between 'flushes' and 'crashes,' with long 'spells' of slack time. intervening, -in a country in this condition it may be sound political economy, and good statescraft, to look upon unemployed workmen merely as a description of manufacturing 'plant,' and aim at keeping them on hand, their sufferings here and prospects of doing better elsewhere notwithstanding. But it cannot be a matter for surprise that the working classes should be of opinion that such a national principle deals hard measure to them. They do believe that it is both hard and harsh, and, though it may be presumptuous, some of them even go so far as to argue that it is not good policy. So firm is their impression that the transfer to another country of English labour and artisan talent enriches that country, that they take it as understood that it would be a piece of stupidly unjust expectation to ask the State to assist workmen to emigrate to any other than British possessions. Their idea is that our colonies could be made to comfortably absorb the

overflow of the home labour market, with benefit alike to the emigrating workmen and the colonies, and by consequence-and no very indirect consequence-the mother-country, whose working classes being relieved of some of their superabundant members would have better chances of regular employment, and whose market for her manufactures would be widened by the necessarily increased demands of the colonies. Though patriotism is now a good deal out of fashion, there was in this idea of working men a feeling of patriotism mingling with the other considerations prompting the idea. They would have liked to feel that while bettering themselves they were still contributing to England's greatness in helping to make her colonies great; and that though thousands of miles away, they were still bound to her, and virtually part of her. But statesmen, as we know, did not take the same view of the matter. They declined to assist the unemployed' to emigrate to our colonies, and the feeling of the working classes has undergone a change so far as the patriotic sentiment is concerned. They say, speaking in bitterness of spirit, 'Our country has shown that it has no true national regard for us; and that being the case, we don't see that we are called upon to any longer cherish a regard for her.' Whatever they may become, the British colonies are not the best ready-made markets for English artisan labour. English mechanics who emigrate at their own expense mostly go to foreign countries-the greater number of them to America; and any person who had the same opportunities as the present writer of seeing letters from such emigrated workmen, to friends and mates in England, would be forced to the same conclusion with him, namely, that the Irish emigrants were not the only ones that looked back to England with feelings the

reverse of respectful and affectionate. Not that the sentiments of English workmen who have sought homes in the great Transatlantic republic are for a moment to be confounded with Fenianism. They have no desire to make war upon England, and their sympathies would be with her if any other country made war upon her, but socially they 'crack up' the country of their adoption as in contrast to England. They say that the position and chances of the working man are substantially better there than here, and working men more thought of. They speak evil of dignities, and scoff at institutions that English workmen are called upon to honour, and are conventionally supposed to delight to honour. They refer to the old country' contemptuously, and use 'old' in the sense of effete, antiquated and worn out; and they advise all who can to leave it, and go to a land in which there is really a prospect of 'wealth for honest labour. In some of these letters there is probably a too hasty generalisation from isolated facts, and others lie open to a suspicion of being what is vulgarly called 'bounceable,' but there can be no doubt that the spirit that prompts their general tone is unfavourable to England, and one that has been engendered in England. 'England's greatness' has been ascribed to a variety of causes: to her constitution, to her rank, to her talent, and according to a popular pictorial treatment of the subject, to her liberal distribution of the Bible. But, as a matter of fact, few we think will dispute that much of her greatness has been due to the muscle, skill, and patriotic goodwill of her working class. Taking this to be the case, it may be truly said that her greatness is departing -chiefly because Government has failed to give a just degree and wise manner of attention to the condition of the working classes.

of

On the question of Commons Preservation-the importance which to the working class will be manifest as we come to speak further of their condition-Government takes the side of the enclosing individuals rather than of the people, though the almost invariable decisions of judges go to show that law as well as right is upon the side of the latter. The domestic legislation needed to give something of 'sweetness and light,' and which could give sweetness and light, to the homes of working classes, has yet to be inaugurated. In short, we think that more than enough has been said, to show that so far as Government is concerned the subject of the condition of the working classes does not receive anything like the attention to which its importance entitles it, and which it would be well, both for those classes and the country at large, it should have. So large a subject is it, that only Government could hope to deal with it in adequate fashion. The efforts of private and amateur reformers to grapple with it-for it is generally with an admitted necessity for reform in it that it is noticed-are scarcely ever of a comprehensive character, generally being confined to an attempt to establish some supposed cure-all-teetotalism, cooperation, Sunday observance, or the like.

If the condition of the working classes was as carefully watched and thoroughly understood as it should be, there would be no room for doubt on the point of its being a most hard and unsatisfactory one, and one moreover tending to bring about a collapse of the country's greatness. At present there is both doubt and dispute upon it. Many persons, and among them some whose utterances carry weight on the ground that they ought to have knowledge on such subjects, assert-though generally more by implication than directly

that the condition of the working classes is as satisfactory as the circumstances of the case will admit of its being; that it is upon the whole so admirable as to be a matter for national congratulation; and that those who say to the contrary are ingrates, croakers, and maligners of the working classes. It need scarcely be said that the working classes themselves are not of those who hold this comforting view, and as little need it be mentioned that those who do entertain it have facts and figures to offer in support of it. What view is there now-a-days on behalf of which facts and figures cannot be offered? But there are facts and facts. 'False facts,' says Dr. Darwin in his Descent of Man, are highly injurious to the progress of science;' and we think it may be safely said that they are still more injurious to the progress of truth and knowledge in regard to social problems, and the facts by which it is sought to demonstrate the accuracy of the view we speak of are of the falsefact, or perhaps we had better say the half-fact, order. They are units of a series of facts that can only be fairly applied as a series, and when used isolatedly they become practically false, though still verbally true. Working men when they complain of their lotand indeed very often when they do not complain of it are told that the times are, and for generations have been, progressive; and that the working classes have of necessity participated in the beneficial results of such progress, and must consequently be in a better position than they could have been in before such results had been achieved. They are told to bear in mind how wonderfully steam and machinery have economised labour, and increased the range and capabilities of manufacturing production; and how railways and ocean steamers have facilitated travelling,

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and the export and import of all manner of food and goods. They are reminded that they possess a cheap press, cheap literature, and cheap education, and enjoy the advantages of many important concessions in things political; and as a sort of stock climax, they are bidden to consider that the working classes in the present time have as every-day comforts and conveniences, things which even as luxuries were beyond the reach of the Plantagenet kings. This line of argument is now somewhat antiquated, and it has been subjected to a good deal of scornful ridicule; but it still flourishes, and is constantly in the mouths of those well-meaning 'friends of the working man,' who yet talk believingly of the good fortune of being born a happy English child,' and the happy homes of England,' and who regard working men as being in point of intellect and understanding mere overgrown children, and in addressing them talk down to what they conceive to be their level. The fallacy of the deduction made from these arguments by those who use them has been frequently exposed, and the matter is merely dwelt upon here because it affords a good illustration of the false-fact system of dealing with the question of the condition of the working classes. The facts taken singly are literally true, and their general tendency to improve the condition of the labouring classes incontestable as far as it goes. Their falsifying effect arises from the attempt to make the inferences from them go too far-from, as we have said, taking them out of the series of which they form a part, and the other portions of which neutralise the conclusions attached to them, in the fashion under consideration. That for centuries past the times have been continuously progressive in the development of physical science,