ABSTRACT
T HE Poor Law, the working of which has just been described, was a remedy often worse than the disease itself. Even had it been better conceived or better administered it could never have been more than a palliative. For the industrial revolution created a problem which even the most ingenious devices of charity could never solve. How was it possible to improve the condition of the working multitude, who had so small a share in the wealth created by their labours? For the artisan, who after having served a master hoped to become a master himself, this question did not arise. But for the workman, a mere tool in a huge undertaking which he had not one in a thousand chances of ever managing himself,' this was, on the contrary, the essential question. His future and that of his family, the only future to which he could ever look forward, was involved. So far his claims had no revolutionary ~ha rac t e r .~ He did not question the established order of things, and the thought of obtaining a freer and better life by a complete overthrow of the social structure had never occurred to him. What he asked for was a higher wage (and in most cases indeed he merely resisted a reduction) ; some security against unemployment due to the introduction of machinery or an excessive number of apprentices; and milder or less arbitrary discipline in the workshop. In all these things his interests were in direct opposition to those of his employer, which were to reduce wages to a minimum, to lower the cost of production by the use of mechanical equipment and cheap labour, and to maintain his uncontrolled authority in and about the
factory. Class contest was the inevitable result of this opposition. The workers had already begun to organize, and very soon their organization became strong enough to alarm the government, and to induce it to take exceptional measures against their activities.
