It has generally been the habit of the champions of the working 
classes to meet the argument of the free-trading middle classes, of 
what is called the “Manchester School’”,?'! by mere indignant 
comments upon the immoral and impudently-selfish character of 
their doctrines. The working man, ground down to the dust, 
trodden upon, physically ruined and mentally exhausted by a 
haughty class of money-loving mill-lords, the working man, certain- 
ly, would deserve his fate if he did not feel his blood mount into his 
cheeks upon being very coolly told that he is doomed for ever to 
serve as a piece of machinery, to be used and misused as it suits his 
lord, for the greater glory and the more rapid accumulation of 
capital; and that it is under this condition only that the ‘ascendancy 
of his country” and the existence of the working class itself can be 
made to continue. Were it not for this feeling of passionate, | 
revolutionary indignation, there would be no hope for proletarian 
emancipation. But it is one thing to keep up the manly spirit of 
opposition among the working people, and another to meet their 
enemies in public debate. And here mere indignation, the mere 
outburst of a violent feeling, though ever so justified, will not do. It is 
argument which is required. And there is no doubt but that even in 
cool argumentative discussion, that even on their own favourite field 
of political economy, the free-trading school will easily be beaten by 
the supporters of the working men’s interest. 

As to the barefaced impudence with which the free-trading 
manufacturers declare the existence of modern society dependent 
upon their continuing to heap up wealth from the blood and sinews 
of the working people, we will say only one word. At all periods of 
history the vast majority of the people have been, in some shape or 

another, mere instruments for enriching the privileged few. In all 
past times, however, this bloodsucking system was carried on under 
the cover of various moral, religious, and political pretexts; priests, 
philosophers, lawyers, and statesmen told the people that they 
were handed over to misery and starvation for their own good, 
and because it was God’s ordinance. Now, on the contrary, the 
free-traders boldly declare—“You, working men, are slaves, and 
shall remain slaves, because only by your slavery can we increase our 
wealth and comforts; because we, the ruling class of this country, 
cannot continue to rule without you being slaves.”” Now, then, the 
mystery of oppression has, at last, come out; now, at last, thanks to 
the free-traders, the people can clearly perceive their position; now, 
at last, the question is fairly, unmistakeably put— Either we, or you! 
And therefore, just as before the false friend we prefer the open foe, 
so to the canting philanthropic aristocrat we prefer the brazenfaced 
free-trader, before Lord Ashley we prefer Quaker Bright. 

The Ten Hours’ Bill was carried after a long and violent struggle, 
which had gone on for forty years in parliament, on the platform, in 
the press, and in every factory and workshop in the manufacturing 
districts. On the one side the most heart-rending pictures were 
produced, of children stunted in their growth and murdered; of 
women torn from their homes and little ones; of entire generations 
infected with lingering disease; of human life sacrificed by wholesale, 
and human happiness destroyed upon a national scale; and all this to 
enrich a few already over-rich individuals. And there was no fiction 
about it; all of it was fact, stubborn fact. Yet no one dared to ask that 
this infamous system should be done away with; it was only asked to 
limit it in some degree. On the other side came forward the cool, 
heartless, political economist, the paid servant of those who fat- 
tened upon this system, and proved by a series of conclusions, as 
undeniable and as stringent as the rule of three, that, under penalty 
of “ruining the country”, there was no means of interfering in any 
way with this system. 

It must be confessed, the advocates of the factory-workers never 
could confound, and even very seldom dared to grapple with the 
argument of the political economists. The reason is that under the 
present social system, as long as capital is in the hands of the few, to 
whom the many are obliged to sell their labour, these arguments are 
as many facts—facts as undeniable as those brought forth by their 
opponents. Yes, under the present social system, England, with all 
classes of her population, is entirely dependent upon the prosperity 
of her manufactures; and that prosperity, under the present system, 
is entirely dependent upon the most unlimited freedom of buying 

and selling, and of turning to the greatest possible profit all the 
resources of the country. 

Yes, the only means to keep up anything like this manufacturing 
prosperity, upon which now the very existence of the empire 
depends, is, under the present system, to produce more every year at 
less expense. And how produce more at less expense? First, by 
making the instrument of production—the machine and the 
working man—work more this year than last; secondly, by 
superseding the hitherto usual method of production by a new and 
more perfect one, that is to say, superseding men by improved 
machinery; thirdly, by reducing the cost of the working man, in 
reducing the cost of his sustenance (free trade in corn, etc.), or in 
merely reducing his wages to the lowest possible level. Thus, in all 
cases, the working man is the loser—thus, England can only be saved 
by the ruin of her working people! Such is the position—these are 
the necessities, to which the progress of machinery, the accumulation 
of capital, and consequent home and foreign competition, have 
reduced England. 

Thus the Ten Hours’ Bill, considered in itself, and as a final 
measure, was decidedly a false step, an impolitic, and even 
reactionary measure, and which bore within itself the germ of its own 
destruction. On the one hand it did not destroy the present social 
system, and on the other it did not favour its development. Instead 
of forcing the system onwards to its utmost limits, to a point where 
the ruling class would find all their resources exhausted, to that point 
where the dominion of another class—where a social revolution 
would become necessary— instead of that, the Ten Hours’ Bill was 
intended to screw back society to a state superseded, long ago, by the 
present system. This becomes quite evident, if we only look at the 
parties who forced the bill through parliament against the opposing 
free-traders. Was it the working classes, whose agitated state, whose 
threatening demeanour, carried it? Certainly not. Had it been so, the 
working people might have carried the Charter?!’ many a year ago. 
Besides, the men who, among the working classes, took the lead in 
the short-time movement, were anything but threatening and 
revolutionary characters. They were mostly moderate, respectable, 
church-and-king men. They kept aloof from Chartism, and inclined 
mostly towards some sort of sentimental Toryism. They never 
inspired dread to any government. The Ten Hours’ Bill was carried 
by the reactionary opponents of free trade, by the allied landed, 
funded, colonial and shipping interest; by the combined aristocracy 
and those portions of the bourgeoisie who themselves dreaded the 
ascendancy of the free-trading manufacturers. Did they carry it from 

any sympathy with the people? Not they. They lived, and live, upon 
the spoils of the people. They are quite as bad, though less barefaced 
and more sentimental, than the manufacturers. But they would not 
be superseded by them, and thus, from hatred towards them, they 
passed this law which should secure to themselves popular sympathy, 
and, at the same time, arrest the rapid growth of the manufacturers’ 
social and political power. The passing of the Ten Hours’ Bill proved 
not that the working classes were strong, it proved only that the 
manufacturers were. not yet strong enough to do as they liked. 

Since then, the manufacturers have virtually secured their 
ascendancy, by forcing free trade in corn, and in navigation, through 
parliament. The landed and the shipping interests have been 
sacrificed to their rising star. The stronger they grew, the more they 
felt the fetters imposed upon them by the Ten Hours’ Bill. They 
openly set it at defiance; they re-introduced the relay system ?’8; they 
forced the Home Secretary to issue circulars,* by which the factory 
inspectors were ordered not to notice this breach of the law; and 
when, at last, the growing demand for their produce made the 
remonstrances of some troublesome inspectors insupportable, they 
brought the question before the Court of Exchequer, which, by one 
single judgment, destroyed, to the last vestige, the Ten Hours’ Bill.?’° 

Thus the fruit of forty years’ agitation has in one day been 
annihilated by the rising strength of the manufacturers, aided by one 
single flush of “prosperity” and “growing demand”; and the judges 
of England have proved that they, not less than parsons, attorneys, 
statesmen, and political economists, are but the paid servants of the 
ruling class, be it the class of landlords, of fund-lords, or of 
mill-lords. 

Are we, then, opposed to the Ten Hours’ Bill? Do we want that 
horrible system of making money out of the marrow and blood of 
women and children to continue? Certainly not. We are so little 
opposed to it, that we are of opinion that the working classes, the 
very first day they get political power, will have to pass far more 
stringent measures against over-working women and children thana 
Ten Hours’, or even an Eight Hours’ Bill. But we contend that the 
bill, as passed in 1847, was passed not by the working classes, but by 
their momentary allies, the reactionary classes of society, and 
followed, as it was, by not a single other measure to fundamentally 
alter the relations between Capital and Labour, was an ill-timed, 
untenable and even reactionary measure. 

But if the Ten Hours’ Bill be lost, yet the working classes will be the 
gainers in this case. Let them allow the factory-lords a few moments 
of exultation, in the end it will be they who will exult, and the 
factory-lords who will lament. For— 

Firstly. The time and exertions spent in agitating so many years for 
the Ten Hours’ Bill is not lost, although its immediate end be 
defeated. The working classes, in this agitation, found a mighty 
means to get acquainted with each other, to come to a knowledge of 
their social position and interests, to organise themselves and to 
know their strength. The working man, who has passed through 
such an agitation, is no longer the same he was before; and the whole 
working class, after passing through it, is a hundred times stronger, 
more enlightened, and better organised than it was at the outset. It 
was an agglomeration of mere units, without any knowledge of each 
other, without any common tie; and now it is a powerful body, 
conscious of its strength, recognised as the “Fourth Estate’, and 
which will soon be the first. 

Secondly. The working classes will have learned by experience that 
no lasting benefit whatever can be obtained for them by others, but that they 
must obtain it themselves by conquering, first of all, political power. They 
must see now that under no circumstances have they any guarantee for 
bettering their social position unless by Universal Suffrage, which would 
enable them to seat a Majority of Working Men in the House of 
Commons. And thus the destruction of the Ten Hours’ Bill will be an 
enormous benefit for the Democratic movement. 

Thirdly. The virtual repeal of the act of 1847 will force the 
manufacturers into such a rush at overtrading that revulsions upon 
revulsions will follow, so that very soon all the expedients and 
resources of the present system will be exhausted, and a revolution 
made inevitable, which, uprooting society far deeper than 1793 
and 1848 ever did, will speedily lead to the political and social 
ascendancy of the proletarians. We have already seen how the 
present social system is dependent upon the ascendancy of the 
manufacturing capitalists, and how this ascendancy is dependent 
upon the possibility of always extending production and, at the same 
time, reducing its cost. But this extended production has a certain 
limit: it cannot outdo the existing markets. If it does, a revulsion 
follows, with its consequent ruin, bankruptcy, and misery. We have 
had many of these revulsions, happily overcome hitherto by the 
opening of new markets (China in 1842), or the better exploring of 
old ones, by reducing the cost of production (as by free trade in 
corn). But there is a limit tc this, too. There are no new markets to be 
opened now; and there is only one means left to reduce wages, 

namely, radical financial reform and reduction of the taxes by 
repudiation of the national debt. And if the free-trading mill-lords have 
not the courage to go the length of that, or if this temporary 
expedient be once exploded, too, why, they will die of repletion. It 
is evident that, with no chance of further extending markets, under a 
system which is obliged to extend production every day, there is an 
end to mill-lord ascendancy. And what next? “Universal ruin and 
chaos,” say the free-traders. Social revolution and proletarian ascendan- 
cy, say we. 

Working men of England! If you, your wives, and children are 
again to be locked up in the “rattle-boxes” for thirteen hours a-day, 
do not despair. This is a cup which, though bitter, must be drunk. 
The sooner you get over it the better. Your proud masters, be 
assured, have dug their own graves in obtaining what they call a 
victory over you. The virtual repeal of the Ten Hours’ Bill is an event 
which will materially hasten the approaching hour of your delivery. 
Your brethren, the French and German working men, never were 
satisfied with Ten Hours’ Bills. They wanted to be entirely freed from 
the tyranny of Capital. And you—who have, in machinery, in skill, and 
in comparative numbers, far more materials at hand to work out 
your own Salvation, and to produce enough for all of you— surely you 
will not be satisfied to be paid off with a small instalment. Ask, then, no 
longer for “Protection for Labour”, but boldly and at once struggle 
for that political and social ascendancy of the proletarian class which will 
enable you to protect your labour yourselves. 

Signed: F. E.