by Silverpen [Eliza Meteyard].
Originally published in Howitt's Journal (William & Mary Howitt) vol.1 #15 (10 Apr 1847).
If viewed simply in its obvious relations to the physical and educational advance of the great staple classes of society, this question is one of immense importance; but when looked at for what it really is, as a phase of a mighty moral revolution, both as regards the circumstances, the character, and the condition of labour, it appears at once grandly significant of true moral progress and enlightenment. The steps towards this phase in its present evidence have been weary ones; for nothing has been so crushed as the rights of labour; nothing considered so worthless in itself. It has been borne as a matter of necessitated sufferance by the majority; and its effects received with the supreme indifference of a right by the minority: whereas, till labour be taken for what it really is, the most religious and greatest power placed by Divine goodness in the hands of man, to act upon the infinite material and causes of nature, no great and true moral relations between man and man will be established. The primary rights of man, both as one who has to labour and receive the productions of labour, do not, as some assert, intermingle and become difficult of solution as social relations grow more varied; but rather is it, that the more enlightenment bears upon human action, the more simplified and obvious are these relations; for then is fairly judged the reciprocity of duty, and the great moral end of all duty, happiness, as the result of utility. It is, therefore, this reciprocity of interests and duties, despoiled of tyranny on the one hand, and subservience on the other, that gives character to the great agitation for shortened hours, in the more advanced and active classes of labour; and the more that education spreads, the more obvious, simple, and capable of assertion will these rights become to the great classes interested.
For this same right and relation of labour, and their action upon mental and moral progress, we press again this great question of time upon the public, the employers, and the employed. All three, in our view, have great duties in respect to it; the more these are acted upon, the more beneficial will be the result. We want to do away with even the idea of necessitated coercion; and fully hope that this question will be one of beneficial adjustment on the part of both employers and employed; both looking to their rights, both asserting their rights; for we confidently express our opinion, that the employers' interests are fully those of the employed. With respect to the Ten Hours Bill, we have regretted the necessity of an appeal to Parliament; for we cannot but consider coercion in any form only as adverse to moral and political liberty. Still this step was necessitated. If capital docs not understand its moral obligations, then law must teach them; and the higher price than man himself. We therefore do say, in respect to this Early Closing Movement, that much as the step would, and that rightly, be deprecated by all wise and earnest thinkers, an appeal to Parliament will grow out of the spirit of enlightenment in the employed, when once they fairly judge their own right, and the duty of employers, if the claim for shortened hours should not be received in the spirit it ought.
As to the public, it appears to us that a large portion of it, more particularly the educated classes, have responded to the voice of this agitation; and much to its honour be it said, among the aristocracy more especially. Within recollection, fashionable shops were inundated to a much later hour than they are at present, by the movers in what is termed "high life;" now even the upper ranks of the middle classes, who make it their care to follow sedulously in the footsteps of the titled, act personally upon this wise example. Here, at least, we find a portion of the public set against a pernicious custom, and it really is at bottom nothing more than custom. With the remainder of this body, called the public, and who may virtually be set down for being uneducated, alone rests the great plea of employers as to public necessity, without their once considering that it is just precisely this class on whom their own moral courage, in enforcing early hours, would so seasonably act. Who is it that keeps the glittering shops of the metropolis open till the hours of nine and ten? who is it that causes large sums to be expended in gas? and who is it that helps to the moral and physical deterioration of those who are necessitated slaves to this system? Why, usually some dallying milliner, some affected lady's maid who has had the whole day for this duty, or some good simple woman who admires shopping "by night." As we have said, we want to see a public and productions and services of man must not be held at moral courage growing up among employers; we want to see the rate-paying shopkeeper, who boasts of the strictness of his political and religious principles, show true result of both by disregarding the selfish interests of his neighbours, and looking only steadily to his own duty as a master and a man. Depend upon it, such evidence of moral courage would be rewarded by public appreciation, and nothing would more truly show an employer's sense of his duties as a citizen and as a capitalist, than observance of those duties required of him by both positions. The money-getting spirit of selfish antagonism is alone at war; it is this that keeps open whole streets of empty shops. If a victory could be gained over this antagonism, the Early Closing Movement would at once be a triumphant question; but we do cordially trust that such employers will come forth, and proclaim their own relative condition to the public in connexion with advanced opinion. As to the employed, their own relative and necessitated duty in this movement is as great as that of their employers. Their own mental and physical emancipation is to a certain extent in their own hands. Of what use are the great rising clubs and athenæums; of what use is literature in its advanced and cheapened forms; of what use are elevated and refining social comforts; of what use is the spirit of the age and its mightiness, its benefits, and its ameliorations for all; if there be not time for enjoyment and advance?
Therefore, it is you, the employed, that as a body must combine, and coalesce in this great movement. This not merely in one shop, in one counting-house, in this metropolis, or in any one town—but everywhere where you have attained to, and can comprehend, what is justice to yourselves, and your true relation to your employers. Recollect that in your hands much of the power of this cause lies; and no intimidation ought to prevent your combined agitation of this important question, and the calling the attention of your employers to it. In a word, to you of the metropolis and great towns of England, the linendrapers, the rest of those employed in the wholesale and retail trades, and who have joined your ranks, look to your success in this agitation as a sign of their own. For you were the first promoters of this agitation for the reduction of the hours of labour in retail trades, and by you as a body will public opinion be led. Therefore be true to yourselves. I shall return again and again to this subject, as one among those to which I have pledged my life and labour; and to you, public—employers and employed—I am in all sincerity your devoted servant,
Silverpen.