AND ON THE CONTINENT.

29

power and the means to withstand victoriously the long yearsof war with France .

But this splendid economical development had another ad-vantage, not less gratifying. It is known that England in thefirst decades of this century possessed a social-revolutionary La-bour party which exceeded in strength and harmfulness all latersimilar movements on the Continent (14). This tendency, whichsought a forcible seizure of governing power by the workers, hadits chief adherents among the workers of the flourishing greatindustry. Even Ure, depicting everything as favourably aspossible, has to acknowledge that nowhere in the world did suchbad relations exist between employers and employed (15) as inthe English centralised industries. This is interesting, indeed,if we compare therewith the present relations of Europe .

In Manchester, in 1819, the massacre took place on “Peterloo ”field, caused by a charge of the yeomanry on a crowd of workingpeople which did not disperse on the reading of the Riot Act.An attempt on the life of the Premier followed, and the answerthereto was a coercion law, the so-called “ Castlereagh’s GagBill,” with extensive limitations of the right of public meetingand the freedom of the Press . It was in Hyde, a stronghold ofspinning, and the seat of one of the oldest manufacturing families—the Ashtons—where, in 1838, at a nightly gathering, theworkers, when asked by their leaders whether they were ready,answered by volleys from rifles. At this time there existed inGlasgow a system of terrorism advanced even up to assassination.Ho-uldsworth and other employers refused repeatedly to give anyevidence respecting workers’ combinations, and the like, beforethe Committees of Inquiry, because they would have feared fortheir safety (16).

Without going more closely into the movement, we must getto know its economical foundation.

About the turn of the century, according to the declaration ofthe manufacturer Houldsworth, potatoes, and with them oatmeal,were the chief nourishment of the workers; as an occasionalluxury a herring served. Indulgence in meat was almost un-known. It grew in proportion as the machines, becoming larger,

14. Compare my book, “ On Social Peace,” I., p. 55, also Brentano, in the“ Prussian Annuals ” (1874).

15. Ure: “ Cotton Manufacture,” Intro., pp. 24, 25.

16. Ure: “ Philosophy of Manufactures,” pp. 348-65.