For employers, then, to enter into such plans, must in
some degree be the result of benevolent feelings towards their men;
and, so far, we must hold there is an acknowledgment on both sides
that the system of vassalage is not yet extinct amongst us, and that
the time for its extinction is not yet come.
If we look, however, at the entire condition of the working-people of
England, we shall see that it acknowledges the same truth in some of
its broadest features. When a time of depression comes, and factories
do not require half of their usual number of hands, or even so many,
it is never expected, on any hand, that the superfluous labourers are
to maintain themselves till better times return. The employer is
expected to keep them in his service, at least on short time, and at a
reduced remuneration, although at a ruinous loss to himself. The
workmen, though well aware of the contingency, make little or no
provision against it, but calmly trust to the funds of their
employers, or the contributions of the class to which these belong.
Now, while such a practice exists, the relation of employer and
employed is not that of independent contractors, but so far that of
the feudal baron and his villeins, or of a chieftain and his
'following.' It is, in effect, a voluntarily maintained slavery on the
part of the operatives--a habit as incompatible with political liberty
as with moral dignity and progress, and therefore a sore evil in our
state.
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