he never went beyond the diaconate.] "Gladstone's letters just now are a
powerful stimulus to public opinion.... Not the Socialists only, but
numbers of workmen besides treat it as _an abstract wickedness_ in a
master to offer lower wages than are at any particular time existing. They
have never any objection to a _rise_ of wages; so I cannot say they treat
the existing rate as a divinely appointed amount; but they do not see that
if they are unwilling to bind themselves not to strike for a rise, they
ought to concede in the master a moral right to lower.... What is to be
done with those who will go on enunciating and propagating dangerous
general maxims as abstract axiomatic truth?... _Your_ method of making the
masters determine how many _shall enter_ a trade will succeed; but I do
not see that it will succeed in ejecting. In the years of railroad
excitement the London newspapers were enormously overworked, and a great
increase no doubt took place in the numbers of printers (perhaps also in
their wages); now the printers for some time have been in comparative
depression.... I do not contend that _all_ lowering of wages by masters is
merciful and just, but that _some_ may be; whereas the Socialists and Co.
instantly declaim against _all_ or _any_ lowering, without entering into
any details as to present or past history of the trade. When I said that
machinery is in every light the friend of the poor, I do not think I
overlooked the occasional mischief caused by its _sudden_ introduction....
The effect of machinery is in the long run a steady rise of wages as well
as a cheap supply of goods: the advantage to the poor is universal and
permanent, the evil is partial and transitory. Moreover, the evil is
immensely aggravated by their perverseness. Three generations of hand-loom
weavers have been propagated in spite of the notorious misery it must
cause. Machinery does _not_ raise the rate of profits or interest; it
_does_ raise the rate of wages: compare Manchester and Buckingham in
proof.... I do not think I am _at all_ carried into reaction by unjust
attacks on capitalists, but I am very strongly by the [right or wrong]