eetings, funds for the indigent,
and exclusive privileges, a gradation of ranks was created amidst the
poor--a little aristocracy of industry, which often proved itself capable
of contending with the proudest aristocracy of land or riches. The poor
were not left alone; the wrongs of individuals were taken up by their
craft; joint measures for the common behoof were pursued; the dreadful
feeling of isolation in the midst of a crowd was unknown; all were
enrolled under some banner, or entered with some craft. Thus every one
felt himself in a fixed and definite place in society; he had privileges
and advantages of a tangible kind to forfeit by losing it. But when
exclusive privileges, crafts, and incorporations, were abolished, amidst
cries of joy and shouts of triumph from the whole popular party all over
the world, these inestimable blessings were lost. The poor became a mixed
indiscriminate multitude, having no more coherence or power of resistance
than a rope of sand. They degenerated into a huge assembly of private
soldiers without officers, incapable either of organizing any thing for
their own durable benefit, or of resisting the progressive encroachments
of capital, machinery, and competition, on the sole domain left them--the
wages of their labour. Universally it has been found, that, upon the
abolition of incorporations and crafts, the condition of the working
classes has rapidly and fearfully changed for the worse. The principle of
free competition--of breaking down all barriers--allowing every one to
elbow his neighbour out of employment, and bringing every thing down to
the lowest and cheapest level--has tended only to lower the wages of
labour, and aggravate the insecurity of the poor. No one has a fixed or
permanent station; every thing is done for days' or weeks' wages; and the
penalty of dismissal is destitution, famine, and a lingering death. Hence
the constant complaint now on the part of the poor, that they cannot get
work; and the prodigious multitude of the lowest class who are constantly
moving about, seeking in one situation that employment they have lost in
another. This, however, is of all things the most fatal to their habits,
character, and prospects; they get among people to whom they are total
strangers, who regard them with aversion as intruders, and are neither
inclined to relieve their distresses, nor to facilitate their advance in
the world. The most powerful check, next to religion, on human