The Trade Unions (a combination of operatives to secure improvement in
their condition) marked the year 1834, besides legislative enactments to
reduce taxation. Before 1824 it was illegal for workmen to combine, even
in the most peaceable manner, for the purpose of obtaining an increase
of wages. This injustice was removed the following year, and strikes
became numerous among the different working-classes, but were generally
easily suppressed by the capitalists, who were becoming a great power
with the return to national prosperity. For fifty years the vexed social
problem of "strikes" has been discussed, but is not yet solved, giving
intense solicitude to capitalists and corporations, and equal hope to
operatives. The year 1834, then, showed the commencement of the great
war between capital and labor which is so damaging to all business
operations, and the ultimate issue of which cannot be predicted with
certainty,--but which will probably lead to a great amelioration of the
condition of the working-classes and the curtailment of the incomes of
rich men, especially those engaged in trade and manufactures. There will
always be, without doubt, disproportionate fortunes, and capitalists can
combine as well as laborers; but if the strikes which are multiplying
year by year in all the countries of Europe and the United States should
end in a great increase of wages, so as to make workmen comfortable (for
they will never be contented), the movement will prove beneficent.
Already far more has been accomplished for the relief of the poor by a
combination of laborers against hard-hearted employers than by any
legislative enactments; but when will the contest between capital and
labor cease? Is it pessimism to say that it is likely to become more
and more desperate?

The "Poor Law Amendment" was passed July, 1834, during the
administration of Lord Melbourne,--Lord Grey having resigned, from the