belief that the first great want of the workmen is better morality and
more thriftiness, _not_ better masters or higher wages. I have not dared
to print half of what are my convictions on this head.... The sufferings
of the poor from bad air and bad water are quite a separate chapter. High
wages do little to cure this. Indeed, in Manchester the workmen habitually
prefer to save a shilling a week in house rent and spend it in beefsteaks,
when the shilling would have got them a healthy instead of an unhealthy
lodging. Bricklayers' wages are at present high in London; what is the
consequence? I have at present a bit of a dwarf wall building in my
garden. The men leave their work; I complain; the builder replies: 'Men
will not come to work on a Monday without much trouble.' I fear this
_means_ that they drink on Sunday and are very 'seedy' on Monday morning.
The very men who are excited by high wages to drinking and idleness will
make a violent outcry when a fall of wages takes place, and _moreover_
will get the ear and sympathies of Maurice and Co. for their outcry."


"Maurice and Co." of course refers to Frederick Denison Maurice, who was
the principal mover in the Christian Socialism of the day, as he was in
all social reforms. He had met with much abuse and opposition, but still
there were very many who called him "Master." Amongst these last was
Charles Kingsley, who had been one of his pupils, and who had been very
greatly influenced by his opinion in religion and social matters.
[Footnote: Kingsley (see memoir) said to Maurice, when opposition was
fiercest against him: "Your cause is mine. We swim in the same boat, and
stand or fall thenceforth together."] Neither man could bear the
narrowness of "parties" in religion. They always demanded more toleration,
broader views, and refused to be bound by narrow creeds. It was owing
chiefly to Coleridge that Maurice took Holy Orders. He was born in that
year of great men, 1805, and by 1851 his socialistic ideas were well known