FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   >>  
ates claims which only the validity of this plea of equality and independence can effectually nonsuit or liquidate.' Arguing that 'the reciprocal duties of employers and employed, _as such_, are comprised within the limits of their covenant,' the writer goes on to say, that nevertheless there remains a relation of 'fellow-citizenship and of Christian _neighbourhood_,' by virtue of which the employer owes service to his work-people, seeing that 'every man owes service to every man whom he is in a position to serve.' Let not the Pharisaic fundholder and lazy mortgagee suppose that the great employers of labour are thus under a peculiar obligation from which _they_ are exempt. The obligation is assumed to be equal upon all who have power and means; and it only lies with special weight at the door of the employer of multitudes, in as far as he is in a situation to exercise influence over their character and conduct, and usually has greater means of rendering aid suited to their particular necessities. Before proceeding to expound the various duties thus imposed upon the employer, the writer lays down a primary duty as essential to the due performance of the rest--namely, he must see to making his business succeed; and for this end he must possess a sufficient capital at starting; and he must not, for any reasons of vanity or benevolence, or through laxness, pay higher wages than the state of the labour-market and the prospects of trade require. Of the secondary duties which next come in course--and which, be it remembered, arise not from the mastership, but from the neighbourship--the first is that of 'making his factory, and the processes carried on there, as healthy as care and sanitary science can render them.' 'This is the more incumbent upon him, as it is little likely to be thought of or demanded by his workmen. It is a topic on which his cultivated intelligence is almost sure to place him far ahead of them; and out of the superiority, as we have seen, springs the obligation.' Our reviewer adds the remark, that, 'in the minor workshops, and especially in the work-rooms of tailors and seamstresses, the employers are still, for the most part, unawakened to the importance and imperativeness of this class of obligations. The health of thousands is sacrificed from pure ignorance and want of thought.' One mode of serving those who work for him, which the circumstances render appropriate, is to provide them with decent
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   >>  



Top keywords:

obligation

 

employer

 

employers

 

duties

 

render

 

service

 

thought

 

making

 

writer

 
labour

science
 

incumbent

 

healthy

 
sanitary
 

market

 

prospects

 
higher
 

vanity

 
reasons
 

benevolence


laxness
 

require

 

neighbourship

 

factory

 

processes

 

mastership

 

remembered

 

secondary

 

carried

 

superiority


obligations

 

health

 

thousands

 
imperativeness
 

importance

 

unawakened

 

sacrificed

 
circumstances
 

provide

 
decent

serving
 
ignorance
 

seamstresses

 

tailors

 

intelligence

 

workmen

 

cultivated

 

workshops

 
remark
 

springs