The late Sir Francis Crossley observed that there was a good deal of unreasonable feeling abroad.  It was held by some that it was wrong for working men to sell their labour at the best price; but it must be remembered that their labour was the only thing they had to sell; and the best thing to do was to leave those matters to take their natural course.  It was a great mistake, on the part of employers, to suppose that the lowest-priced labour was always the cheapest.  If there was not so much desire to run down the price of labour, and the masters showed a more conciliatory spirit, there would be fewer strikes and outrages.

“What a contrast between now and say only a hundred years ago!” Certainly there is a very great contrast.  England was not a manufacturing country a hundred years ago.  We imported nearly everything, except corn, wool, and flax.  We imported the greatest part of our iron from Spain, Sweden, Germany, and Russia.  We imported our pottery from Holland, our hats from Flanders, our silk from France, our cloth and carpets from Belgium.  Our cotton manufactures, our woollen and flax manufactures, our machine manufactures, could scarcely be said to exist.  Coal could scarcely be had, for the coal-pits could not be kept clear of water.

A hundred years ago, we could not build a steam-engine; we could scarcely build a bridge.  Look at the churches built a hundred years ago, and behold the condition of our architecture.  A hundred years ago, we had fallen to almost the lowest condition as a nation.  We had not a harbour; we had not a dock.  The most extensive system of robbery prevailed on the River Thames.  The roads, such as they were, swarmed with highwaymen; and black-mail was levied by the Highlanders upon the Lowland farmers, down to the middle of last century.

A hundred years ago, our ships were rotten; they were manned by prisoners taken from the hulks, or by working men pressed in the streets in open day.  When James Watt was learning his trade of an instrument maker in London, a hundred years ago, he durst scarcely walk abroad lest he should be seized and sent to India or the American plantations.  Less than a hundred years ago, the colliers and salters of Scotland were slaves.  It is not forty years since women and children worked in coalpits.  Surely we are not to go down upon our knees and pray for a restoration of the horrible things that existed a hundred years ago.

A hundred years ago, Ireland was treated like a conquered country; and hangings and shootings of rebels were frequent.  The fleet at the Nore mutinied; and the mutiny was put down by bloodshed and executions.  Towns and cities swarmed with ruffians; and brutal sports and brutal language existed to a frightful degree.  Criminals were hanged, five or six together, at Tyburn.  Gibbets existed at all the cross-roads throughout the country.  The people were grossly ignorant, and altogether neglected.  Scepticism and irreligion prevailed, until Wesley and Whitfield sprang up to protest against formalism and atheism.  They were pelted with rotten eggs, sticks, and stones.  A Methodist preacher was whipped out of Gloucester.