APPENDIX TO MR. HARE'S EVIDENCE.
Memorandum (A) by Mr. Hare.
My suggestion for the reform of the present administration of the Companies is, that their connexion
with the arts, crafts, and trades which, according to the
terms of their constitution they are designed to comprehend, shall be restored, including within the latter
all the analogous trades and industries which have
grown out of, or been developed from, or into which
the arts and crafts originally named, have since expanded. The avocations included in the business of
mercers, drapers, haberdashers, and clothworkers,
would embrace vast numbers of the working classes, to
whom an intimate association with bodies of the wealth
and importance that these guilds have attained, may
be made a source of great advantage. The members
to be admitted may be of two main classes, those employed in the manufacture and those in the distribution
of the several productions. The factories for production
are now widely spread throughout the kingdom, and no
persons engaged in them, wherever situated, should be
excluded. The distributive workers, as keepers of
shops and those employed therein, might be confined,
as the companies now generally are, to London and the
suburbs.
It is impossible not to see that the increase of population and the progress of wealth in modern times,
followed up by the amazing changes introduced by
machinery, and the boundless power of steam, has
altered the old conditions and relations which existed
between capital and labour, and has vastly widened the
separation, and has, in many cases, produced what may
be called an estrangement between the employer and
the workman. Nothing is more important than to seize
and make the utmost of every opportunity of creating
a common feeling of interest, that the labouring classes
may clearly perceive that their welfare is bound up
with that of their neighbours, and of society in general.
Efforts are being made by many with this view to
give to the agricultural labourer an interest in his
cottage and garden and allotment, or to enable him
to acquire some proprietary right; and to extend to the
working people of the towns the advantages which their
association with these companies might confer, would,
in like manner, be calculated to win and secure their
adherence to the side of law and order.
The admission of the member to the company might
be on a certificate of age, of his actual employment or
trade, and whether obtained and taught by apprenticeship, or other instruction.
A small admission fee, not exceeding say 5s., may be
required, and an annual payment of a shilling or two,
for preserving the connexion. The wardens and
members composing the courts of the companies would
be properly elected by the members at large. There
would be no reason why the present members of the
court should not be continued for their lives an additional
number of newly elected members being added.
The identification of the companies with their trades,
and the association of them with the working classes,
may be beneficial to the latter in more ways than can,
at present, be imagined. The names of the children of
a member might be entered in the register of his company, stating the public, elementary, or other schools
at which they are educated. They may be admitted on
favourable conditions as scholars, and be encouraged to
compete in prizes and exhibitions in the technical
colleges. To these colleges may be added travelling
fellowships whereby other countries may be visited,
and their methods and appliances in the various arts
and manufactures ascertained and compared with our
own, and economical and artistic progress thus promoted. The officers of every company would be supplied with constant statistical information of the greater
or less activity and state of trade in the chief manufacturing towns and districts, and where labourers may be
needed, or are in excess. In the distribution of the
eleemosynary funds, in alms houses, or pensions, or
other rewards, they should, as I have elsewhere pointed
out be treated as rewards for those members who are
shown "to have expended the best years of their lives
industriously and providently, and to have brought
up their children well."
There is still another, and even a yet higher service
which these great companies could render to their
affiliated members. The chief of the difficulties of the
working man and his family in our populous centres of
traffic and labour, is that of obtaining a comfortable
dwelling, within his means. He is often compelled
to live in filthy lodgings, at the mercy of those from
whom he must rent them, and exposed frequently
to boisterous and perhaps drunken fellow occupiers of
the house, over which he has no control. Such a condition and its surroundings strike at the root of that
temperament of mind which would promote habits of
order and culture. Nothing appears to me more important than that the town as well as the country
labourer should feel that he has a home, into which he
may at all times quietly return, and where he may gather
and preserve any books, furniture, or other articles for
his comfort and enjoyment. The same want, and its
accompanying evils, exists abroad. In a book, treating
elaborately of the state of the labourers in Paris and
other towns in France, I have just read,—"Le loyer
pour le travailleur est souvent la cause du désordre
dans le ménage, surtout avec l'élévation exorbitantc
de ces derniers temps. L'impossibilité de trouver un
logement d'un prix possible, la rapacité et les
prétentions de certains propriétaires, sont la cause
souvent, très-souvent, de découragements incroyables,
de haines implacables, et la base de misères effrayantes
et d'avilissements honteux."
A portion of the accumulated funds of the companies,
and the produce of some of their present real property,
as it could be advantageously sold, might be gradually
employed in the purchase of house property in London,
and in the immediate neighbourhood of the great
centres of labour, or on spots readily accessible therefrom. Any necessary alterations and improvements in
the property may be made adapting it for the habitation
of the members of the company and their families to
whose places of employment it affords convenient
access. Of these properties the company should hold
the fee, and enable their associate members to purchase
or take leases for any terms of years which they may
agree upon, payments graduated or otherwise, being
accepted from the purchasers, prices and rents being
fixed at a rate which shall be sufficient fully to reimburse
the company. A house may be let as a whole or in rooms
or flats, as required by the tenant, and if he desires to
extend or to surrender his lease, he may do so at rates
regulated by tables calculated to secure the company
from loss, but without exacting profit. Or the workman may remove to another situation or another town
in which the company, if they have premises there, may
enable him to exchange his dwelling on suitable terms.
In this disposition of property it will be observed that
I contemplate nothing in the way of charity. I am
regarding the company as employing a portion of its
wealth in securing comfortable homes for its members,
avoiding at the same time any loss of capital, but seeking
no accumulation of profit from the transaction.
The highly endowed companies, the objects, conditions,
and destinations whereof are the subject of this
inquiry, may wisely and justly be brought into harmony
with their early history, and made the nucleus of a
coöperative union, of far greater extent, and wider and
more benefical influence, than any which has yet grown
up, or been formed during the progress of modern
civilisation. They may be the means of binding together the various sections of employers and workmen,
and directing their attention to objects in which they
have a community of interest, and which minister to
the prosperity and well-being of all.
Memorandum (B) by Mr. Hare.
I desire to explain that part of my former evidence
which expressed my belief that the obstacles imposed
by what is called the Mortmain Act to the devise of real
estate for charitable or public purposes are a great misfortune. It seems to me that there cannot be too much
of the land of the country devoted to public purposes,
the State reserving to itself the power of regulating
such purposes, so that they shall not be otherwise than
beneficial, and placing the estates under the management of agents appointed for prescribed districts, who,
while securing for the institutions for which the trusts
are held, the due produce and profit, shall yet have
regard to the general utility and benefit. The efforts
and interests of occupiers in all the works of cultivation
and of improvement might be promoted and carried out
in every variety of form. Tenancies not longer than
for a life or lives, or a term of years of similar duration,
may be created by way of sale or lease, according as it
may be deemed best in the joint interest of the public
and the purchaser or lessee. By the word sale I mean
that the lease may be granted free of rent, in consideration of the sum paid by the lessee at its inception or by
subsequent instalments, if the lease be not made at the
full rent at the time. Where the management is by a
public officer, as that of all lands held in mortmain or
on perpetual trusts should be, the personal views, prepossessions, or prejudices of a private owner of agricultural land, often almost inevitably antagonistic to any
thorough encouragement or development of the subordinate interests of tenants and occupiers, are entirely
eliminated, and inducements for unlimited expenditure
of capital and labour in improvements may be held out.
If a private owner was asked by tenant to grant him a
lease of a part of his estate for his life or for a term of
50 or 70 years, with unrestricted powers of improvement, the private proprietor, actuated by reasons with
which most persons might sympathise, would probably
refuse such a concession. It would deprive him of that
authority and dominion over that portion of his estate.
and the occupiers might have power to deal with it in a
manner that would be unpalatable or offensive to him.
A long lease, moreover, granted on the payment of a
gross sum to the owner of the fee, would be inconsistent
with most settlements of real property. These obstacles to the creation of subordinate holdings of an
independent character under private ownership, would
have no existence in the case of the public estates. The
public would have no prejudice against parting with
their authority over such of its lands for the term agreed
upon, and would be satisfied and secure on the possession of the annual rent or of the equivalent capital sum.
Again, the tenant under public ownership might be
enabled at any time, under suitable terms, to extend or
to surrender his lease or commute his rent. Tables of
value and duration might be settled analogous to the
terms on which insurances for life or pensions at specified ages are arranged. No special arrangements of
this kind are generally possible with regard to interests
in lands held under private owners. The commercial
facilities of dealing with land would be thus indefinitely
multiplied. The interposition of the State to prevent
land from being devised to public purposes, which has
gone on for nearly 150 years, therefore, appears to me
a most absurd and mischievous policy.